Momentum Is Your Friend: The Metal Cowboy and His Pint-Sized Posse Take on America

I read 30-40 books a year, mostly non-fiction. This is easily one of my favorites in a very long time. If you like Bill Bryson's travel stories, you'll love Joe Kurmaskie's style of self-deprecating humor coupled with his observations about people and places along one hell of an adventure. I first saw the story when it was an article in Men's Journal in 2005, half-convinced that no one in their right mind would do something this hard. I'm sure my reaction was pretty much right in line with countless others; when I read, or should I say devoured, the book over a year later, I couldn't help but think that Joe knows something that most of us forget or perhaps never learn, that life is meant to be experienced fully, as opposed to taking it in small nibbles when it's convenient. We all underestimate our potential. Quinn and Enzo are the heroes who teach the real lessons in this story - they will totally amuse and challenge your imagination of what can be accomplished at any age. Joe gave me a fresh set of ideas on being a father, and it certainly made me think about my own dreams in new ways. Now where did I put that light saber...?

I am a big fan of the "Metal Cowboy," his books, website, and his postings to Touring@Phred. This book is his best as far as I am concerned, and it has my 9 year old son hooked, too. We have done some overnight tandem trips, but as we read about Joe, Quinn and Enzo on their adventure, Evan is warming to the idea that we need our own adventure. Hopefully we will be setting out for Grandma's house (500 miles) this June. Not quite the cross country adventure the Kurmaskies undertook, but if we have half the fun they had, or half the fun we have had reading about their fun, it will be a grand time. Thanks, Joe, (and Posse) for helping inspire Evan, and me, to take the next step and extend our range. I hope others read it, enjoy it , and benefit as much as we have.

My friend Joe "Metal Cowboy" Kurmaski writes wonderful books that are both funny and wise. His latest book, Momentum Is Your Friend, is the story of Joe bicycling from Portland Oregon to Washington DC with this two sons, second-grader Quinn and five-year-old Enzo, literally in tow. Joe has a reporter's eye for detail, a poet's way with words and a genuine interest in the people he and the boys meet along the road. Over the course of a few thousand miles and a few hundred pages, Joe and the boys take the reader on the ride of a lifetime. I really felt like I'd met the watermelon whiz-kid, the grumpy and grizzled bicycling vet, the midwestern cheerleader in the mysteriously empty town and all the other people too real to be called characters. But of all the real people in this book, the one we get to know the best is the one telling us this story. This is not a mid-life crisis book but it is a good story, well told, by a man in the midst of his life. With his kids in tow, his wife in grad school and the ashes of his father in a Tupperware bowl tucked somewhere in a pannier, Joe wonders about the things we all wonder about. Am I being a good dad? A good husband? A good son? And can I make it up this hill with this 250 pound contraption? OK, maybe not everyone wonders about that last one. B. and Roy, a kind-hearted couple in a huge RV voice the concerns of many about Joe and his cute kids, "you wouldn't want anything to happen to them." But Joe explains that this isn't categorically true. "I want all sorts of things to happen to my children. I want them to smack line drives during clutch moments of baseball games, smell the sweet bite of creosote bubushes in the Arizona desert after and August monsoon, eat a pile of messy short ribs dripping in Kansas City's best BBQ sause then sleep off their food comas under the whispery shade of a willow tree. I want them to stick up for themselves when it really matters, and someday slow dance with that girl, the one that makes them uncool and cotton-mouthed, at the junior high school mixer. I want them to find themselves at a loss for words from the beauty of the world, and make up fantastical names for constellations under the open sky this summer." "What I don't want is something horrible happening to them. That's what he really means. It's a small distinction, but, when magnafied through the video black magic of Madison Ave. and filtered by the unfounded fears of parents fueled by the nightly news, it's what cheats us all of so much." Joe and Quinn and Enzo not only survive, they thrive. They remind us all that life is for living and adventure is everywhere if we are not afraid to roll out the door and see what's around the next corner. If momentum is my friend, then I guess that inertia is my enemy. Thanks, Joe for wonderful book that's a kick out the door. I'll see you on the road.

This is my favorite Metal Cowboy book because here we get to see the real Joe. He takes his boys on a bike ride across the US and does a lot more peddling than he ever thought. While the narrative about this feat is hysterical, it's the experiences that he shares with his family that makes this special. His boys become his audience and he theirs. It works becuase he's an entertaining writer and character. Let's face it. How could anyone who quotes from "Say Anything" and creates his own What Would Lloyd Dobler Do (WWLDD) T-Shirt for the trip not be great?

This is a quick, humorous read.I found it hard to put down. Joe is his usual crazy self - even with 250 pounds of 'back fat'(as he calls the boys and their gear) in tow. If you grew up in the 70's it will stretch your memory with all of the music lyric references in the book. The book covers about every 3rd day of their self contained cycling trip from Portland to DC. I wish it were a fatter book that covered every day.