20 Years in the Making

Over twenty years ago, in 1988, I left my job in public accounting and made the conscious decision to be unemployed for six months. During those six months, I lived at our cottage in northern Michigan, dissolved my consulting practice, rode my bike from Lansing to the Mackinac Bridge, rode a 24-hour bike challenge, moved to Colorado, discovered mountain living and sat for the CPA exam. It was a terrifying period of living without income and discovering new things. As it turns out, the things I discovered have been the things that have been important to me for the last 20 years. As I completed my time off, I had two thoughts. “How am I going to pay off these credit card bills?”, and “I need to take six months off every five years”. Well, I managed to eventually pay off my credit card bills, but I was never able to find a way to honor the commitment to take time off.

Until now.

How, you ask, did it come to be that I would resurrect a 20-year-old pledge? Here’s the story.

Origins

Last fall, just before the beginning of ski season, I was on what turned out to be the final mountain bike ride of the year with Grant Fenton, Chuck Williamson and Chris Voyvadek. We were running out of daylight and snow was masking the trail whenever we climbed above 8,000 feet. It was a great day to be outside, but it was obvious that the riding season was over. You probably remember that by the time the snow started falling, it was becoming apparent that the economy was entering unexplored territory, and it didn’t look like it was going to be a short-term problem. The conversation during our oxygen-recovery breaks turned to the economy, just like it always seems to these days. During the riding time between breathing breaks, there was time to think.

I believe in focusing on things that I can control. I wondered whether there was any way to turn the negative economy that was WAY outside my control into an opportunity. I was initially thinking about that question from a business perspective, but at some point, the personal opportunity to renew my 20-year-old pledge popped into my mind. Although it was still a long way off, it already seemed likely that the following summer would be lean on I.T. projects and the company would welcome an opportunity to reduce costs. If I could manage to live without an income, this might be the chance of a lifetime to honor my pledge and hope to have a job when I return.

To make a long story slightly less long, I discussed the possibility with Chris Diamond and Doug Feely over the winter and we eventually decided to proceed with the plan. This summer is going to be my second round of voluntary unemployment.

Thumbnail Itinerary
I will be leaving Steamboat from April 30 through October 4. The plan is to spend the first 2 1/2 months watching the Giro d'Italia while riding my bike around Italy and Switzerland (maybe Croatia and Ireland). Around late July or early August I will return to North America and do a self-supported ride from Vancouver to San Diego along the Pacific Coast.

Keeping up to date

I will use this blog to keep anyone who is interested informed during my travels. I will post my itinerary, daily locations, ride routes, photos, Giro d’Italia route details, race results, experiences and observations. You can sign up as a “follower” and subscribe to the RSS feed in the right column of this page to keep up to date (see this post for instructions). I will make periodic posts, and you will have the opportunity to enter comments to keep it interactive (I hope you will).

Last time I took extended time away from work, blogs didn’t exist. For that matter, social media only existed in science fiction. Come to think of it, most people hadn’t even heard of e-mail. The Internet only existed in the ivory tower of academia. Who knows what will be available NEXT time I do this.

Much more will follow, but that’s it for the inaugural post. I promise future posts will be shorter.