The Reality of Riding Across America

Note 1- This is written for cyclists thinking about taking this or other long distance trips. If you’re a casual reader, don’t ruin your fun, skip this.

Note 2- re-reading this, I can see a mix of present-tense and past-tense. I can’t fix it because the trip is present, but rapidly receding into the past. Bear with it.

I need to comment about the reality of riding across America and how it differs from the fantasy I had on setting out to San Francisco. The America By Bicycle brochures and web site point out that the two can be very different. If one is wedded to the fantasy, the ride will be disappointing. But if one can accept that “what is, is” the ride can be more than one expected.

First, I should say that there are times when the reality is just like the fantasy. Riding along the shores of Lake Tahoe with alpine mountains reflecting on its surface is awe inspiring. Seeing the salt lakes for the first time made me understand the whole concept of mirage and what it must have done to pioneers’ heads. Cresting Monarch Pass at 11,300 feet and seeing a whole new vista on the other side of the mountain is magical. In the Western States, every day brings some kind of surprise.

There are days when the reality is something I never could have thought to fantasized. These were the days of riding around the Major Taylor velodrome or catching the little kids with their red wagon parade around the Illinois state capital on the fourth of July. Who could have expected that? There were hip things like Lee serving us her home made pies at “The Bus Stop,” and telling about life as a building mural artist and boxer. Jesse James’ house and the huge museum of Western lore in St. Joe’s were hidden treasures. There are lots of little things that surprise and delight when you are traveling with the speed of bike.

There are many realities that I never thought of when I signed up for the ride. First is the reality of a fifty two day trip. That’s the longest I’d ever been away from home. It meant letting go of my job, my friends, my family, and all the things that make up my daily life. They would all go on without me. There were times on the trip when I would go to WalMart, just because that was something “normal” people do. I stayed at 47 different hotels, 47 different rooms to find, 47 times to figure out where to put my bike, 47 different alarm clocks to program, 47 times to load and unload the luggage. I’d never thought about laundry. I did the laundry ten times, in a truck stop, at the hotel, at a Laundromat, in a tub, sometimes drying on the interstate fence behind the hotel or the fence of the pool. Laundry became a big concern. I had four jerseys and three sets of shorts. Would I make it until the next hotel with a laundry? Would the blast furnace of a drier ruin all my “line dry” lyrca shorts? 47 breakfasts, 47 dinners, all with the same 40 people (and with food that was sadly the same). To be thrown in with forty people is like being freshmen in college. Everyone is a little nervous, everyone is in the same boat. A few people knew each other, most did not. There was no room for pretense or posing. You can’t hide who you really are for 52 days. Before I left, I wondered if I’d get enough time to myself. 52 days with a bunch of people. Argh! I liked them. I became a devotee of group riding. "Tom time" was never an issue.

I missed my friends and my family and my work and my routine. There weren’t many calls or letters from home. There weren’t even many comments on the blog or e-mails. I wondered if it was worth the effort to post. Was anyone reading it? It’s a little humbling to realize that life goes on without you, much as it would if you were on a trip to the moon, or for that matter, dead. I look forward to sleeping in my bed, having a cup of my own coffee from my own mug, and yes, even to using my own washer and drier.

Hotels weren’t part of my fantasy. They were mostly average budget motels. Only three were memorably good: the Best Western Lake Tahoe, the Query Inn and Suites in St. Joe’s MO, and Styleridge Suites in Indianapolis. A few were god-awful places that, if I checked in with my family, I would have left; Days Inn and American Value, where the sheets and towels had holes in them. Paint was either pealing or rusty. The pool was closed. The soda machine was broken. The washer worked, but not the drier. Some hotels were simply repetitive, the same light fixtures, the same dressers, the same soap in the same place on the counter in every Holiday Inn or Holiday Inn Express. It gets old when you know the hotel better than the house keeping staff does.

Most of the food was unremarkable, the only memorable meal being the first buffet we had at the Golden Nuggest Casino in NV. It was high quality and in quantity that amazed our European members. Breakfast was either in the hotel, or at Denny’s, Bob Evans, Perkins, or when we were lucky, someplace “local”. Those make-it-yourself waffle makers were popular at the hotels, they allowed them to claim “hot breakfasts.” The local eateries were invariably good. Lunch was “on our own” -we had some real finds in local cafes and restaurants. There were also more than our share of Dairy Queens, Burger Kings, and gas station food. The fantasy was that all out meals would be local cuisine served by local people. Dinner was usually at some chain restaurant. They never wanted in quantity, although quality was sometime questionable. Sizzler, Bob Evans, lots of Golden Corrals, a Chinese Buffet in Dodge City that was quite good and a few local restaurants. But we came for the riding, not for the food. The food often degenerated down to a simple source of calories - "a unit of energy" as I like to remind my students. We need lots of energy, but it's a little sad when you just "gas up."

