Meaghan Hackinen: Shifting Gears

AN excerpt from SHifting gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race

 
 

I first met Meaghan last year at the Canadian Shield Bikepacking Summit in Chelsea, Ontario. She was the featured guest speaker that weekend and it was amazing to be in the same room as someone with that much passion for cycling and humbleness for all the achievements she has made. She has multiple ultra-cycling experiences under her belt and has risen to the top of her long-distance game. Not only that, she has a unique storytelling gift that can take the reader along with her on her two wheel adventures. She has written two books, the most recent being, Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race. Follow along in an excerpt from her new book as she takes on the Trans Am Bike Race across America.

* * *

Day Seven: June 10, 2017
Ennis, Montana to Moran, Wyoming
Distance: 170 miles
Race Mileage: 1,389 of 4,264 miles

Shivers hijacked my body before I escaped the motel room in Ennis. Despite the reassuring back-and-forth of German chatter between Matthias and Rolf [my new European cycling companions], I was ill at ease. Wide awake but gut-sick to be heading onto the highway at such an unfathomable hour as midnight.

We packed and left. The dry, cool air raked my throat. I was glad for the three-dollar puffy jacket I scored at a thrift store on the walk back from the bar, just hours prior. In an effort to remain as lightweight as possible, I hadn’t packed a warm jacket, only a merino base layer, arm sleeves, and a raincoat. Rookie mistake. As I’d already learned on the freezing ride into Mitchell, Oregon, temperatures plummeted at high elevations—particularly at night. The puffy jacket was a lucky find—a layer of appreciated insulation as the route crept further into the Rocky Mountains—and came in useful the very night I purchased it as we kicked it out of Ennis.

A winding, deserted highway pitched us toward Yellowstone National Park. While the wind had backed off, it still carried a punch. The jacket should have kept me toasty, yet my jaw chattered like a pair of those creepy, windup teeth, frequently gag gifted at retirement parties. I suspected that I shivered not due to air temperature, but an internal malaise: a metabolic failure brought on by accumulative exertion, or low blood sugar. I mentioned nothing to the others, holding out hope that my body would sort itself out as we pushed through the endless gloom. My focus narrowed to the quiet notes of movement: the hiss of wind through spokes, and sandpaper sounds of the gritty road surface. Rolf and Matthias’s blinking rear lights shrank in the distance as they pulled farther ahead, and I thought back to a night ride one year prior.

* * *

I completed my first 600-kilometre brevet in July 2016. Alongside Prairie Randonneurs Marj and Bob, I’d ridden west from Saskatoon toward the Alberta border, stealing brief interludes of air-conditioned comfort inside Subway restaurants as the weather alternated between sweltering heat and torrential downpour. By midnight, we had covered just over 300 kilometres (186 miles). Next up: Kerrobert, a blip-on-the-map town where Marj and Bob’s partners waited with their vehicles. The plan was for us to hunker down for an hour or so of sleep in the back seats before heading on to Kindersley, Rosetown, and eventually the Husky gas station in Saskatoon where we’d departed. The brevet marked my longest ride to date, and the first time I would pedal most of the night.

The three of us rode staggered on the wide shoulder as we approached Kerrobert, watchful for potholes, glass, and the edge of the bone-rattling rumble strip. Beams from our bike lights swayed to the hitch of our hips as we stood to pedal inclines, giving our tenders parts momentary relief before settling back into the saddle. Grain elevators loomed like ancient monoliths on the horizon, but we remained blind to everything outside the scope of our lights. I was shattered mentally, yet simultaneously amazed by my body’s resiliency. After dark, I entered a calm, borderline catatonic state. Thoughts seemingly exterior to flesh and bone.

But when an engine roared in the distance, I was jarred back to the reality of my own body. My shoulders arched to meet my ears as the vehicle careened toward us like a jet fighter preparing for takeoff, and my heart was trampolining against my diaphragm. Just as I prepared to hit the ditch, vehicle tires squealed to a halt. I glanced over my shoulder, only to become blinded by close-range headlights. The vehicle followed for a few beats, then pulled up alongside. I heard the whirr of an electric window, and I glanced over to see a pickup truck, the passenger’s side door scabbed with rust.

“Hey!” shouted the driver. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Two men, short hair—no distinguishing features. My chest cinched tighter.

“What does it look like?” said Marj. Her voice cracked, like my Grandma Hackinen’s used to, when she spoke. “We’re riding our bikes.”

“I didn’t know what the hell you were,” said the driver. “Nobody is expecting bikers this time of night. You might cause an accident.”

