Zero to Sixty: The Motorcycle Journey of a Lifetime

by Gary Paulsen

Book Overview

Nearing sixty, diagnosed with heart disease and feeling his mortality, Gary Paulsen buys his first Harley-Davidson and rides from his home in New Mexico to Alaska-and from the present into his past, through the landmarks of a singular life. Paulsen's journey is peopled with familiar faces, from the tough cop who saved him from juvenile delinquency to the prostitute whose career advice stopped him from quitting the army. And the work he does while...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156007045
• ISBN13: 9780156007047
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Made for a great rainy day read

I so love this author ever since reading "Winter Dance". He's absurdly funny like...say...a Canadian sense of humor. This book was a good read. Quick. Hated to hit that last page.

Warning-Reprint-Title Change Only

This book is a reprint of Pilgrimage On a Steel Ride written in 1997. Do not be fooled by the new name, cover and ISBN number as I was. Don't get me wrong, I admire Mr Paulsen's work and have purchased in the past (and will continue to do so in the future) every book he has written for my public library partons. B-U-T I feel the publisher is remiss in not stating up front that this book is a renamed reprint of an earlier book. True, on the back cover near the bottom in very tiny writing you will find the information but only after you have purchased the book over the internet will you see this disclaimer. Perhaps the publisher was thinking more of traditional book store sales where you can actually see the back of the book and read a few lines, but if so they were very shortsighted.

Thanks Gary

If you'r intending to live over 50 you better read Paulsen's book. it'll make you understand that we live only one life, and we'd better live them right.

Its Not an Iliad nor an Odyssey but its a Pilgrimage

Gary Paulsen delivers a middle age memoir that strikes a sentimental and gentle chord as we follow him on his Harley from New Mexico to Alaska and back. It's not the Iliad nor the Odyssey but as Homer put it best the adventure is "in the journey". Take this book with you to an easy chair, prop up your feet, lean back and take it for a smooth ride. It is well worth it.

It's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase.

After reading this book, you'll likely want to go out and buy a Harley, then make a run for the ages. Gary Paulsen certainly puts us in the saddle. More important to me, however, were Mr. Paulsen's intensely personal reflections on a life lived in search of experience. The road brings back memories: the smell of seagull guts cooking on a red-hot exhaust pipe (a real man's recherche du temps perdu!) takes him back to his North Dakota farming days; a chance encounter with a Kansas farmer whose home has been vaporized by recent flooding leads to ruminations on grunt work -- specifically, Paulsen's humorous stint as a septic tank technician. Eventually, Paulsen makes it to the Alaska Highway, where caravans of mobile homes unwittingly conspire to put him in serious danger (if you've ever made a long run out West, you know about mobile homes). How does it end? For Paulsen, it doesn't. He won't let it end, and that's why he's writing these books and we're sitting in cubicles staring at computer screens, tapping away, dreaming of making an epic run...