As to the riding, the mechanics (not the actual riding, but the mechanics of touring) are pretty harsh. I’ve never been a morning person, and this was not like RAGBRIA or some charity tour where you could start whenever as long as your gear was on the truck my eight. Our mornings were much more compressed. There is typically an hour between the start of breakfast and the start of load. Breakfast could be as early as 5:30 but no later than 6:30. At exactly the posted load time, the trailers doors flew open, the pumps spilled out, and the sign-out table was set up. People scramble for pumps, luggage is loaded, tires are topped off at 120 psi, riding groups assemble and depart. Within 20 minutes, it’s all over. Point- this isn’t a leisurely get up, eat, have a second cup of coffee, and roll out deal. The ride is very compressed. The structure is necessary since four staff members in two vans have to provide support to 40 cyclists. The more compressed the departure, the fewer miles we’re spread over, and the better support we get. Still, for someone who is not a morning person, it sucks. I don’t usually hit my stride until the 20 or 30 mile mark. About 20 days into the trip, I started getting up 15 minutes earlier. That let me move slower and made my morning not so painful.

The mechanics of sag support are tremendously important to the reality of the ride. On really hot days, two water bottles between rest stops aren’t enough to enough to ensure hydration. I’d never had a problem with dehydration, who’d have thought it would be an issue now? At times, it was. Fortunately, the vans stop randomly and top off our water between SAG stops. There were parts of the route, which quite frankly, were too dangerous to ride. Going down I-80 in a construction zone with no shoulder wasn’t in my fantasy. The vans were there, and encouraged us to SAG, but gave us the choice. (Here is a reality not in the fantasy; when it was really dangerous, we were told to get in the van or be dropped from the ride.) (This may anger riders who are set on riding every inch, but safety should come first). Bikes break in ways they never break back home. For the first time in my life, my derailleur cable snapped. Not a biggie. A rider with a new Specialized bike developed cracks in both her wheels. That is a big deal. Several riders had to buy new wheel sets or have other major repairs done en route. Many bought new tires, new saddles, new gloves, new shorts.

The support team from the touring company is not something I gave much thought to before the ride, but they are the absolute key to a safe and happy passage. That being said, there isn’t much hand-holding. No one will, or can, ride the ride for you. There are forty adult riders and four support staff. When riders are injured, they are taken to the hospital and once every thing is under control, the staff leaves and returns to the ride. It seems cold, but if it were otherwise, there’d be three staff for 39 riders, or 2 for 38. : - ( (However, when lots of people caught the stomach bug, they were driven directly to the next hotel.) ((Whose fantasy includes sickness, constipation, sunburn, diarrhea, and saddle sores?)) Our bike mechanic was the best in the world, but for major bike issues (those requiring more parts than tubes, tires, or cables) we’re referred to a local bike shop. The riders are largely responsible for the well-being of both themselves and their bikes.

Riding down a two lane shaded road chatting with a cycling buddy, stopping to talk with the farmers, or riding off route to see the local attractions are all part of the fantasy of the ride. We did get to ride down those two lane shaded roads later in the trip. But most of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada were ridden on the shoulders of interstates. We had to concentrate on avoiding the rumble strips, broken glass, and shredded tires. It was challenging to ride with triple trailers doing 75 miles per hour just ten feet away from you. There was no single riding buddy. But there were always riders who were riding your speed that day. In a way, this was nice, I got to ride with Sue, Jose, Jeff, Steve, John, Amie, Audrey, CJ, Skip, Kip, Sarge, John, Don, Jay, Rick, and Gary at one time or another. (That’s more than a third of the riders.) But if you slowed down, you got dropped. If you wanted to take a picture or take a piss, it was “See you at the next SAG stop.” If you wanted to go off route, it was “Just let us know so that we won’t be keeping the SAG stop open for you.” In the end, on the road it was every man for himself. It was necessary. You have to ride your own ride. If a group stops every time a member wants to stop and there are 15 people in the group, the group never gets anywhere. There were also days when two or three people would agree to ride together with an implicit “no matter what.” This usually happens when we are tired, but allows for lots of stops to take pictures, have butt breaks, etc. Riding off-route for any period of time (it would have been nice to go to church on a Sunday or two) was really out of the question. The route directions are best interpreted by a group, and the SAG stops are opened for a fixed interval. If one took an hour off, it would be very easy to get lost and far off course.

In terms of me actually riding my bike, well, riding the bike is like riding the bike. I doubt that anyone who has ridden any distance has any fantasy about the actual riding. You get on, you pedal, you get off. On long days, I’d break the trip up into segments. Half way to lunch, ten miles to the sag, a third of the way through the day’s ride, or when thing got bad, I’d just count down the miles. (The later is counter productive since miles go by very slowly. I’d try not to look at the computer if the day was slow.)

The road bike, with it’s 20 gear combination (2 front, 10 back), is an incredibly efficient machine. I, however, am not so efficient, so most of the problems were with me. Dehydration was a constant issue. Although it wasn’t talked of openly, the state of one’s bowls was a topic of whispered conversation. Where you loose? Were you tight? Who had what medicine? Early in the trip, I had a severe constipation problem. Yuch. Later there were opposite issues. I came to hate my bib-style cycling short, which have suspender straps over the shoulder. I had to take off my jersey to let down my shorts. Somewhat related to this is the issue of food. Different people have different needs. I needed to stop for real food (not granola bars and an orange) after between four and five hours of riding. If I didn’t, I’d feel awful. I got past the point of asking if anyone wanted to stop for lunch, and would just announce that I was stopping within the next half hour if anyone wanted to join me. Someone usually did. Then there is that last whispered issue- sore butt, butt rash, and saddled sores. Mine had gone from bad to worrisome by day 10. Bad butts can end your ride, so there were circulating conversations of butt butter vs. assos vs. brave soldier vs. bag balm vs antibiotic cream. What saved my ass was switching out saddles to put on “The Seat®.” There were lots of crack about its unusual shape when I put it on the bike, but by the end of the ride, many people wanted to know where they could buy one. All my problems cleared up once I switched to “The Seat®”.

