Metal Cowboy: Tales from the Road Less Pedaled [Hardcover]

Joe Kurmaskie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1999

An excerpt

Our story so far:

Oh, To Be Young and Go Very, Very Fast

It was 5:30 a. m. in Pocatello, Idaho, a thin sheet of icy rain masked sunrise, and I wasn't quite sure I was up for my latest bicycling adventure. Coasting through the nearly deserted streets of this small Western town, I found myself poised at a stoplight. An ingrained obedience to traffic laws coupled with a sleepy hangover from the long train ride kept me anchored in place though there wasn't a car in sight.

As I waited, an old rancher ambled up to the intersection. The fur collar on his long coat was tattered, crusted with tobacco stains, and faded. As his cane tapped its way over my bike, I noticed for the first time that he was blind. One eye drooped shut like that of a tomcat that had seen too many late-night brawls, while the other, still open, was cloudy and distant. That eye reminded me of an African tribesman seen in the pages of National Geographic who suffered from river blindness.

The old rancher continued to work his cane over me, tapping as he went. And though the light changed from red to green several times, I remained frozen, allowing this slow survey of my person. The moment felt intimate and awkward, but I did not break it. When he was done, the old rancher stood back, grinned through a ruin of teeth, and said, "Ah, metal cowboy."

I was dumbfounded and surprised; first, that he had spoken at all, and more importantly, that this battered husk of man had hit upon a perfect description of me at the time, and my story. Though I looked more like a surfer, or a guy on a fool's journey, to him I felt like a metal cowboy, the bike my horse, and the asphalt my trail. "Keep the wind at your back, and find where the innocent sleep," he added. Then, without fanfare, my rancher crossed the street and dissolved into the early morning mist.

A chill passed through me. I have thought about that old man many times during my travels. He was right about the wind, and as for locating where the innocent sleep, I want to believe he meant to look for the best in people along the road, and that's what you will often find. My bicycle has also brought me to the innocence and the best in myself. Collective

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

While cycling through Idaho, Kurmaskie met up with a blind man who, after tapping his cane over Joe and his bike, dubbed him a "metal cowboy." If these 40 essays are any indication, that's a perfect description. Like the cowboys of Old West legend, Kurmaskie drifted around the country (and the world), meeting up with interesting and eccentric people, bunking wherever he found a dry patch of ground, eating whatever he could carry or scrounge. Like the travel books of Bill Bryson, Kurmaskie's collection of essays focuses on the unexpected and the little known. Travelogues are a dime a dozen, but the ones that find something fresh and unusual to talk about are fairly rare. Here readers will meet Elvis impersonators and other eccentrics; live through a goose attack mounted with military precision; and see the countryside the way they've never imagined it. A thoroughly delightful excursion. David Pitt

From Kirkus Reviews

Fleet lessons, experiences, and absurdities, gathered from the saddle of a bicycle and mined for every identifiable nugget of humor or worthy apologue, from newcomer Kurmaskie. ``I'm just a Metal Cowboy piecing together the puzzle of life in my own time and way.'' What that means for Kurmaskie is tooling about on his bicycle, far and wide, keeping his eye skinned for the everyday encounters that, cobbled together, amount to a worldview. Occasionally these tales are tips for cyclers, such as what to do when teenagers target you for sport, or when dogs do the same, or weather, or geese. But most of the material demonstrates that the pace of a bicycle allows you to tap the fortuities of chance (e.g., joining up with someone willing to share knowledge of secret pictographs) and the pleasures to be had by throwing caution to the wind and volunteering to be the scarecrow on a bike in a small town parade, and why sometimes its the oblique vision of the eccentrics out there that puts things into meaningful perspective. Each of the 40 chapters is a self-contained unit, and they are best read in controlled doses, for while the episodes have a sort of Andy of Mayberry charm, a piece of homespun with common decency at its center and framed in drollery, the tone can cloy. Kurmaskie is also overly fond of trotting out a little hackneyed something for the reader's moral edification (``You give and take in this life, and you don't ask for anything back''). Worse still are the ones that sound like fortune cookies: ``Each day starts with the promise of what all of us might become in the time which remains.'' The metal cowboy is on a slow bike to nowhere in particular, and when hes not dispensing homilies, he knows how to enjoy the simple, immediate pleasures of two-wheeled freedom. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Breakaway Books; 1ST edition (September 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891369105
• ISBN-13: 978-1891369100
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars These 40 stories take the reader on a delightful ride., September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Metal Cowboy: Tales from the Road Less Pedaled (Hardcover)

Joe Kurmaskie's first book, "Metal Cowboy," is fashioned from loos, flowing prose, the kind that invites adjectives like "witty" and "insightful." But heart-warming, feel-good travel narratives are easy to find. It is more unusual to read one that fosters a deeper understanding of the overall experience and transcends mere outrageousness.

These 40 "Tales From the Road Less Pedaled" do not follow chronological order. Instead they jump around - from childhood sailing trips to crossing the Rocky mountainsto spending a season on the isalnd of Aruba - and focus more on developing a conversational yet intimate manner with the reader.

Most of the stories feature a quirky man or woman, somehoe alienated by society, who is living life on their own terms, determined to follow their heart. Either they live ina small town and share an experience with Kurmaskie, or they spend a few hours or days cycling with him. Elvis impersonators, a double lower leg amputee, a flamboyant Italian barber, overprotective geese, and a bomb-builder turned zealous rockhound are merely a sampling of the characters Kumaskie meets on the road.

However, Kurmaskie doesn't rely on extremes to keep his book engaging. He deftly tackles difficult subjects, too, and displays a remarkable aptitude for compassion and contemplation. For example, in "Doing the Hokey-Pokey," Ranada O'Ryan, a high-school drop-out turned factory worker takes Kurmaskie to her senior prom and he graciously plays the part of adoring boyfriend. He connects with parents who have lost their children to accidents or disease, assists a man suffering from AIDS, and struggles to make peace with both loggers and environmentalists.

Overall, he understands many readers crave a vicarious experience, one that satidfies their sense of adventure and enhances their understanding of people. His stories are full of optimism, zaniness and insight, a winning combination that will take readers on a delightful ride.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Metal Cowboy: Tales from the Road Less Pedaled, November 28, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (The Navajo Reservation, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metal Cowboy: Tales from the Road Less Pedaled (Hardcover)

I love this book! From it's eye-catching cover to it's unique format. It's autobiographical yet reads like a series of fictional short stories. Sometimes touching, other times amusing, and always interesting. It's a great read!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular Read. Even for the non cyclist, September 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Metal Cowboy: Tales from the Road Less Pedaled (Paperback)

This book will have you on the floor laughing. It will have so lost in thought that you won't realize that it is 1 am and you have to be to work by 6am.

I recomend this for anyone with interest in the things that make us human.