Godspeed: Riding Out the Recession

Godspeed: Riding Out the Recession chronicles the author's experience of a solo bicycle trek of over 14,000 miles around the USA. Departing from his home in Cincinnati, Ohio on Memorial Day of 2011, he returned just over a year later after promising his Dad that he would be back home in time to celebrate his 90th birthday. Seeing adversity as an opportunity, the journey was his response to the crippling effect of the recession upon his work as a carpenter/contractor. Renting his home and shutting down all of his expenses, he created a food and lodging budget of $15/day. Maps and smart phone were the major expenses of his experience. "Wild camping" his way around the country, he shares the curious and compelling nature of how people and events showed up for him along the way. Was it simply a journey or a journey created? At the very least it became a pilgrimage that confirmed many of his core beliefs and, in subtle ways, changed others.

Robert Linz is a carpenter/contractor with a degree in Psychology and a longtime interest in Philosophy and Science. He grew up on the west side of Cincinnati, adventurously spending his youth on the seat of his bicycle. Always willing to pursue an alternative way of making the practical aspects of his life work, he shares his home with students and faculty from around the world who are drawn to the academic life associated with the University of Cincinnati and nearby Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is the father of three daughters and lives in the community of Clifton just north of downtown Cincinnati.