Flats were the most irritating, reoccurring mechanical problem of the trip. I had 14 of them, mostly in the beginning of the trip (after which I put in Goo tubes) or at the end, when my tires were chewed up. One tried not to get too upset by flats, they were a cost of doing business. In reality, flats are not that hard to fix, they are just aggravating. Two people tied for the most flats on the trip; 17. remarkably, one rider had none. The van had a box with a gross (144) of tubes. My biggest mechanical was a broken rear derailleur cable- it forced me to ride hills in my highest gear for ten miles. I had a new set of breaks put on after coming down the Rockies. It seemed like a prudent thing to do. My chain also wore out, but I’d packed a spare. I had to put on a third chain when I got home.

Small things that were never an issue at home became intolerable on the ride. My beloved Oakley sunglasses (a gift from my kids) didn’t wrap around enough and weren’t close enough to my face. Stuff got in my eyes and my contacts dried out. I got new sunglasses at Target. Those really cool metallic candy apple red water bottles that matched my bike so well? There were lousy, I couldn’t squeeze them to squirt water into my mouth. I threw them away and bought plastic water bottles at WalMart. My very expensive state of the art Garmand cycle computer became unreliable. I bought a bare bones "back up" computer for $20. It suited my needs. Things that were a big deal at home just didn’t matter on the road. I never listened to those CDs, wore all the clothes, or wrote any post cards that I’d brought from home.

The bottom line is that the reality of the ride is very different from the fantasy. If I’d known then what I know now, would I do the ride? Absolutely, and I’d probably enjoy it more.

If you are a rider, and you ever have the chance to ride cross country, do it. If you have any doubts, read the entries for July 18 and July 22.

May the wind be at your back,

Tom

I made it!

52 days, 3,925 miles, 14 states, California to Maine
So, here I am, at home, two days later. The scenes are fresh in my mind, but a small part of my heart will always be in the Atlantic surf where I dipped my wheel in a communal baptism with my friends, the riders. What can I say? Water changes us. The time and space between my rear wheel in the Pacific and my front wheel in the Atlantic changed me. It changed me for the better in ways that I've yet to digest. If you’ve been following the blog, you know that.

The last day started like yesterday. It was a grind. The sky was overcast. There was some light rain. The hills were still there. Then at the SAG stop, something changed. Usually the SAG is a pit stop at a gas station; fuel, water, pee, get back on the road. Today, everyone was hanging out, talking, not too anxious for the end of the day. At some point, though, we rode out together, the 20 of us who had been hanging out, resplendent in our matching red white and blue America By Bicycle cycling jerseys. We looked like a team. We were a team. People along the way clapped, honked, gave us thumbs up. We took an off-route excursion to see Exeter Academy, the first group “off-route” I can remember. Maybe it was just toadd miles to the experience. At the Rye Elementary School “holding area” our emotions bubbled up. There were hugs, kisses, pictures with friends, and heart-felt expressions of joy as we waited for the last riders to come in. It was “right” to have this happen now so that the final moments could be sheer joy and celebration. Sarge and his group rode in at 11:30, so there was half hour before we rode the last two miles. Fifteen minutes of that was devoted to the group picture; in addition to the “official” picture, there were 40 personal cameras lined up to get the shot. It took a while.

Since Sarge always cared for our “stragglers” and took upon himself to be “the last in” everyday, we chose him and Steve, Sarge’s constant companion, to lead us to the ocean. With a police escort, lights flashing with occasional blasts of the siren, we rode those last two miles, four abreast, almost exploding with joy, pride and emotion. A collective gasp rolled through the pelaton as we crested a small hill and saw the Atlantic for the first time. Applause and horns greeted us as we turned into Wallis Beach State Park, rode to the beach end of the parking lot, dismounted, and carried our bikes to the ocean. Imagine that line of cyclists carrying the bikes that had carried us so far. Then there was the dip, just the front wheel, just a kiss. No immersion for our rust-prone steeds. More hugs, more congratulations, lots of bike lifts. If I’d planned it, I’d have taken off my helmet and sunglasses, but I didn’t plan it, so I just handed off my bike and charged into the Atlantic. For me, it was a total immersion baptism. I frolicked in the waves. The water was warm. It was good to feel salt water on my skin that didn’t come from sweat. There was a bit of humility, too. As I emerged from the water, a little girl of perhaps 9 or 10 walked up to me and asked what all the commotion was about. "We just rode our bicycles from California," I answered proudly. Her reply, "Why did you do that?" There was no short sweet answer...

