Cycling the Heart of America

Kirk Gillock has wanderlust and has been following it for quite a while. A story on his life in Thailand four years ago in the “Wimberley View” was a story about helping others far away. He started a non-profit charity in Thailand that focused on education, road safety, and the environment.

Some of his efforts in helping the Thais were accomplished. In Kirk’s years in Thailand, there was more safety on the road, with motorcycles; the main form of transportation had a huge increase of helmet wearing by riders. In education, technology advances increased dramatically. Kirk decided to go home to the U.S. feeling he accomplished something.

“After 14 years in Thailand I came back to focus on myself,” Kirk said. After arriving back home to his parents’ house here in Wimberley, he was confused. What he saw and heard about was a nation divided into two camps, red and blue.

Feeling helpless, he wanted to do something about it. An idea hit him. How about travelling a big heart in the middle of America. And better yet, how about on the back of a bicycle and getting close up and personal with, not blue or red states but fellow Americans, no matter left or right, but Americans.

He took a week to train in late July, and then hit the road with his bike, with red and blue saddle bags, a GPS and headed northwest to Lubbock. “Following 71 through Llano, Brady and Lubbock was brutal. I would get an auto email each morning and get a GPS link…there’s a tree up the road about 1.5 miles for shade.” He continued.

“Friends would help along the way, they would follow me online and cheer me on… there was division in the country and one way was to show love to our own country. It could use a little balance and from the back of a bicycle, that is kind of a balance.”

His one blue and one red gloves also symbolized balance, each having to work with the other to get anything accomplished.”

The journey was all self funded. “It’s just myself, all the weight is on my shoulders.”

Being a Texas boy, greeting and meeting the locals was not hard. When he wasn’t approached, he would do the approaching.

“Locals would ask where are you headed? A physical heart of America… I got to see Mount Rushmore, biked through New Mexico, Chicago, Montana…they knew me as Kirk from Texas.”

But trying to make that huge heart on the map of America did create some huge problems. Roads could be caliche, dirt, mud and “used by cows, cowpaths really. It was rough.” The most harrowing episode of his trip though, was in Wyoming wilderness.

“It was pitch black. All of a sudden I hear auto gunfire and then three cars pointed at each other. It was a very interesting scene. I saw wagon crates changing hands (one vehicle to another) and guns being tested. They saw me and I greeted them and kept going.” Guns being traded in the middle of the night proved there was still a wild west.

Fighting headwinds was a big problem. “Every hundred yards would feel like miles, fighting a 30 mph headwind.” On his best days he could get 100+ miles a day. “On the trip 86 days, on the bike 64. Every 40 or so days I’d take a day off…I lost 20 lbs.”

But it had a huge reward. “I saw the entire spectrum, right and left, (they were) so nice, so helpful. We are not as divided as we think we are…yes there is some division but most Americans want to work together. It was rewarding to meet people that I wouldn’t have met. On a bike is a great way to see the country. It’s a different pace. When it was hot or rainy, naturally you would receive pity. You see the best of humanity on a bike…4,250 miles of love.”

He gave out U.S. heart stickers throughout his heart route as souvenirs. Hoping to spread the word about that we should “listen to our hearts a little more… there are so many nice people.”