His anger was palpable. I still couldn’t make out a face, but recognized his aggression; a thirst for blame. I hunched low over my handlebars and willed myself invisible.

“Did you not see our lights?” asked Bob. “Or our reflective vests?”

“If I saw something unusual at night,” added Marj, “I’d slow down.”

Oh, please don’t, Marj, I thought to myself. This is not the time.

The passenger and driver exchanged words.

“What’s the problem, then?” asked Marj, growing impatient with this prolonged interrogation. “If you could see us, and we’re riding on the road shoulder anyway, tell me what exactly is your problem?”

“You should be more careful,” said the passenger, his tone more threatening than cautionary.

My heart rate slackened as the vehicle pulled away.

“Idiots,” muttered Marj.

As the night of my first 600-kilometre brevet wore on, Bob entertained me with memories of his time as a roadworks engineer, explaining various composition types and treating me to a scintillating history of provincial highway expansion. Marj lagged a few bike lengths behind—she had heard these stories before. At one point, Marj veered onto a pullout and curled up like a cat in a pocket of afternoon sunshine. She appeared so at ease, not to mention immune to the blood-thirsty mosquitoes buzzing around my neck. I envied her.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Bob said after a few minutes. “Time to roll.”

The tide of fatigue had come for me as well, my legs increasingly resistant to my brain’s admonishments to move. Shoulders winched tight from hours without shifting position. Less than fifteen miles separated us from Kerrobert, but our pace continued to drop—it could be dawn before our arrival. Marj fell back again. Bob and I stopped, scouring the pitchy night.

“I think I see her,” he said.

We waited as her light warbled closer.

“I might go ahead,” I said, when she rejoined. “That okay?”

“Sure,” said Bob. “Know where you’re going?”

“Gas station in Kerrobert.”

“Right. It’ll be on your left.”

So, I went. Claiming independence with every pedal stroke.

What drove me to split from Marj and Bob on that interminable night in Saskatchewan? I didn’t realize until I was on my own, their lights dissolving as I entered a marsh. A slinking mist enveloped me, the choir of frogs burping louder every minute. Before I dwelt on my fears—the possibility of being hassled by another hostile driver—I morphed back to a past time, a younger, fearless version of myself playing hide-and-seek during a warm summer night in a friend’s backyard and relishing the transgressive, otherworldly thrill of experiencing a familiar setting without light. That excitement hadn’t vanished, I realized. Stepping into night remained an act of faith, where objects appeared off-kilter, sometimes scary. But in letting your eyes adjust, you recognized the fences and molehills were the same as in daylight. Darkness invites risk, but also adventure. My phone buzzed with a text from Marj’s husband, John:

Heard you’re leading the pack! I have a sleeping bag with your name on it and snacks. Red Bull or coffee for morning—take your pick. Call if you get lost.

I grinned, tucking my phone back into the handlebar bag. The northern lights had come out and flickers of emerald swayed in and out of focus like giant ribbons of bull kelp in an invisible tide. I admired the strange light dance, feeling as though I was right where I should be. Ten miles to go.

* * *

Rolf and Matthias waited at a pullout, the high vis strips on their jackets intermittently glowing like a pair of distant lighthouses under a thicket of darkly woven trees. Seeing them put me at ease in a way I hadn’t expected. My chills had worn off, and while I wasn’t concerned about nighttime harassment—I’d hardly seen a vehicle in hours—the wind remained formidable, clawing at fences and awakening fields into a soughing concerto of grasses. Illogical as it may sound, I feared we might never reach Yellowstone, as far flung in the encompassing darkness as a remote, unexplored galaxy. Alongside Rolf and Matthias, I felt reassured that if I were to hang in eternal cosmic limbo, at least I would not suffer alone.

Eventually, dawn seeped light into the landscape, pencilling in spindly trees and brushing a distant horizon in soft pastels. As we approached West Yellowstone, my mouth watered in anticipation of breakfast: pancake stacks gooey with syrup, tender morsels of sausage on the tip of my fork, and coffee refills as far as the eye could see.

* * *

Rolf, Matthias, and I blasted through Yellowstone National Park, released from under the wind’s thumb at long last. Our midnight start paid off. Since emerging from the cloak of darkness, we had been knocking down miles. But upon entering the National Park, we encountered a fresh set of challenges, namely frigid temperatures and a perilous road bearing a torrent of impatiently maneuvered rental RVs. I witnessed little of the geothermal activity and jaw-dropping scenery that Yellowstone was famous for, instead honing my focus on the space between the thin white line and the road’s edge. Stakes were high. I rode with trepidation, posture stiffening as I channelled my focus into claiming a small sliver between passing motorists and a sheer drop to my right. A day later, racer John Egbers would veer a little too far over to avoid being clipped by a motorist’s mirror. He abandoned the 2017 race after breaking his wrist.

