Darren Alff

Earlier this summer I traveled for eight days to the island of Aruba. My parents have a timeshare that they own and at the last minute they decided that they weren’t going to be able to use it. When they said I could use the timeshare to go wherever I wanted, I jumped at the opportunity. I did a lot of research and finally decided to travel to Aruba.

Before this trip I didn’t even know where Aruba was. I knew it was an island, but that was about all I knew.

In case you don’t know, Aruba is a small island about 25 miles north of Venezuela. It’s a part of the Dutch Caribbean and the people there speak four different languages: Dutch, Spanish, English, and the native language of Papiamento. In my entire time there, I failed to meet a single person that did not speak at least some English.

When I started my trip I flew out of Salt Lake City International and first went to Atlanta, Georgia before boarding the plane that would take me to Aruba. It was a long flight for what seemed like an island not that far away.

Because of the work I’ve been doing on my website at www.bicycletouringpro.com, I bought a Bike Friday folding bike and took it with me on the trip. The great thing about this bike is that it folds up and fits inside a standard suitcase. This is a huge benefit because you don’t have to pay any extra fees to fly with your bicycle. And now that airlines are charging for second bags and a whole host of otherwise normally free items, this will save me a huge amount of money in the future.

Anyway, once I arrived in Aruba I had to immediately put my bike together and ride to the hotel. I found a small island between to busy lanes of traffic and put my bike together here. It was so hot and humid that in just a few moments I was instantly covered in sweat. It was horrible.

Once I had the bike together I had to ride about 6 miles from the airport to the hotel. This sounded easy back home, but once I got out on the road, it was a complete nightmare. The roads in Aruba are crazy! There is no shoulder, there is glass in the road, and the drivers honk at you! To make it worse, I was pulling a trailer behind me and it was making my ride three times more difficult.

I did eventually get to the hotel, but by that time I was practically in a state of shock. I checked into my room and checked my email only to find that a guy I had been hoping to work with on a business deal had sent me a nasty email. Apparently he wasn’t much of a businessman because he misinterpreted an offer as some sort of threat. He thought I was trying to cheat him in some way, but I was actually trying to help him. He eventually realized his mistake and tried to make amends, but I was already over him. I didn’t want to work with such a jackass, so I just ignored him.

The first night in Aruba was not a good one. I was running on about an hour’s worth of sleep and I was depressed as hell. In fact, I wrote an article about the depression I was feeling and posted it on my bicycle touring site here.

The next morning I checked out of the hotel and rode with my bike and trailer down the California Lighthouse in the northeast side of the island. Once I got out of the touristy areas the ride became quite enjoyable. I spent the day looking for geocaches and riding in the dunes on the east side of the island.

Later that day I rode back to the main part of the island and checked into the timeshare resort.

The resort was located about a mile from the beach, but I found this to be a great benefit. It was away from most of the crowds and my room came with a balcony with an excellent view of the fancy resorts and casinos that line the northern coast.

Inside my room I had a bedroom, 2 bathrooms, a fully stocked kitchen, and a living room. It was more than I needed and it was my home away from home.

Most days in Aruba I woke up late, checked my email, and then went on a bike ride for a couple hours during the day. Then at night I would return home, take a shower and walk down to the tourist area to get some dinner (usually just French fries). Then I would talk back to the resort, watch some TV and eat my dinner, and then go down to the pool, check my email again, and write some articles for my bicycle touring website.

As I think back on it now, these were perfect days. I was doing everything that I like to do! I could sleep in late, go on a bike ride, eat my dinner in peace, and hang out on the Internet. If I could work my life out so I could do this every single day, I’d be a very happy person.

I could go into great detail and tell you every little thing that happened to me out there, but I’d rather not. Instead, I’ll share some photos with you and that will be it.

To wrap things up I’d simply like to state that when I first got to Aruba I nearly had a panic attack and wanted to leave immediately. But once I got settled in I really began to enjoy myself and didn’t want to leave. I could have easily stayed there for another few weeks. I really liked it… and I’m sure glad I went.

