Keys to Freeze, Mile 2868: Life Lessons from a Wandering Bike Punk

After a disastrous car accident, a self-made bike mechanic finds a new life purpose via a two-year, two-wheeled odyssey across America.

Photos courtesy Eric Morton

He had no bike bags, no cycling gear, no beard, and no plan.

Before “Epic Tour” began twenty months ago, Eric Morton was a bike punk living in his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. A heavy drinker on a self-destructive path, he lived life by the next dollar and the next tattoo. Then in late August 2013, with only a hundred dollars and a Fuji touring bike to his name, Morton began an ever-evolving lifestyle where each ride on his bike and every pit stop became its own chapter in a most Odyssean travel tale. Now he’s 13,000 miles into Epic Tour, working — for the time being at least — in Eastern Utah close to the Colorado border as a mechanic at Moab Classic Bikes. He’s waiting out the last winds of winter, living in a camper behind his boss’s house until the start date for the next leg of his tour, racing the Continental Divide in June.