Brian Phelps wants the love of his life back.
The one he abandoned in 2015.
Last Phelps knew, she was in great shape for an older gal, with a slender body, a firm seat and lots of spunk.
“The more I thought about it, the more I regretted it,” Phelps told me this week over coffee downtown.
Her name is Fanny, and she’s a bicycle, a 1982 Fuji. Phelps rode her across the country, about 4,000 miles, back in 2011. Then, four years later, he donated Fanny to S&W Sports, telling me he was downsizing, trying to make life simpler.
“She had served her purpose,” Phelps told me. “I didn’t have a lot of regret.”
He does now.
He’s written a book called Fanny and Me, and he’d like to have Fanny along for a new ride, this one while giving presentations about his journey and to promote his book next month around New England, starting in Keene.
“She would be great to have,” Phelps told me.
He’s a Connecticut native who lived in the Concord region for 25 years. He’s 69 but could pass for 10 years younger – he says he’s got “Dick Clark genes.”
He spent most of his career working as an industrial hygienist and monitoring safety regulations with the Department of Health and Human Services.
He met his future wife while hiking in the White Mountains, after returning a stuffed animal that her son had dropped along the trail.
Then things changed. First, his pension while working as a construction safety consultant was threatened, forcing him into early retirement at age 62.
Next came a divorce, which Phelps preferred not to talk about. His next love, Fanny, was an open book, however, and you’ll meet her in a moment.
Somewhere along the line, Phelps had an epiphany of sorts, a sense of clarity that made him feel bad about himself, yet opened new, adventurous doors.
He was in his kitchen sipping coffee on a splendid, colorful New Hampshire fall day.
“A question floated into my head,” Phelps told me. “Have I done anything in my life that’s made a difference? The fast answer was no. What have I done in my life that’s made a difference? The fast answer was nothing. I felt invisible, like anything I was doing didn’t matter.”
He wanted to travel, meet people, discover America, discover relationships, discover himself.
His ex-wife had bought him a relatively new bike in the mid-1980s. In 2011, it sat in his garage, under a tarp. He brought it to a local bike shop for maintenance, and when the worker there told him, “The bike looks good if doesn’t break down. And I don’t know about you,” Phelps said his motivation to ride hard and far surged.
“I’ll never forget that,” Phelps said. “I raised my hands and said, ‘I can’t believe this guy dissed me.’ ”
“He dissed me, too,” said a voice from behind Phelps. “He said if I break down.”
Okay, think Tom Hanks and a volleyball named Wilson in Cast Away. Think creative mind, one laying down a foundation to guard against loneliness. Think anything you want.
Phelps gave life to Fanny – named because Phelps had been told a cross-country bike would take its toll on his butt – and left from Washington state on July 1, 2011.
From there, he spoke to and received answers from Fanny, and he relayed their conversations right through our interview.
On Day Two, Phelps rode through a narrow tunnel, with construction vehicles and logging trucks sweeping past, blasting their horns, squeezing Phelps tight in between the stone wall and the road.
He emerged from the tunnel crying, wondering if he’d bitten off more than he could chew, worried that he’d made a mistake.
Fanny calmed him down, and the two moved on.
He stopped in Ontario and, with a vicious rainstorm outside, appreciated the kindness of strangers, who had given him warm shelter inside.
There were adventures, including the story about the psycho hooker in Minnesota, and the rock that caused him to crash, and the five cyclists whom Phelps met in Washington state and then, out of the blue, saw them again near New Hampshire’s border with Vermont.
He dipped one tire in the Pacific Ocean to start the trip and poured a cup of water from the Atlantic Ocean over the other tire to end it, in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Phelps cried freely on his trip, as he came to look at his life differently, see its beauty, see the landscape, enjoy the people.
And then, before switching gears and heading to New Mexico for volunteer work, Phelps chose to simplify his life.
He held yard sales. He gave stuff away.
And, for the second time in his life, he lost a love that once meant so much to him.
“I figured, ‘I’m not riding her anymore,’ ” Phelps told me. “I was downsizing. I didn’t need her anymore. That’s how I justified it.”
He donated Fanny to S&W Sports, and Fanny is gone, sold to some unknown person. The store has no record.
“With used bikes, we have no receipts,” Rick Hohenberger, S&W’s sales manager and co-owner, told me at the shop, Phelps standing nearby. “There’s a chance (to find Fanny) because it’s a small community.”
Then, Hohenberger tossed in a big chunk of skepticism.
“Someone from New York City comes here each year with a trailer and takes about 40 bikes,” he added. “I just thought I’d throw that in so you know.”
Phelps’s shoulders slumped. He knew reuniting with Fanny in time for his Feb. 8 discussion and book signing at the Keene Public Library might not happen. He’ll also be at the Stafford Library on Feb. 17 and March 21.
And he wanted to write a sequel as well, about the lost-and-found saga he’s put himself through since his trip.
He needed Fanny back in his life. He looked in the mirror, and he didn’t like what he saw.
I asked Phelps if these renewed feelings had something to do with book sales, both for Fanny and Me and its sequel. I wondered if profit had something to do with this search for lost love.
He said money raised through sales would go to a yet-to-be-determined charity. About 100 books have been sold to date.
Then I asked Phelps what Fanny might say if he finds her.
“Where have you been?” Phelps said she’d answer. “How come you dumped me?”
He knows he’ll have some explaining to do.
(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304, rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @rayduckler.)