To learn more about my trip to Aruba… and to learn how I used my Bike Friday folding bike while on this short excursion, I have created a bunch of material which you can purchase for a small fee. This material is called “Traveling With A Folding Bike - Cycling In Aruba” and is available online at my website at BicycleTouringPro.com. 

In my junior year of college I finally mustered up the courage to go on a ride with my University bike club. The only bike I had at the time was my Fuji Touring bike… and I was uncomfortable in my tight bike shorts and school riding jersey, but I was able to keep up with the group (for the most part) and had a lot of fun in the process.

After that first ride with the club, I knew I had to get a new bike if I ever wanted to come back and ride with the group again. My touring bike is a great bike for long slow rides, but for going fast, it just wasn’t going to cut it.

That weekend I went home and visited my local bike shop. I tried out a bunch of different road bikes before spotting a white and red (my school colors) LeMond Zurich in the corner.

“What about that bike?” I said to the salesman.

I grabbed the bike, took it out for a short test ride, and instantly knew that this was the bike I wanted. The frame was used and had some pretty heavy scratches on it, but the components were all brand new and the ride was as smooth as hell.

I bought the bike the next day and was the envy of the bike club the following week. It was nice to be able to keep up with the riders in my club… and I actually beat a few established members of the long uphill climbs.

I ended up riding with the University bike club until the end of my senior year, but after I moved to Utah, the bike has been sitting unused in my condo all this time. There is a ton of mountain biking up where I live, but the road biking is extremely limited. There just aren’t that many places to go!

That being said, I recently decided to sell my treasured LeMond. I put an ad on Craigslist.com and a few weeks later the bike was gone. The new owner is a 20-something war veteran, back on leave from a stint in Iraq.

The bike represents some of my best times in college, so I was sad to see it go. But I’m glad I could give the bike to someone else for them to enjoy. I was also glad to free up some room inside my condo and add some much needed money to my “long term savings” account. I’m saving up to go on another bicycle tour… so this money will really help.

Just the other day I went out on a bike ride and was cycling along a path that ran parallel to the freeway. I was climbing a small hill when I looked to my left and saw a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a freeway overpass.

I rode past the legs and then realized that those legs were attached to somebody! So I slammed on the brakes and quickly whipped my bike around. I walked back to the body, thinking that the person would get up and acknowledge my presence, but the legs didn’t move and I became more frightened.

What was so strange about this whole situation was that the person was laying in a real strange place… and in a very peculiar position. His was located on the freeway side of a barbed wire fence, so my first thought was, “How the heck did he get over there?” Then I noticed that he was laying half way in the sun and half way in the shade and his arm was twisted in such a manner that there was no way he could be comfortable like that. Beside his body lay an empty beer bottle.

As I got closer to him I called out, “Are you okay?”

He didn’t move.

I couldn’t tell if he was breathing and it was then that I thought he might be dead!

I instantly grabbed my cell phone out of my handlebar bag and called 911.

“What is your emergency?” the female operator asked me.

“Well, I’m not sure if it’s an emergency, but I’m on my bicycle and I just found a body laying underneath the freeway overpass on the I-80.”

I went on to describe where the body was at and she told me to wait there until the police arrived.

Not more than three minutes later did a fire truck, ambulance, and two police cars arrive at the scene. I walked one of the firemen over to the body and he jumped the barbed wire, calling to the man the entire time.

The body just laid there until finally it moved!

A Mexican looking man slowly lifted his head and looked around as two more officers jumped the barbed wire fence and began asking him questions.

“Have you been drinking? How many did you have? Have you been doing anything else?”

In the end, the man was okay, but plastered out of his mind. I had to fill out a police report and describe what had happened. The man was arrested and taken to jail for public intoxication and the officers thanked me for making the 911 call.

I was shaken during the incident and sad that there are people out there who do this to themselves.

I continued my bike ride and tried to shake off the incident, trying to be thankful for the fact that the man was still alive.