Clean cut and soft spoken, William Galloway relaxed in Kent’s Scribble’s Coffee shop and gazed outside at the recumbent bicycle he’s called home since 2017.
A real-life Forrest Gump, Galloway has ridden across America 15 times, eating, sleeping and showering where he can. He relies entirely on his own thin resources or on the unexpected kindness of total strangers.
June 21 and the morning of June 22 found him in Kent, Ohio, preparing to head west. He’d slept the previous night in a pavilion outside Maplewood Christian Church on state Route 88, noting that the church leadership had kindly alerted the sheriff’s office not to roust him.
In a few hours he’d be heading west of Akron, hopefully making it to the Medina area where at least the terrain would be flatter, he said.
Each cross-country trek takes about two and a half months, though he did one in seven weeks. He said he tries to ride 50 to 60 miles a day, picking what he anticipates to be the safest routes: bike trails, county and state highways, and, where legal, interstates.
“I’ve been in Kent three or four times before. I’ve been down Route 44, but it’s like playing chicken with traffic,” he said.
Galloway’s life did not always center around two wheels, or three. He remembers living a solid middle class lifestyle in New Jersey before a drunk driver injured him in 2004. He was 43 years old.
Suffering from seizures and traumatic brain injury, he lost his career as a truck driver. Stints in rehab facilities and group homes followed.
In October 2017, Galloway heard about a California clinic that treats people with brain injuries and mood disorders. Lacking a driver’s license, he hopped on his two-wheel bicycle and started riding, only to experience four seizures within 100 miles.
Galloway sunk his savings into a recumbent bike that would, he said, at least keep him from falling over if he had another seizure. He started pedaling again, arriving at the Amen Clinic in Costa Mesa, California, two and half months later in January 2018. Staff at the clinic were so impressed that they pledged to provide him with free services for three years, he said.
“After 10 days being there someone stole the saddlebags off my bike. I took off after that. I worked myself up to Bishop, California. I saw a sign for Wooster, Massachusetts on Route 6, and I started trucking across America. The more I kept knocking out the miles, the more I wanted to keep going,” said Galloway, who is now 61.
He soon realized that riding was the best medicine, at least for him, for coping with his TBI. He could also share his story with family members and friends of people who had suffered TBI, and with military veterans who didn’t understand themselves. Maybe, he said, sharing his story could help others.
He’s not shy about it. Signs on both sides of his bike trailer announce his purpose: “Brain Injury Awareness” in bold letters, and under his name, the words, “Criss-crossing the Country to Raise Awareness.” Smaller, in the corners are a green ribbon icon and the sentence, “I make Brain Injury look good.” Another sentence reads, “Not all wounds are visible.” The signs include QR codes linked to his Venmo and PayPal accounts.
When he can, Galloway said he prefers to ride at night, “when everybody is home sleeping, and all I have to worry about are the drunks.” He takes joy in small kindnesses: donations, smiles, simple acceptances and even, he believes, a touch of envy.
“It comes unexpectedly. It just does,” he said quietly. “I’ve had people that just want to help me because they got tired of giving money to charities or a mission, and they can’t do what I’m doing because they got responsibilities.”
Since 2017, Galloway’s ridden in and through all kinds of weather, from extreme heat to below-zero temperatures. In 2018, he had to call 911 because he was suffering from hypothermia. Turns out he had to call twice because the first dispatcher didn’t take his call seriously, he said. Police finally arrived, loaded him into a pickup truck, and dropped him off at a McDonald’s.
“I cried like a kid. I was afraid of going to the hospital,” he recalled.
The next day a couple came into the store and handed him $150, he said. The wife, who was also a local police dispatcher, told him the employee who had mishandled his call had been fired. Good news, but Galloway was way more interested in using the cash to secure a motel room for two days so he could rest up and heal.
Then he hopped on his bike and was off. Hypothermia soon struck again, so he got coffee and a warm hotel room, “then I just kept going across,” he said. “Route 6 [which stretches from Bishop, California, to Provincetown, Massachusetts] is a lonely highway.”
Galloway doesn’t seem to mind the loneliness, or being alone. His life, literally here today and gone tomorrow, is what it is.
