“bridge closed,”

warned the orange construction signs a mere two miles from where I was planning to camp. I wasn’t worried; it wasn’t like I was trying to get a whole car over the bridge. Construction signs tend not to apply to bicycles, I thought smugly, and approached the cluster of guys in fluorescent vests.

“Sick vests,” I said. “Any way I can walk my bike across?”

The construction workers gave each other a look, and then parted to reveal a small chasm were the road should have been.

I smiled through the heartbreak. “I guess not! Where’s the nearest river crossing?”

“About 10 miles that way,” said the foreman, jutting his chin back where I came from. As he launched into detailed instructions, one of the laborers stepped forward. He nervously avoided eye contact, but he straightened his shoulders and asked softly, “How much does your bike weigh?”

And then before I knew it, he had hoisted Lucky onto his shoulder. He leaned way back as he slipped down the crumbling walls of the pit, gracefully avoiding a face-level pipe at the bottom, climbed one-handed up a ladder, and finally made it to the catwalk on the other side. I scurried behind with a pannier in each hand.