Riding Outside the Lines: International Incidents and Other Misadventures with the Metal Cowboy FROM THE PUBLISHER
Like a modern-day Don Quixote, Joe Kurmaskie—bike adventurer, writer, and twelve-year-old boy trapped in a man’s body—wanders the world on two wheels, often with hilarious results, in Riding Outside the Lines.
A jaunt through such far-flung locations as Ireland, Australia, Mexico, South America, and beyond, here is a collection of tales woven together with one central theme: the world is a much smaller place when you view it from the seat of a bicycle.
Whether he’s weekending in the buff after accidentally stumbling into a nudist colony wedding, knocking back red wine in tin cans with a gun-toting ex–bounty hunter, combing the countryside in a quest to find the all-girl bagpipe squad he met in his dreams, or playing a rousing game of ice golf on the frozen tundra, Joe Kurmaskie writes of his gonzo global trek in a spirit infused with insight, good humor, and optimism. Riding Outside the Lines encourages travel buffs and armchair explorers alike to get on your bike and see the beauty of our planet and the colorful souls who populate it.
Author Biography: JOE KURMASKIE is the author of Metal Cowboy and has written for Details, the Arizona Star, Oregon Cycling, and
Midwest Bike. He is a regular contributor to Bicycling, where his “Ask the Metal Cowboy” column appears. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and two sons.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
A columnist for Bicycling magazine, Kurmaskie (Metal Cowboy) valorizes the unexpected vista or encounter above all else: "I like to think of the world as a grab bag, one that I rarely peek inside before the party gets rolling." Structured as a series of short trips rather than a single extended trek, this breezy, unpretentious volume covers such far-flung locales as Ireland, Peru and New Zealand. Inevitably romanticizing the material, Kurmaskie adopts the persona of your affable, "extreme" pal who's good with words. The emphasis is less on the physical toll of cycling than on the people and places encountered along the way. Kurmaskie runs into some noteworthy characters, including a former insurance agent turned Acapulco dumpster diver and an Vietnam vet turned Mexican bounty hunter. While Kurmaskie's escapades sometimes feel like tall tales, his occasional willingness to pad the text with personal if irrelevant reveries about, for example, a fondly remembered Bruce Springsteen concert, enhance his credibility-if every chapter beggared the imagination, readers would have more reason to look askance. Thankfully, some of his anecdotes (e.g., his quest to track down an Irish all-female bagpipe squad) don't work out according to the expected script. A chapter on curious syntax in signs reinforces the author's similarities to Bill Bryson, but the mode here is bubbly enthusiasm rather than dyspeptic weariness. All in all, Kurmaskie's gregarious willingness to play the role of a "ramshackle traveling carnival" makes for a highly amusing read. (May) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
One of the great modern iterations of the literary travelog is a sort of grand tour of America, whether by recreational vehicle, motorcycle, or, in this case, bicycle. But given that the "road memoir" is well-traveled territory, it is incumbent on the author to add something new, and Kurmaskie here does not. His far-flung observations are superficial and facile (e.g., "Scientists have spent years and millions of grant dollars determining that the ocean makes its own rules"), and his sense of humor is trite and corny. For example, in a chapter on typographical errors in road and store sign, he cites "Proceeds used to cripple children," then quips, "Maybe the notorious skating femme fatale Tonya Harding was at the helm of their fund-raising campaign." His prose is clumsy and predictable, as he mistakes a dumpster scavenger he meets in Mexico for some kind of Thoreauvian hero. Kurmaskie has written another collection of essays about cycling called Metal Cowboy and is a regular contributor to Bicycling magazine. It is therefore surprising that his current work offers little information on equipment, technique, or the real nuts and bolts of long-distance biking. Not recommended.-James Miller, Springfield Coll. Lib., MA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Another series of wayward bicycling adventures from the author of Metal Cowboy (1999), as spirited, searching, and hungry for laughs as ever. The bike is the message for Kurmaskie, who uses it as a good excuse to get out and about and most of all to get off it to use his own wheels to explore, strike up friendships ("to chat about nothing in particular and feel completely in the present"), and have encounters of all stripes. The adventures Kurmaskie feels are worth recounting here are always peculiar: a run-in with nudists, a fleeting vision of an all-girl bagpipe band that sends him on a quest in Ireland, a pause to listen to a Dumpster-diving philosopher�s deep reflections, a friendly game of ice golf ("as much fun as sex outdoors in the summertime"). Having a few of these nuggets in the pocket of life would not be a bad thing, you feel, so long as the author keeps them in modest perspective. But you�ll want to ask Kurmaskie to lighten up when he starts twanging his ain�t-I-something chord: "I can�t promise you a smooth ride, but if you�re looking for safe and predictable, Disney World�s always open," for grating instance, or, "these all sure beat the Motel 6 for the storytelling factor." And while he comes across as an engagingly rumpled guy, the kind who knows the best groundcover for a siesta and appreciates that he smells like ripe cheese in dirty laundry after a day on the road, the author can overdo the quiet-desperation theme, often delivered by his roadmates. "Majority of people out there play it safe," sighs one. "Punch the clock, pass go, collect their two hundred bucks . . . put it on a loop for twenty more years. Nothin� terrible �bout that." Oh sure, sounds great. A littleaffected, but you have to admire Kurmaskie for following the Irish exhortation "on yere bike"--shorthand for "get off your arse and on with your life."
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