Somewhere in this mix were the people who love me, easy to spot by the custom green “pedaling professor” hats that Rosanne had made for the occasion. Mom just hugged and hugged with tears rolling down her face. She told me that she and Dad had prayed for my safety every day. Dad just beamed with pride. When I was a kid, he was the one who taught me how to take apart a bike and put it back together. I am so grateful to my brother Bob and my sister-in-law, Karen for bringing my folks up with them. Bob and I rode alot together when we were teenagers. Deb was my photographer and took dozens of pictures. Rosanne prepared an incredible picnic spread of cold cuts, deviled eggs, lots of cold beer, and a cake that had this blog’s featured map on it. Mike, Greg, and I toasted the ride. My cycling friends wandered over to this last congregating place and indulged in all of the above and a few last pictures.

Most of there riders stayed at the same hotel. Our support staff was out back, breaking down and boxing bikes. It was the last time to climb through the luggage pile and find mine and bring it back to my room.

I took my family and friends out to a great seafood dinner, and then climbed into bed. There were a few last fading good-byes at breakfast the next morning, and then off to our respective “real lives.” The epic journey is over. Or not. After all, it's not "all about the bike."

Day 51 (day 52 to follow), Manchester, NH, 82 miles

Today shouldn’t have been so hard. On our next to last day, shouldn’t we be allowed to coast into the finish? No such luck. The day was overcast at best, and soggy at its worst. There were lots of hills, and steep ones, 12-14% climbs. It felt like just another day of grinding it out. New England is beautiful, even in the rain and fog which render the mountains muted shades of green and give rise to mist off the ponds and lakes. For the West Coast folks, that was novelty enough to make up for the weather. For me, I’d seen it before, but then again, I’d also seen hills like these before; I scoffed at them. When all was said and done, it was probably one of the five hardest riding days of the trip.

But, as with that long climb up a mountain, the hovering at the crest, and then the very rapid finish on the other side, our trip was rapidly coming to an end. We could feel it. We had a banquet that night. Rosanne (who lives in NH) arrived with beer, cheese and crackers, and munchies. Before you knew it, we were having a pre-dinner reception (I guess you’d call it a cocktail hour if it were cocktails, but I’ve never heard it called a beer hour). She knew a lot of my friends from her visit in St. Joe’s. As is our custom during dinners on the rode, we introduced our guests. Some spouses had flown in, a few mom and dads. Mike and Greg, who work with me at Rutgers (and are also cyclists) drove up from NJ so they could ride in with me on the last day. It was just so neat to them meet my friends at dinner. Gary had his vineyard (yes, Gary had a vineyard, just a few thousand bottles a year for family and friends…) ship a case of wine to the hotel. It was far better than anything we’d drunk as we’d crossed the country. The dinner was a BBQ, the pulled pork was better than Kansas’, the chicken, sausage, corn bread and fixings were all most excellent, inarguably the best dinner of the trip (take that, Golden Corral!). The after dinner festivities were moving. Gerard, in addition to being our mechanic, was our videographer. He’d taken thousands of pictures as we moved across the county and put the very best together into a video that chronicled the journey. It brought home the reality; seeing that first dip of the wheels in the Pacific, the cresting of Monarch Pass, Lake Tahoe, cowboys, gorges, steer, happy faces, flats, sweaty faces, the SAG wagon, goofy faces, laundry hanging by the pool, faces that grimaced with effort, arm-in-arm cyclists, more faces, cyclists riding down the highway, cyclists riding off into the sunset…. Had we really done all this? Indeed. Then the most moving part, each rider had the chance to say a few words about the trip. Most of those words were about friendship, tributes to fellow riders, gratitude to our tour guides, appreciation to friends and families back home, attempts to articulate a fifty two day journey with words that did not exist. An underlying theme was what a remarkable group of ordinary people we are. And not remarkable because we could ride long distances on two wheels. What was remarkable, dare I say, “grace-full” was that forty people who had never met before could endure illness, heat, rain, boredom, bad food, flat tires, and dehydration; what we could share mountain summits, deep gorges, magnificent desert parks, and pie, lots of pie. We could share the very hard, the mundane, the very beautiful, and that every one loved each other. I do not say that lightly. Imagine (a word I used a lot early in the blog) living in close quarters with 40 strangers for 52 days under very physically and mentally challenging conditions, and never once, was there a public argument, never once a word said in anger, never once a raised voice. Never once. It sounds trite, but the 40 people who were strangers in San Francisco are the very best of friends in New Hampshire. That, my friends, is Grace.

Fee Advisory for Wallis Beach

My brother Bob has looked up the beach on the internet and found that there is a parking fee of $15 per car or $20 per van. It might be possible to park nearby and walk on, but I've never been there and really don't know. There is no fee to enter riding a bicycle. ; - )

2 Riding Days to Go, July 20, 80 miles, Brattleboro, VT, Day 50

It felt like coming home as I crossed the Vermont border in the cool misty morning air. Not that I’ve ever lived in Vermont, but I’ve lived in New England and would go back to Boston in a minute. My graduate student days at MIT afforded lots of opportunities to vacation in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. I love New England. My CharityTrek rides of ’07 and ’05 meandered along some of these same roads and saw some of the same sights as I have on this ride. Those are good memories too.

