Why I Ride: Julia Schlesinger, Cross-USA Rider

By Julia Schlesinger, 2012 Cross-USA Rider

After a choking year at college, I find myself a freshman-in-recovery in Amherst, Massachusetts. The smells of not-home filter through me: my mom is not cooking cinnamon toast, I no longer breathe in the honey-roasted “Nuts for Nuts” street stands of New York City, my original home. Mornings now are a furious charge towards the double (so very suburban) doors of my apartment, and onto my Beloved – a snazzy, now-snowtired Bianchi, covered in Yiddish stickers, rust, and life experience. Chronically late, I load up my mule with love and desperation. Hastily shoved into my orange Camelbak: my uniform for my cafe job, a book whose weight will make my back scream in an hour, and lights for the return trip home through the uncushioned dark of the Pioneer Valley. (more…)