Poet, surfer, philosopher, student Dean Hutton set out to ride his bicycle with a garage-built pvc surfboard rack on the side from Key West, FL to Nags Head, NC last summer. Okay, he and his friend Jonny made it almost all the way up the eastern FL coast before their bikes fell apart and hitch hiking began to look good.

For assurance that you’ll have help if you need it when riding state-to-state, have a look at this blog intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/broken-spokes-roadside-help-for-bikes/

by Dean Hutton

noAbout 9/5/09

“We got two bikes, lets get outta here while we can,” says Jonny. “All right, we’ll leave in the mornin’, ” I say.

It’s another bright eyes stinging sunny morning in Big Coppit Key, Flordia. I look like s**t and feel like it too. I woke on top of my surfboard bag and blanket on the floor inside this time, because last night was too hot and mosquitoey to sleep outdoors by the Gulf of Mexi. “You don’t look like you can ride fifty miles,” says Jonny looking over me. “Buulllasshhiit,” I sneeze. We’re planning to leave Key West, Florida and pedal our bikes halfway up the coast of the United States into the Outer Banks with no money, no food, just clothes and surf boards. We say our goodbyes to Jonny’s mom and boyfriend and out of the blue he hands us one hundred bucks, so stoked. We get set up with our pvc surf racks on the side of our bike, Jonny has a board bag on his, filled with clothes and a firewire. I broke my board on Hurricane Bill. I’m just carrying clothes, fins, a tent and diving gear. Jonny got his bike from some drunken bum who got hit by a car then arrested, leaving his bike in the middle of the road. It has a basket and a white leaves on black spray paint job. I got my bike from just walking in the neighborhood. I asked this old guy about these bikes sittin’ in his garage. He said he wasn’t selling any, but a week later he just asked me if I wanted one. I rode it home whistlin’ and poppin’ weelies. We ride about twenty five miles in the scorching hot Florida morning sun, playing the harmonica. singing, laughing and sweating. We approach this rope swing at Summerland Key. Our friends threw a rope down the pvc runoff pipe on top of the bridge and there’s this path that leads under it with the head from an eight foot shark cut off. It was a good refreshing stop, we then ride to the seven mile bridge, some guy notices our setup with pvc pipes and tells us thats a million dollar Idea. We start riding over the bridge with jonny pushing me all the way. I stop at about three and a half miles in and seriously thought about jumping. We were probably the only people in this world who rode bicycles over the seven mile bridge with surfboards in the flat keys. So exausted, we peddaled another twenty miles and finally reached our destination for the day, the Publix bus stop in Marathon. From there you can get up to Miami for seven bucks. We rewarded ourselves with steamin’ greasy fried chicken. yogurt and corn. When we came outside it started pouring hard so we ate on the sidewalk with Publix’s roof covering us. After eating Jonny walks to the bus stop acroos the street. He walks into the most huge floating grass puddle. “Hey Dingo, watch out for that puddle,” said Jonny. I got stoked and thought it was dry grass until my foot fell through it. “Ha ha, all right man,” I said. What did I do but hop over a few puddles thinking Jonny’s retarded. Just then I sink into what looked like a patch of grass, the same one. The bus came and even though our feet were wet we slept so well on the bus. We get to the last bus stop for the night, Walmart in Homestead. We buy tents, set them up over the parking lot fence next to this pond and then finally go to sleep. I slept in this spot a month ago with a lay down camo tent in between the bushes holding my speargun like a teddy bear.

We woke early to link up a bus to a train to Ft. Myers costing us ten bucks. We rode up A1A about twenty or so miles untill we could’nt pedal anymore. An hour before dark and we were getting hungry with no houses or buildings in sight. We pull off the road to set up camp and start searching for food, in the woods, on the side of the road, the water. We got some fishing line and two hooks, found some bait on this bridge and caught two hand sized pinfish. Jonny uses a knife from these fishermen and fillets the pinfish. Later Jonny catches a baby snapper and I start getting the meat off the snapper using a sharp oyster on top of the sidewalk. We watched the sunset over the harbor and wen’t back to camp to start a fire. I searched for dry sticks underneath the leaves and jonny dug a hole. A fire was started and we put a leaf over the flame to cook our fish. Jonny brings out a coconut as a suprise. We drink the milk, pour some over the fish, and eat the coconut with the fish. Satisifying our hunger from a meal well deserved we go to bed feeling like Indians as we lay in out tents. Prayers are heard and sleep is given.

Day three, I awoke to Jonny pissing by my tent next to my head. “It’s raining its pouring the old man is snoring,” sings Jonny. I get outta my tent and throw a fish spine at Jonny’s face, we fight for a little bit, then adjust our board racks. I end up folding my board bag over my handlebars and bunjeeing it. We pedal north for about two hours and stop at Publix to buy 25 cent ears of corn. After eating we make our way towards Juno Beach. I ask Jonny if this is the right way, he stops in the middle of the sidewalk and I crash right into him breaking his surf rack, my board bag blocking my brakes. I start laughing then Jonny gets mad and throughs a broken peice of pvc pipe at me. We adjust our stuff and ride about three more hours to stop at Juno Pier. The clear water at Juno Pier welcomes us. We dive by the pier with masks and watch snook catch, little bait fish, wishing we had our spearguns. Jonny dives under and comes up with a baitfish in his mouth, freaking out these three girls. I get outta the water and use the public showers, washing off with a bright yellow rubber ducky, ha ha. We get back on the road feeling nice and refreshed then run into our friend Tony. Tony had picked us up hitchin’ back from Hurricane Bill’s swell in Florida. That journey was unbelievable.