I enjoyed the reactions of my fellow riders who came from out West. The New England scenery was as foreign and beautiful to them as the Nevada desert or Utah salt flats were for me. They were very concerned about the hills in New England, despite my assurances that they are nothing like the Rockies. By the end of the day, they agreed. But Gerard had a different theory; the four weeks of cycling we’ve done since the Rockies have made us much stronger. It’s probably a combination of both.

The day started off in light rain, which stopped by SAG stop 1. The sky and forests remained misty, creating the muted palette of greens and gray-green as the hills rolled into the distance. That’s not something a camera can catch. The route was only 75 miles, so we had time to stop and be tourists. The little town of Bennington seemed to have no reason to exist except as a tourist trap, a very chic tourist trap with $10 sandwiches and cute attractions like a huge bed filled with flowers. It was, you guessed it, a “flower bed.” Near it stood a ten foot chair- a “lawn chair.” I’d never seen environmental puns before. Most of us shared those $10 sandwiched to get two five dollar half-sandwiches. I bought a three dollar maple walnut ice cream cone and still came out two dollars ahead of the game. My mom would be proud. Bennington occupied a mile stretch of Vt Route 9, where the traffic came from, or where it went is a mystery, the rest of Rt 9 was little trafficked. I wasn’t thrill when a gazillion foot long motor home lopped over the bicycle lane line. My guess is that the driver wasn’t too thrilled that someone was using the bicycle lane. I stood my ground. Between Bennington and Brattleboro was a covered bridge, allegedly from 1890, but it was probably “modernized.” I’ve never seen an authentic covered bridge with a fully separated pedestrian walkway.

Brattleboro was also full of craft shops, clothing stores with cute names and cafes, but there are enough real people living here to support three bicycle shops. Ok, there must be a lot of real people who are in good shape and have a lot of money. (They were high end bike shops.) I stopped in one of those artsy “walk down” coffee shops and ordered a medium cup of the strongest stuff they had. The barista respected me for that and gave me a cup of Joe that dried my socks. After going around one of New England’s trade mark rotaries (an advanced cycling skill), it was into the Red Roof Inn. There were some issues getting my room, but they had a big tub of chilled powered drinks, so it was ok. It takes so little to make things right for me.

In addition to the pictures already mentioned, I’m posting a picture of “the board” by which we live and breathe, and the map posted below the board. Every day, the black line has moved a little bit. (Double click to read its message.)

How rapidly the ride will be over is just starting to hit me. Tomorrow night, we’ll have a special dinner and some festivities to mark the end of the ride. The day after, we’ll ride out early in the morning, hit the beach between 12 and 12:30, and it will be all over. I’m looking forward to having my birth family and some friends at the finish. Despite my repeated incantations of, “When I’m done, I’m done.” I’ll probably take the post-ride ride into Maine. It’s only another three miles, and “California to Maine” has a better ring to it than “California to New Hampshire.”

Saturday July 19, Day 49, Lantham, NY, 3 riding days left!!

Today was another easy short day- 77 miles. It was hot and humid, but there weren't too many hills, there was interesting historical architecture, and we rode bike paths that were smooth and shaded along the Mohawk River. I saw some functioning locks along the river. I've always associated locks with canals, but they are used widely here to take maritime traffic around falls or rapids. SAG stop #2 was at Jumping Jack's, similar to Robinson's of a few days back or Hot Dog Johny's on the route to the Delaware Water Gap. About half the group congregated there. I indulged having fried clams on a hot dog bun and a strawberry shake. The fried clams were exceptionally good. I got to the Holiday Inn Express at about 1:30, ahead of the luggage trailer! But my room wasn't ready til 2:30. That was ok. Where was I going to go?

Our conversations have turned to post-ride plans, the transport of bikes back home, and the mechanics of the last day. Everyone is very excited that there are only three riding days left ot go.

Lantham is a suburb of Albany.

Day 48, Tuesday July 18, Little Falls, NY, 82 miles

I woke up ahead of the alarm clock feeling greet and had two flats before I ended the first mile of the ride. It didn’t matter. Other than that, there was nothing unusual about today’s ride. The falls at Little Falls are little (see picture).

My daily posts have been about the events of the day, but with four riding days left, I’ve decided to offer up a meta-analysis of the experience. It’s a little sappy, but bear with me, I’ve earned it.

The Cross Country Challenge to Combat Hunger - A Retrospective

The title of Lance Armstrong’s first book is, “It’s All About the Bike.” Andy, our tour leader, says, “It’s all about what you learn when you’re on the bike.” Andy is right. So here are some of the things I’ve learned.

There is a fundamental goodness about the ordinary people of middle America. I didn’t “get” this until I spent several weeks riding through Mayberrys with main streets decked out in red white and blue bunting. People are more than willing to go out of their way to help a stranger. I’m talking about the maids in the hotels who knocked themselves out to get our rooms ready, even though we arrived three hours before check-in. There were hotel staff who greeted us with cold bottled water, fruit and bike washing supplies. Lots of folks let us use their bathrooms and chatted with us “nonpaying” customers. There were people who opened early or stayed late for us. People in places like Donner Pass, the Sod House, and the Bicycle Museum who told us their stories and listened to mine.

