Broken Down in Indiana, Old Knees, and Ibn Battuta

I’m in Indiana now, and what welcome do I get? A busted tire. Yep. I like you too, Indiana.

Here’s my bike, all broken, by Route 30, just before it’s very dark:

But changing the tire wasn’t a huge deal, as I was prepared with a spare, and I’m a macho man.

I have noticed something else strange, though. Yesterday, my knees were hurting badly, as they were in Pennsylvania in June and Maine in July. In those places, I thought it was the hills, but there are no hills in northern Ohio. Then it hit me: rain.

I am getting so old. I can’t believe my joints are responding to the weather. I should pack a cane, just in case I need it.

In other news, I gave my bike a name. Naming my bicycles is a big deal to me, and they only get their names when I feel we’ve made a connection.

In college, I had Frankie, which was short for Frankenbike, because no parts were original or matching. Frankie ended up being destroyed when it fell off a car rack and dragged along the highway, turning its parts into whittled nubs.

Then, I had Bess, because she was a slow mover like a cow. She lasted a month before she was hit by a car when tied to a pole outside a diner. Other than yellow paint marks on the frame, I had no clues to the perpetrator.

Then I had George, a tough, mean bike named after a tough, mean dude. The bike was a Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra, meant for fast city riding. It was all-black and awesome, but was stolen in Chicago.

Now, I have Ibn Battuta, named after a Muslim scholar who traveled the world in the 14th century. I don’t know whether to call him “Batty,” “Binny,” or “Ibby” for short.

The original Ibn Battuta was a Berber who traveled more than 73,000 miles in almost thirty years, going from Morocco to Mecca to Egypt to Damascus to Mecca to Somalia to Turkey to India to China to Morocco to Spain to Tunisia to Mali and finally back home for good. If only we could all be so lucky.

Ibn Battuta wrote a long journal of his travels when he had finished, A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling. It’s the most accurate account of life in the 14th century that exists today. I pretended to read it for a class in college, and then actually read it after I graduated.

Much of the journey is fantasy, as it recounts things that couldn’t possibly have been, but most of it is true. I still remember fascinating accounts of poisoned knives, the Black Plague, roaming orphans, capsizing boats, everything you can imagine. But you should read it for yourself.

But here’s a moving quote, from a translation by H. A. R. Gibb:

“My departure from Tangier, my birthplace, took place … with the object of making the Pilgrimage to the Holy House and of visiting the tomb of the Prophet, God’s richest blessing and peace be on him. I set out alone having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose party I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit all my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet in the bonds of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow at this separation.”