Link to story in the Post-Gazette

Wednesday, June 13, 2007
By Ervin Dyer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For seven weeks, Norman Peterson bicycled for sometimes 80 miles a day over the same hidden roads and river trails that enslaved Africans traveled as they escaped from Alabama and fled to freedom in Ontario.

A bike rider for years, Mr. Peterson’s journey along the Underground Railroad in April and May was an adventure that challenged his physical and mental health and, at the end, when he rode into Owen Sound, he was a new man.

Slimmer and trimmer, Mr. Peterson is 32 pounds lighter.

For the group trip, a route of 2,100 miles, he returned to a vegetarian diet and chugged along drinking a gallon of water or fruit juice a day.

In four weeks, the weight came off — most of it disappearing from his mid-section, which was bloated, he said, from years of eating meat.

Mr. Peterson is 6 feet, 3 inches tall and 39 years old. He began the course weighing 217 pounds; he now weighs 185.

Lactose-intolerant, Mr. Peterson had to be careful what he ate along the bicycle route, which stretched from Mobile, a city that was the entry point to slave ships, to a town where runaways made a new life.

He mostly had beans, eggs, potatoes and a big leafy salad or fruit.

Each morning, he’d first cycle 20 miles and then look for a small restaurant or cafe to have breakfast.

He’d go on to trek 60 to 80 miles a day.

“It was tough,” said Mr. Peterson, speaking from Holton, Maine, where he’s relaxing before coming back to Pittsburgh in a couple of days.

“I carried up to 100 pounds of stuff on my bike — a sleeping bag, toiletries, lunch and snacks.”

He rode up to eight hours a day. Mr. Peterson went to sleep by 8:30 at night. The group of riders mostly slept outdoors — there were a few stops where they slept in hotels.

Others in the group fell victims to dog bites or cars that came too close to the bikes. Mr. Peterson avoided such disasters.

There were flare-ups of lower back pain, but he was troubled by that condition before he took to the road.

The most grueling weeks came when Mr. Peterson had to pedal over the steep hills of Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The route was conceived by the Adventure Cycling Association, North America’s largest biking group, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Minority Health.

One of the center’s goals was to encourage discovery of black cultural history and to have more African Americans use biking to maintain good health. Studies show black Americans are disproportionately affected by heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke and obesity and bicycling is an activity to help offset some of the potentially deadly conditions.

Mr. Peterson found it was emotionally healthy, too.

There were about 50 bikers on the road. But mostly Mr. Peterson pedaled alone, in the quiet of the morning, giving him plenty of time to think.

“One of the things about the runaway slaves,” he said, “was they had a goal. They had some place to go.”

Everybody’s running away from something, said Mr. Peterson, but they don’t know where they are going.

Mr. Peterson said he’s watched friends, who have claimed to hate their life in Pittsburgh, leave town and head for places such as Washington, D.C., or Atlanta, only to return to Pittsburgh in a few years equally as disappointed in the other cities.

The epiphany for Mr. Peterson was discovering that having little sense of direction in life is enslaving in itself.

On the road to Canada, he found freedom and acceptance.

Once discontented in his job as a nurse and a struggling freelance writer, he has now embraced his life.

“I take ownership of being a writer. I am a nurse,” he said. “Before, I would have just said I work as a nurse.”

“I lost a lot of weight on the trip,” he said, “but I’ve lost some waste, too.”

(Ervin Dyer can be reached at edyer@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1410. )