It started with Jonny and I linking up buses from Key west to Ft Myers. We then had to sleep in Liberty City Miami because we missed the 8 pm train leaving from Hallelia, the last one. We ended up sleeping on the side of a hospital, Jonny moved to a concrete bed on the side of the road and I awoke at 4:30 am to a face full of sprinkler systems. Ha ah, I unzipped my lay-down tent, got out fast then tripped because my leg was asleep, picked up the tent then realized my shoes were still gettin’ washed in the bushes. With a wet head and shirt to match, I woke Jonny from the stone bench and all we could do was laugh. We walk back to the train station and wait to catch a two hour ride up north to West Palm Beach. I said, “Hey Jonny, we don’t have to pay for a ticket the first time riding. This bum on my way down told me they only give you a warning. We ended up getting a written warning from the cops. When the train stopped as far north as it goes we walk a mile to the ocean with some crazy dude on a bike trying to kill time. He gave us some advice on life while walking with him, stuff like don’t do hard drugs, or marry a stripper because you’ll end up like me. We reached the beach and it was flat, like knee high with the clearest bluegreen water. After a swim we wrote on our surfboard bags, ‘need ride north Sebastian Inlet firing,” Even people with surfboards and empty seats passed us by. It took us four hours hitching in the hot flordia sun to get to a wave in Jenson beach. It was like head high with nice greenish blue swell lines. Jonny surfed on his board for the first time in nine months and ends up sticking a fins out layback. We got outta the water and laugh at the talk of stealing this bag of Wendy’s and running. Then no one claimed it, thank God. We hitched a ride farther north with this hot Australian chick with glassy blue eyes and black hair. We told her our story in an Austrailian acccent and she responds, “Righto, hop in the back mates.” We linked up our last ride to Port St. Lucy and hung out with this kid living next to a canal, told him what’s up with us and he gives us a skateboard. The sun was going down, painting the most beautiful Flordia after storm sky and we surfed during the last thirty minutes of light. Then the sky got dark but there was still a lightning storm over the ocean lighting up the sets of waves so we kept surfing. We got outta the water and skated to the local gas station. This fifeteen year old kid out of nowhere shouts, “Hey man that’s my board!” Him and his mom approach us and debate on calling the police. We told her the truth, “It was a gift, I was going to give it to my brothers back home. We’ll give you back the board it’s all good we don’t need to call the cops or anything,” said Jonny. The kid’s mom said she was trying to put the other kid that gave us the board in jail. Just out of nowhere a cop turns the corner and she flags him down. We talk to the officer trying not to completely rat out this poor kid who was nothing but cool to us. The mom was cool to us after she knew we were riding bikes up the coast. She compared us to “modern day Grateful Dead Heads,” gave us half her sandwich and a couple bucks. We left the scene feeling clean. The mom invited us over for more food and rest but we declined because we had to get to Sebastian in the morning. Plus her son really didn’t like us as much. That night the sand fleas and mosquitoes were so bad Jonny had to crawl in my one man lay down tent where we slept head to toe, pushing each others’ feet out of our faces every five minutes. We broke a tent pole then Jonny decides he’s better off with the fleas than the stinking hot sweaty tent. The next day we woke at sunrise and found a ride with a surfer in a truck going halfway there. Our next ride was from another surfer in a SUV going right where we wanted. We surfed Sebastian Inlet head high and clean but the waves were not lining up super good. I remember eating these purple flowers for breakfast. I caught this one wave to shore, popped up to do a floater then looked down at my landing spot to see where I didn’t want to, sand. I hopped off my board, landed on the beach feet first and started walking to shore. These guys were giving me nods of approval and I was feelin all cool until the next wave behind me slammed me on the beach and broke my board. I ducktapped my nose, paddeled out, and then my tail broke on the next wave. I ended up pulling my broken board out of the trash can and giving it to some girl to paint in exchange for a ride to US 1. During another like three hours of hitching on the side of the road with no ride, this local chick felt sorry for us and gave us a whole bunch of starbux leftovers. We get to a gas station an a ol’ dirty suv with surf racks on the top pulls up, truck reaking like skunk. We ask the driver, Tony, for a ride then hop in next to five other surf rats following the waves like us. One with a wife and hot daughter named Kirra. After talking about our journeys, Tony calls his boys and finds us a straight ride to Key West with his friend Eduardo. He dropped us off in Juno Pier then we snuck up on top of it and slept on a bench next to all these fish remains, ahh sweet smell of the ocean. We woke at 5:00 am then moved under the pier so the fishermen wouldn’t call the cops. Later we surfed for a little bit but sharing a board in some thigh to waist high waves just wasn’t worth it. I tried callin’ Tony but his phone was off so we just started hitchin’. About a half hour later this Spanish lookin’ dude with long black hair, tattos and surfboards in the back seat pulls up, looks at us and says, “Dingo, Jonny?” We’re like “hallelu, yeah, what’s up Eduardo? We hop in the car and start heading back to Key West, tellin’ stories of other crazy surf trips, gettin inspired and stoked to do more traveling. We get to the Keys and Eduardo takes us into this resort he owns called Hawks Cay. The cool thing is Eduardo’s only like twenty-eight. He shows us the sickest collection of his old school cars including an old woody then takes us on a golf cart tour checking up on his workers. We then meet his friend John and go to this little shack restraunt. We ate the most delicious local food. I had some grilled grouper over a coconut mango sauce with yellow rice, beans and spices, umm. I open my wallet to give the waiter a tip and realize I left the Keys with twenty three dollars, spent three days surfing the upper part of flordia, then somehow return to the Keys with seventeen dollars left.