On top of my rattled nerves, fatigue poisoned my veins with sleeping sickness. An insidious chill worked its way into both hands and feet, slithering from calves to thighs before penetrating my ribcage. How did I expect to ride night and day without it taking a monumental toll on my already-failing body? Reducing the pace was not an option. After nightfall, temperatures in the park plummeted—snow skirted the road’s edge already—and we would need to descend to lower elevations if we wanted to camp. I kicked into the pedals, determined not to let Rolf and Matthias drop me, or worse, give another rider an opportunity to catch up.

After a couple hours of hard riding, we agreed to a break. Pulling gas station sub sandwiches from our back pockets, we trekked along a boardwalk to lunch in view of a massive, steaming geyser. Amid a swarm of camera-clad tourists, not one of us snapped a photo, though Matthias asked someone to record the three of us singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” for a friend’s birthday.

Months later, Matthias would send me that clip. Out of the blue. Only twelve seconds long, shot from the waist up. I stand between him and Rolf, straw hair poking from my cycling cap and the geyser’s sulphuric liquid seething into a tumultuous river behind us. We swing deli-meat sandwiches on mayonnaise-smeared bread to the tune; only Matthias knows all the words. My voice rings a pitch squeakier than I’d imagined. We look cold. At the last line we pause for a beat, then rush out, “and so say all of us,” before erupting in glorious, head-thrown-back laughter.

* * *

The day of the midnight start from Ennis closed with the Grand Tetons caught in sunset’s afterglow behind us. I kept glancing back, bewitched by some celestial magic. Captivated by the shifting hues, I craned my head to catch one last glimmer of light piercing an indigo sky long after the sun had fallen. It struck me also how I’d grown from that anxious first-time night rider of the Prairies. Over the course of a year, I’d learned to feel my way in the dark; find comfort in the night’s solace.

That being said, I was pleased our day would end shortly after nightfall when we acquired the last two rooms at the Hatchet Lodge in Moran, a tiny community at the base of Togwotee Pass, a climb that would launch us into Montana.

Another couple of cyclists had also arrived at the lodge—the Osborns, an All-American father-son team composed of Adam, a stocky, muscular Navy Seal (Osborn Junior), and Greg, a sinewy ultra-marathon runner (Osborn Senior). We quickly fell into conversation, all five of us happy-tired, dazed by the stupendous light show of sunset to crown another long day. My neck and shoulders unkinked as I absorbed the fireplace glow, studying sun-bleached antlers suspended on polished wood beams. A waitress caught me in the act of swapping our empty ketchup bottle for a full one on a table kitty-corner to ours.

“Why didn’t you tell me so I could refill it?” she sassed, tapping the empty bottle against a denim-clad thigh. Her knee-high cowboy boots clipped the floorboards as she returned plates to the kitchen.

Rolf and Matthias chuckled while I shrugged under her admonishments, garnet red from sunburn and embarrassment as I shoved another ketchup-oozing mouthful down the hatch. My mouth was too jammed with fries and beef patty to explain our time-crunched circumstances and how, after pedalling from midnight to nightfall, I had no time to wait around for condiment refills.

Deon Nel Photography: https://www.deonnelphotography.com

TO read the entire story about Meaghan’s cycle across america,
visit the Purchase links below (available in ebook and print)


ABout Meaghan Hackinen

Meaghan Hackinen is a Kelowna-based writer and ultra-cyclist whose two-wheeled adventures have taken her from Haida Gwaii to Mexico’s high plateaus, across Canada and the United States, and from North Cape to Tarifa along some of Europe’s highest paved roads. Meaghan loves to compete and doesn’t shy away from pushing her limits. She is a Trans Am Bike Race, Transcontinental Race, NorthCape4000, and Paris-Brest-Paris brevet finisher.

In 2023, Meaghan placed first overall in the Silver State 508, the Buckshot and Lost Elephant bikepacking races, established an overall course record on the Log Driver’s Waltz as an Individual Time Trial, and set a women’s FKT with her second-place finish at the Dark Divide. Meaghan has an MFA in Writing and is the author of two books: South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels and Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race.