Don’t get me wrong; I like a good map. In fact, I love maps. I can be happy for hours at a time looking at road maps and studying routes. Usually I have a pen in hand marking or circling spots or road numbers. I once lost a map at a hotel. I cried. I now staple a business card to my curated maps, for just in case one is lost,  there is a chance it will come back to me.  (It once happened with my daily note book left by accident on an airplane.)

My father loved maps as well. I can see him now sitting in his chair in the den, chomping on his cigar and his index finger running over routes for upcoming road trips. I guess I come by it honestly.

 

There is a time and place for maps, but there is time for simply going. At the end of the first Star Trek movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) , then Admiral James T. Kirk is asked by Commander Hikaru Sulu what course to take. Admiral Kirk responded with a flip of his wrist pointing to monitor at the front of the Bridge and simply said, Thatta Way.

 

As much as a planned route can be nice and familiar, there is something when on a bike ride to simply going Thatta Way. My sense of direction is pretty good and it is more the fear of having to reclimb a hill as opposed to really getting “lost”, or as my father would say in Yiddish (or a form of Yiddish) ferbluged. And when it is I get ferbluged, I know it immediately!

 

When I am on a Thatta Way ride, I fancy myself on a voyage of discovery, having a good idea of where I am, but never quite knowing for sure what lies ahead over a climb or around the corner. Like any good explorer, I prepare for the unknown the best I can – an extra tube (I still use tubes), gravel tires, and more sunscreen and nutrition bars. I am just a guy on a bike a few kilometres from home after all, not Sir Ernest Henry Shackelton.

 

Last week on a Thatta Way ride, I was hoping to find an elusive passage to a road/path I had once tried that cost me on ill-chosen equipment two flats. I had to climb a punchy 12% grade past a local zoo (ok, I did hear the shrieks of what I imagined to be wild animals about to hunt me down) only to find a road/path that could have been the one but marked Route Privé. Even with my poor French, I knew what that meant. I respect private property and disappointingly turned back.

 

I continued on and at a well-known intersection to me, I again spotted a small lane that I had attempted earlier, again with poor equipment, and so I had turned back. This time, ready of the adventure, I proceeded. And this time, I was rewarded. It was a beautiful petit chemin and I even happened across the olive grove of our locally produced olive oil. That was cool. A few times, I caught myself looking skyward as if to spot the helicopters from the Tour de France following me on my epic journey.  The petit chemin ended at a “T” which I recognized and I went to the right. Next time, I will go to the left.

 

On other Thatta Way rides I have come across other wonders, such as a sanglier (wild boar) lumbering across the road in front of me and spectacular views of hills and valleys and forests, many of which have converted into recurring routes. And there were as well bitter disappointments requiring arduous and longer journeys home. These usually involve some soul destroying further climbing.

 

In his memoir Shoe Dog, Phil Knight, the founder of Nike said it a bit differently with regard to a business journey. He said, “So,  that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy … just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where “there” is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.”

 

And so regardless of whether you fancy yourself to be in the footsteps of Phil Knight, or Commander Kirk or Sir Shackelton, sometimes the best place to go literally or figuratively, is to enjoy the journey and simply go Thatta Way.