On the Road

The third day of our cross-country bicycle trip nearly broke me.

When Brenna caught up, I was lying in a small graveyard. Fenced and neatly mowed, it felt like a mirage after hours of nothing but knee-high corn.

“I’ve never seen you like this,” she said. 

We had been fighting a strong headwind, eking out just a few miles an hour, on our journey to the Pacific Northwest. In frustration, I pedaled as hard as possible, leaving her behind. When I stopped, I was physically and mentally exhausted.

Brenna later told me that this moment was the most challenging part of the trip for her, too. We were in rural Indiana on a rolling gravel road meant for tractors, not cyclists. (We’d gone off-route, something we said we’d never do again — but we did.) There was no way to hitch a ride. We couldn’t give up, at least not there. 

Brenna got back on her bike, and I followed. I spent the rest of the day riding behind her, letting her block the wind. In cycling, it’s called pulling. Usually, you take turns, but part of me had given up, and Brenna pulled me all the way. 

For the remaining hours on the road, I tried not to think. I watched Brenna’s shadow and copied her movements. The way she crouched over the bike, the consistency of her strokes. We moved slowly but got where we had to go. 

Brenna Forristall ’18 (at right in top photo) and I were neighbors during our first year at Barnard and suitemates after that. We hadn’t lived together in the six years since we graduated, but despite living far apart, we managed to see one another somewhat regularly. When Brenna told me she was planning a cross-country bike trip the summer before starting business school, I took as much time as I could off my job and joined her mid trip outside of Fort Wayne. 

A few weeks in, once my legs had adjusted and my saddle sores had quieted, I was ready to ride faster. But Brenna stayed at her speed. Most days, I’d yo-yo, sprinting ahead and falling back to ride beside her. I learned to like riding slowly sometimes. I could watch the birds and note the changing wildflowers on the side of the road. 

Until the day in the graveyard, I’d always thought I was the stronger one. I had pulled all-nighters and run marathons. But our trip showed me that wasn’t true, that strength isn’t just muscle. Going slow and respecting limits, doing things Brenna’s way, got us across the country.

When I left for the bike trip, my partner joked, “You’re going to be a different person.” Maybe I am. I think about the trip constantly and what I learned. For the first time in my adult life, I’m focused on the present and not obsessed with the future. 

Brenna isn’t sentimental or affectionate. She doesn’t like hugs. She shows her love in other ways. The other day, she sent me a note that said she’d been thinking about our big bike, too. I knew it was her way of saying “I love you.”

Aubri Juhasz ’18 is a public radio reporter based in New Orleans. She tells education stories across Louisiana, and her reports frequently air on National Public Radio's national programs. She got her start in audio as an intern for NPR's All Things Considered thanks to her college mentor, Theo Balcomb ’09.