One-hundred days and close to
4,500 miles into a cross-country bicycle trip, Rob Greenfield sat in
Arms Park, waiting for his next drink of water to be ready.
The
trip began April 20, in San Francisco and rolled into New Hampshire last
week after a bicycle trek from Boston to Nashua. On Saturday night, he
completed the leg from Nashua to Manchester, where he spent much of the
100th day of his journey at Arms Park, sitting by the Merrimack River
while his water jug filled with water leaking from a fire hydrant
several blocks away at the Manchester YMCA.
The idea of a trip
across the country to demonstrate the ability to survive while using
fewer natural resources was born of a month Greenfield spent living off
the land in Hawaii on $750.
Based
on that experience, Greenfield developed ground rules for a
cross-country bike trip intended to encourage people to waste less by
showing what one man could accomplish even with very strict standards
for consumption.
"I would be living off the grid, not using
elecricity from on the grid, not using water from on the grid not buying
packaged food," Greenfield said. "The idea was to take something of a
step backward, not to the caveman days but to the point where we weren't
wasting our resources so much."
On
a bicycle with a frame made in Africa of bamboo attached with joints
made of molded ficus bark and an epoxy, Greenfield set off from San
Francisco in April with an itinerary that would take him across the
country's wilderness and plains as well as its cities and suburbs.
The
most difficult legs of the journey were across state Highway 50 in
Nevada, often referred to as the "loneliest road in America," where even
in spring, survival was a challenge.
"I had only a 40-degree
sleeping bag and it got down to 18 degrees," Greenfield said. "I would
make a fire in an aluminum pan and bring the coals into my tent with
me."
Biking across
the plains of Kansas, where the geography provides no break to the
winds that sweep the flatlands, was also daunting.
"You have this
flatland in front of you and you're looking at it and thinking 'I can
pedal that' but the wind just pushes you backward," he said.
Greenfield's bicycle pulled a small bike trailer in which he kept his
supplies, including two solar panels used to power a laptop computer.
The computer helped Greenfield market his ideas, with publicity, fund-raising efforts and the inevitable cute marketing slogans.
His
journey across Iowa was done with the bicycle seat removed to "stand up
for sustainability." He spent no money across Pennsylvania under the
slogan "Penniless in Pennsylvania" to highlight the benefits of re-use
over disposability.
In
New York, he called it "drip by drip," surviving the summer's worst
heat wave by drinking only from leaking public water sources.
For
most of the trip, his drinking water came from rivers, ponds and
rainwater — aided by a $375 portable water purification device.
Waste
was composted, buried or recyled. Non-recyclable items, such as
wrappers from new tires he needed for the bicycle, were saved.
Greenfield said he had accumulated just one pound of trash in his
hundred-day journey.
While
in New Hampshire, Greenfield allowed himself an exception to his
off-the-grid lifestyle and bought peanut butter and bagels.
From
Manchester, Greenfield was to set off on the final 150-mile leg of his
journey, with arrival in Waitsville, Vt. on Thursday.
Reflecting
on the trip on a warm summer day, Greenfield said he hoped that by
writing and blogging about it, he would inspire some to roll back their
consumption of non-recyclables and waste of natural resources.
"What
I'd like to show is that I'm personally living an extreme lifestyle to
show just how far it can go," he said. "But I think I demonstrate
simple, easy things that anyone can do to cut back on their
consumption."