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.
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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.
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