I learned about humility, not the pre-ride self-effacing humility that said, “Anyone can do this.” Not everyone can. I’m talking about being humble before the road, knowing and accepting that the road is bigger than you, and remembering that fact every day from Day 1 to Day 52. To forget that is the fast track to a crash. Before the ride, I thought that I was as well-trained as anyone can be. There were many riders who were leaner and faster than I was. That was humbling. I was as well trained as I could be. I was also ok with being in the middle of the “moderate speed” riders. The fast group was blindingly fast. But by the middle of the ride, I slipped to the rear of the middle. For a few days I felt badly about that. But then I accepted my place in the pelaton with humility. I was riding as well as I could ride, and it was with an elite group of riders. Towards the end of the ride, I was back in the middle. That was ok too. I gained the humility needed to ask for and accept help. That was hard for me. Frequently, help was offered like a gift. It’s bad karma to refuse a gift. There was humility about my time on earth. Water erodes rock at the rate of one inch per hundred years The Arkansas River lay 12,000 inches below the rim of the Royal Gorge. When water meets rock, water always wins.

I learned about generosity. This lesson was taught by donors to Elijah’s Promise before the ride even began. People I know were generous beyond anyone’s expectations. People I didn’t know, or knew only peripherally gave. People who didn’t have much to give were generous. I’ve come to realize what a generous donation mean to someone raising funds for a nonprofit. Generosity on the ride began on Day 1, when Gary picked up lunch for my group of riders. He said it wasn’t a big deal, we’d all have a chance to buy lunch during the next 50 days. I picked up the lunch tab a few time. It wasn’t a big deal, but it made the other riders feel special and it made me feel special too. Then there were small acts of kindness on the road every day; giving away a tube, “no charge” for the tire inflation canister, waiting for someone to use a bush or take picture, sharing degreaser and tools at the bike washing parties, folding someone’s jerseys when they came out of the drier.

Finally, I learned about gratitude. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to ride. Being a professor is the best job in the world. It allows me to do extra-ordinary things, both on and off campus.

I’m grateful to every rider who rode with me, ate with me, bunked with me, changed my tire, trusted me to change their tire, sat with me at a SAG stop, listened to my stories, shared their stories, shared jokes in the Laundromat, or who stood with me in awe as we crested a summit and saw a new world unfold before us.

I’m grateful for our staff; for Andy’s Buddha nature, he was unflappable and always reassuring. Andy could get up at the end of the day and tell us, “Well, it rained all day, the head winds sure made going up those mountains a challenge, and who’d have thought that it would turn to snow? Did you ever thing you could ride through that? Did you ever imagine you were that strong? Wasn’t that a great day? And we’d all applaud and repeat what a great day it had been. When I got lost and rolled into the SAG stop late, I apologized about having been lost. “Well,” Andy said, “You had to be somewhere.” One couldn’t ask for a better mechanic, rider, or room mate than Gerard. He had this sixth sense for mechanical problems and magically appeared whenever there was a flat. He took tons of pictures; over the head, no hands as he rode up a pace line, or the descent from Donner Pass with his camera zip-tied to his helmet. Michelle, as I said before, was the mother figure, manning the rest stops, reminding us to check the lost and found, doing the head counts, handling the mechanics of the ride. Christine always smiled and encouraged as she rode the route, interviewed folks for the ABB blog, and drove the van.

I am so grateful to my family and friends for their support and encouragement. The support of my children touched me deeply. Matt had to become much more independent and responsible in my absence. My congregation at Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church got behind their “Pedaling Professor” in a way I could never image.

There is, of course, much much more to be grateful for, and many many more people who supported me on this epic ride.

Whatever the day, or the mile, I was never alone on this ride. I thank you all for that.

Day 47, July 17, 69 miles, Liverpool, NY

Today was much better than yesterday. Much better.

I went to bed at 9 last night and woke up at six feeling refreshed and ready to go. My legs were strong when I hit the road. Since we only had 69 miles to ride, we could take it easy and stop to see the sights and attractions; the kind of day that populates the fantasy of cycling across the country.

The first stop was a Lake Geneva, another one of the finger lakes. The sun sparkled on the water to the East, and the mountains in the West were reflected in its surface. I picked up a trail that went along the lake but still kept Route 5 in sight. (Most of the day we followed route 20E/5E, which made navigating pretty easy.)

The birthplace of the Woman’s Suffragette Movement is in Seneca Falls, right on the route. The women in the group flew right by the National Parks Service monument and museum. The statue of Harriet Tubman was my highlight. Otherwise, it wasn’t that exciting; the museum was just a lot of stuff without a coherent story to go with it. If I hadn’t stopped, I would have always wondered. Beside, I was back on the road in 15 minutes. The landscape was now low rolling mid-size dairy farms, or low acreage corn. There was some gentle rain at the 20 mile mark that lasted for about 45 minutes. It wasn’t a big deal, but I’ll have to wash my bike.

Lunch was at Nick’s, a new pizza/sandwich place in Camillus. The special was steak sandwich with fries, it was very special. Nick was impressed with what we were doing and came out from behind the counter to talk. He called his son out from the kitchen and made sure that we were well taken care of.

