Bicycling Beyond the Divide

Bicycling Beyond the Divide: Two Journeys into the West

(University of Nebraska Press)

On a journey begun twenty years earlier, Daryl Farmer, a twenty-year-old two-time college dropout, did what lost men have so often done in this country: he headed west. Twenty years later and seventy pounds heavier, with the yellowing journals from that transformative five-thousand-mile bicycle trek in his pack, Farmer set out to retrace his path. This is his story of pursuing that distant summer and that distant dream, where home is endless space, a roof of big sky, and a bed of dry earth.

“Bicycling beyond the Divide did what all great books do: it told me about me. In its tale
of a journey made by two different men—both of them Daryl Farmer—this book offers us
not only moving vistas and meaningful people, but also hope, that rarest of literary
commodities these days. I didn’t want this to end.”
–Bret Lott, author of Jewel

“In this wise and funny book about biking our American West, Daryl Farmer journeys
across miles and through memory to self-discovery, and it’s our good fortune to come
along—without expending nearly so many calories.”
–Gregory Martin, author of Mountain City

“Daryl Farmer writes with tenderness, humor, and profound insight, not only about the
wonders of the western landscape, but about the troubled terrain of the human heart.
Losing himself out there on the endless seam of two-lane blacktop, Daryl Farmer found
himself–the 20-something who first took the trip and the forty-something man he would
become. Bicycling Beyond the Divide is a transformative book about the hunger for the
road and for self-understanding. Somewhere Edward Abbey is smiling.”
–Brent Spencer, author of Are We Not Men

“Reading Bicycling beyond the Divide was the best vacation I took all year–in a year I
traveled to Mexico, France and Italy. Even if you have never ridden a bike or set foot in
the West, this book will make both a part of your life as vivid as any trip you have taken.
Daryl Farmer’s journey–into the heart of a land, of a time, into the very nature of memory
and experience–is one I will never forget.”
–Jesse Lee Kercheval, author of Space