“The Buddha and the Bee: Biking Through America’s Forgotten Roadways on a Journey of Discovery” recounts unplanned trip

PHOENIX, ARIZONA, UNITED STATES, January 3, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- “The Buddha and the Bee: Biking Through America’s Forgotten Roadways on a Journey of Discovery,” Cory Mortensen’s account of his unplanned, solo bike ride across America, has won the 2022 Best Indie Book Award for non-fiction.

The annual Best Indie Book Award is an international literary awards contest recognizing self-published and independently published authors from all over the world. Only one winner in each category is selected.

“The Buddha and the Bee” was also selected by the Independent Author Network as a 2021 finalist in non-fiction.

In the book, Mortensen writes about taking a leave of absence from his job as an architectural project manager in 2001, biking from Minnesota to California. He was determined, he writes, to ride his “bike down a never-ending ribbon of asphalt wearing a backpack.”

Mortensen began his bike ride from Chaska, Minnesota to Truckee, California without a route, timeline or proper equipment. Along the way, he gained more than technical skills required for a ride that would test every fiber of his physical being and mental toughness. And he met unusual characters, dangerous animals and sweet little old ladies with a serious vendetta for strangers in their town.

“Planning is for sissies,” Mortensen writes in the book. “A solo bike ride across the country will be filled with sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and 80-degree temps every day, right? Not so much. The Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, an alkaline desert and the Sierra Nevada lay miles and days ahead. Disappointment with unrealized potential, and the thirst for what’s next drew farther away in the rotating, wide-angle, shockproof, convex, rear-view mirror.”

From long stretches of road ending in a vanishing point at the distant horizon, to stunning vistas, terrifying close calls, grueling conditions, failed equipment and joyous milestones, Mortensen stayed the course and gained an appreciation for the beauty of the land, the genius of engineering and marvel of nature.

One reviewer on Amazon wrote, “All too frequently, the author of a bike memoir is a super athlete or former military special forces. Cory Mortensen was a desk jockey, more of an everyday guy. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Buddha and the Bee.’ Very impactful, very relatable.”

Another reviewer wrote, “His breezy style is both personal and full of fun factoids about the blue highways he rode and the small, forgotten towns he stopped in. He proves that those who treat these places as only worthy of fly-over are missing a lot. A bike-level view gives new perspective. Mr. Mortensen lets us feel the tired muscles and pain in his loins as he takes on the plains, the Rockies, the mesas and the climb to the top of the Sierra, but we also feel the exhilaration. A fine read.”

In addition to the cross-country journey detailed in “The Buddha and the Bee,” Mortensen has traveled to more than 55 countries and cycled from Minneapolis to Colorado solo to raise money for children born with congenital heart defects. He’s completed 16 marathons on five continents and survived three days of running with the bulls in Spain.

To learn more about “The Buddha and the Bee: Biking Through America’s Forgotten Roadways on a Journey of Discovery” and Mortensen’s second book, “Unlost: Roaming Through South America on a Spontaneous Journey,” visit thebuddhaandthebee.com.

“The Buddha and the Bee: Biking Through America’s Forgotten Roadways on a Journey of Discovery” can be purchased on Amazon at amazon.com/gp/product/B08FLLBBP9.

To schedule an interview with Mortensen or to host a book reading and signing, contact cory@corymortensen.com.

Bookstores and libraries can purchase copies by emailing info@conceirgemarketing.com.

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Media Relations
Cory Mortensen
cory@corymortensen.com

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