The last stop of the day was the Erie Canal Park and Museum. The Delaware and Raritan Canal in NJ is in much better shape, probably because its whole length is a state park. The Erie is pretty much the responsibility of whatever town it is in. In many places it’s stagnant and overgrown. The tow path ranges from rough dirt to cinder. We were warned not to hop onto it; it’s not made for bikes like ours. Still, the museum was quite nice. It was a reproduction of a store that stood at that site and had some outbuildings and canal implements. I learned that the Erie Canal ran from Albany to Buffalo and had nothing to do with Lake Erie. The woman who opened up the museum reminded me of Carl, or the guy at the Sod House; elderly, full of knowledge, and willing to talk to you all day if you let them. They are something of a national treasure. I hope that their knowledge doesn’t die with them. It seems that every small town and burg has its historical museum. That’s kind of cool too. There will never be one in North Brunswick.

That’s about it for the day. Our Super8 is in Liverpool, a suburb of Syracuse. The staff had water, Propel, and fruit for us and a hose and towels for our bikes. Not a bad end to a good day.

Day 46. 103 miles, Canandaigua, NY

Not every day can be the best day of the ride. Today wasn’t. So here, in the best Fox News tradition is a “fair and balanced” account of the day.

Good things:

About seven miles into the ride, we went a few miles off route to see the American Museum of Bicycling. It’s privately (and passionately) owned by Carl and is arguably the biggest collection of bicycles in the US, if not the world. Carl came in, opened early, and gave us an hour long tour tracing the history of the bicycle and it’s impact on American society. Did you know that Henry Ford worked on an assembly line in a bike factory before he “invented” the mechanized assembly line? According to Carl, the bicycle is responsible for women’s liberation (because their long skirts gave way to clothes that were more liberating and bicycle friendly, as well as the tandem, that made it impossible for a chaperone to tag along.) Many bicycle innovations migrated to cars: suspension, rubber tires, air filled tires, direct drive transmission, even the AAA was patterned after the League of American Bicyclists. Then of course there were those bicycle mechanic Wright Brothers, who made the planes that ultimately made us able to go to the moon. So every good thing can be linked back to the bicycle.

I completed my 14^th and last century of the trip.

Not so good things:

I missed the turn to 354 East, causing a nine mile off route excursion. At least it contributed the extra miles I need for the century.

It rained on me several times, not for long, but long enough to get me squishy. It’s better to just get caught in the rain and stay there. When the rain comes and goes, there’s the anticipation, the soaking and the drying out, repeatedly.

It hailed on me, hail stones twice the size of peanut M & Ms. I took shelter in a barn for a few minutes.

After finally recovering from the missed turn and catching up to the rear of the ride, I had a flat and fell behind for the rest of the day.

Your moment of Zen.
When the sun is on your right, and the traffic is on your left, the rain spray plume generated by every passing vehicle makes its own rainbow.

Day 45, Hamburg, NY, 81 miles

It was a perfect route for the directionally-challenged; go four blocks from the hotel, turn right, and follow Rt 5 (aka Lakeview Drive) for 57 miles. Lake Erie wasn’t right off the drive, but sat back a hundred yards or two, playing hide and seek with us through vineyards, undeveloped woods, and lake-front homes with grassy yards that stretched from the road’s shoulder to the lakes very edge. The road surface was in good condition, the weather cool, and the fields of grapes a refreshing change from all of the corn and soy we’ve been seeing. There was the obligatory stop for the photo at the state line. I’m running out of new poses, I use them to tell o one state from another. But I have five days in New York to think of something new. We stopped in Barcelona at the Daniel Reed Memorial Pier, which featured a stone lighthouse and for reasons unbeknownst to me, what looked like a large beached pirates’ ship. We had our first SAG stop in Dunkirk’s Memorial Park. It has a nice view of the lake, a marina, and a coal-fired electrical generating plant which got its coal by barge on Lake Erie. Sue and I got flats at the same time, and as usual, the ABB van pulled up before I could get the front wheel off the bike. It was lucky for me, because I forgot to put the tubes I bought yesterday in my bike bag. The van has a case of tubes. So I changed my tire, Christin changed Sue’s and we were off again to the city of Hamburg and a new Comfort Inn that is pretty nice.

Day 44, 8 days to go. Erie, PA, Rest Day, (22 miles)

You might envision me on “rest day” as lounging by a pool with a gin and tonic in hand reading a trashy beach novel about the search for the evil scientist who genetically engineered Cherioos to remove the fiber and doom the next generation to a life of constipation. It’s not like that. There is some rest. I sleep until 8:30 and then go downstairs for a leisurely breakfast. It is sooooooo nice to have breakfast without the pressure of load and road. I also enjoyed a few cups of coffee that, due to its diuretic (look it up) properties, I can’t drink on riding days. Then it’s bike washing time, just like the last rest day. But this time there is a twist, I have a flat. Yes, the irritating hotel-flat. But it’s on a rest day, doesn’t delay the start of the day’s ride, and the puncture site is readily found. You’ll remember that I had a flat yesterday and found the puncture, but apparently the tire had that very rare double puncture flat. So rare that when you find the first puncture, you don’t look for the second. So I threw that tube away, changed it and was ready to go on my excursion.