“I don’t have nowhere to live. It takes money to live somewhere,” he said, emphatically dismissing the idea of taking his chances in an encampment of people without homes. “I’d rather do this.”
Galloway sees himself as having thrown aside a predictable, safe lifestyle (or of having it thrown aside for him). He said he likes not knowing what the next day, hour or minute will bring. Many people have told him that for as far as he’s gone, God must be looking out for him.
He’s slept in and near churches across America, in parks and police station lobbies, farmers’ fields, car washes, a Colorado coffee shop, and even once — with permission — in the back of an ambulance. Truck stops, creeks, lakes and garden hoses are opportunities to get washed up.
He recalls a snowy winter night in Shelby, Indiana, where police let him sleep in a city park. He snuggled inside his sleeping bag, glad that it was rated for -20F temperatures. One day found him slowly climbing Highway 139 in western Colorado, which turned out to be steeper than he’d imagined: it took him seven hours to go seven miles.
He’s been run off the road in New Mexico, ridden through snow in Nevada, and woke up one morning on a bike trail south of Dayton to find a large rat snake on his chest. Not poisonous, he laughed. He’s ridden mountains east of Bakersfield, California, and one Christmas played Santa Claus for a family in southwestern Kansas.
He tries not to think about his life prior to his accident and tries not to ever sound like his is a hard luck story. Instead, he focuses on real needs: maintaining the bike and keeping himself healthy, fed, clean.
It disturbs him that people talk about how bad things are but do nothing about it.
“They’re waiting for someone else to do the job,” he said, a question mark clear on his face. Even so, he doesn’t dwell on the thought. Anxiety isn’t his go-to: he freely admits he’s more into a Gump-like zen.
It may be working.
“Being out here for five years and eight months, I realize it kind of turned into my life, and taking it day by day is the only way I know how to get through it. I had to quit thinking I was in a hurry,” he said.
When he does get to a stopping place, Galloway says he thinks of all the people who have helped him and feels thankful he’s still alive.
“The more I talk to everybody, the more I let go of things,” he said.
He smiles as he speaks of the many people, including medical professionals, who have told him he doesn’t look homeless. What does that even mean?
“What I got out here is all I got to my name,” he said, looking at his small bike trailer. It’s packed, he says, with an air pump, bike tools, two spare front tires, two portable backpack stoves and a small pot and pan, one used for cooking; the other for coffee. He’s got an extra pair of shoes, two sleeping mats, a sleeping bag and aluminum polish.
Armed with the polish, he can hustle odd jobs shining truck fenders, tires, wheels, and tanks at truck stops or for small companies.
Staying anywhere for long, much less forever, is out of the question, and finding an employer that could overlook his lack of address and work history, as well as cope with his TBI-induced concentration difficulties, is more than Galloway can imagine. So he rides.
Though people do occasionally provide him with cash and deposit funds in his Venmo and PayPal accounts, Galloway says his main goal is to make people aware of TBI. Too many agencies and organizations, he says, will only provide help if people are willing to give up their freedom.
Galloway sustains himself with his $203 Social Security check, prioritizing the funds to maintain his bicycle. Tires cost $65 a piece, and have to be replaced every 3,000 miles, provided they aren’t damaged sooner.
He’ll find odd jobs to keep him supplied with toiletries, food and the occasional motel room. Often, he said, he is amazed at the number of people who have heard of him and just offer funds or free goods and services.
If he finds a place where he feels safe and peaceful, he’ll take a day off. It’s easier in the remote expanses of America’s western states, he said. He also speaks well of New England and Tennessee, where, he said, friendly folks will often invite him for a meal at some diner, and the server will offer seconds at no additional cost.
For medical reasons, Galloway had to outfit his bike so it is partially powered by electricity, but he’s got no plans to permanently park it.
“Have bicycle, will travel,” he grinned. “It’s hard to tell where the end of the road will be.”
Meanwhile, knowing that someone may simply appear with one, Galloway is saving up for a new bike helmet, which he says don’t come cheap.
“Kindness is unexpected. You never see it coming,” he said.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.