"Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada" by Martin Bauman
Review by Stephanie Donkers-Schmalz, Graphic Designer at Central Library
Waterloo-native, Martin Bauman’s “Hell of a Ride” is one hell of a read. It takes the reader on a bicycle trek across Canada in search of adventure, looking for life’s meaning and raising money for mental health initiatives.
This is not only a high intensity bicycle ride across our nation, it is a journey of ruminating thought, meandering like the road ahead. Leading with his own personal experiences, Bauman touches on his Mennonite upbringing in the Waterloo area, the suicide of his cousin, his father’s own depression that is rarely spoken of and his own trouble dealing with trauma.
This talented local writer begins the ride, and consequential memoir, on the rain-soaked streets of Victoria. It follows his journey through the mountainous climbs, the lonely isolation of the prairies and through the blasted-out rock of the Canadian shield. North of Sault Saint Marie is nothing but rocks and rivers and trees, and then it’s on to Ottawa and Quebec City and eventually landing in the quaint and friendly Eastern provinces.
Staying true to the mission of the trek, the novel is ripe with extensive research on how trauma is stored in the brain. It looks at the underlying causes of depression, suicide statistics and why some people have more resilience than others. It explores the idea that the way to deal with PTSD is not in mending the broken places but in making yourself anew.
Peppered with the stories of the people he meets along the way, the kindness of strangers lies at the heart of this story. The author meets Dave early on. Dave helps find places where Martin can spend the night, including the lobby of a White River curling rink where he is met and let in by a town councillor. Many other stays are arranged through Warm Showers hosts, a network of people who house cyclists on their travels.
“Isolation can feel like safety, but it’s not. Perhaps there is more to belonging than we tend to give our attention to,” Bauman writes.
In the end, it seems that the key to happiness is connection. We are all social beings after all.