Shock, chagrin, outrage! “Dollar General” does not have the same deal as “The Dollar Store.” In Dollar General, things are generally a dollar, but can be $1.50 or even $20! I left in a fit of indignation and bought my new flip-flops at Rite Aid. (During the campaign, we’ll have to choose between Obama flip-flops and McCain as flip-flops, but fortunately I was still able to buy the pre-election model). Then I made the obligatory trip to the bike shop, where I bought, guess what? More inner tubes. I needed a pair of bicycle gloves; I wore out one pair worn and lost another pair (well actually I lost one glove, but that has the same effect).

Then it was vacation time. I rode out to Presque Isle State Park (see picture). It’s a peninsula that arcs out for 7 miles to define Erie’s bay. There’s a lovely, mostly shady, bike path that hugs the shore. It was populated by recreational cyclists and runners. On one side of the park, the City of Erie lays across the bay. On the other side of the park, Lake Erie stretches out beyond the horizon. For the record, I can identify the five Great Lakes: Huron, Superior, Ontario, Michigan, and the other one. The redeveloped water front was typical of many cities’ water assets. There was a striking Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center right on the water, a Bicentennial Tower with panoramic views of Presque and downtown (or should I say “rundown” since the redevelopment didn’t extend a block beyond the Sheraton.) The Erie Maritime Museum was the other tourist magnet, but didn’t attract me. They had a big wall around the restored ship “Niagara” so that I couldn’t even see it without paying admission. As a matter of principle, I didn’t. All of that took two hours. Oh, yes, I know, “the Other One" is Lake Erie. : - )


Technical Note: The video may take a long time to down-load. If you have a dial-up connection (Dad), don't even try. Maximize the image or you won't see much.

How far is that?

If you've missed Chris' comment,
100,000 vertical feet of climb = 0.0079% of the way to the moon.
Thanks, Chris.

Day 43, 9 to go, 100 miles, Erie, PA

Today's Ride:
Four centuries in four days, back to back! Not many people get to (or can) do that.

There was a lot packed into this day. I rode surprisingly strong, even when it started to rain. It rained (more than a drizzle, less than a down pour) for the first 50 miles (about 3 hours). Fortunately, I bought a new pair of rain pants for the trip. The rain gave me a chance to use them. I'mglad that I didn't buy them for nothing. When it rains, your gloves get squishy and your feet get soppy, but that’s part of the charm of riding in the rain. A “rooster tail” of water sprays off the rear wheel of the bike in front of me, so I have to ride 15 back or three feet to either side of center. There was a covered bridge built in 1873 about 50 yards off the route. A wiser person might have seen in a covered bridge the opportunity to come out of the rain, but I was wet already, so what good would that do? Fortunately, the sun broke out just before SAG stop 2, conveniently at Richardson’s Ice Cream Stand. Richardson’s had the air of an old fashioned A & W stand, and in fact featured root beer. We all had root beer floats, sometime using them to wash down hamburgers or hot dogs. It was a cool place to hang out and be part of small town America.

About a mile past the sag, I entered Pennsylvania; Skip took the obligatory picture by the sign. Riding into Erie was a little tricky. When I got a flat and no cyclists passes for twenty minutes, I deduced that I missed a turn. That was a valid insight, so I back tracked and continued on. After that, I had to ask for directions three times. But then I saw Leslie and Virginia go zipping by on their tandem, so I just followed them in. My cyclo-computer showed 99.3 miles when I arrived at the hotel, so I rode half a mile past and then back to complete the century. (Yes, I know that most people would have rounded the 99.3 miles up to 100, but I wanted my four centuries in four days to be above reproach.)

Tomorrow is a rest day! The next rest will be for the rest of my life. : - ) I intend to rest and maybe take in a museum or something. Erie looks like a substantial city that should have something (but not too much) to do.

Day 42, 10 to go, 100 miles, Youngstown, OH

I neglected to mention that yesterday we passed the 3,000 mile mark. Our resident number cruncher revealed that, as of today, we’ve climbed 100,000 feet. That’s a number that’s hard for me to comprehend.

In spite of it all, today was a pretty good day. When I started, my legs felt exactly the same as they felt when I stopped yesterday, which is to say, not good. But after 15-20 miles, they came back to life. It was hot and humid, but there were a lot of trees shading the road and little traffic.

Do you remember my discourse about detours? There’s a kind I’ve never encountered before - the kind with a couple of pissed off construction workers saying, “You can’t go any further. Anyone who crosses a construction barrier in the state of Ohio is subject to arrest.” Oh well, the detour wasn’t that bad.

I hit the little town of Canal Fulton at mile 25. The town was established in 1826 to support the trade on the newly constructed Ohio and Erie Canal. I was drawn off route by the signs of a festival and discovered a period encampment and a canal barge. (See photo). Shortly after that, there was another farm with the “bioterrorist warning sign.” It didn’t make me feel any safer.

At mile 66, my rear derailleur cable broke. As a result, my bike was stuck in high (the hardest) gear. It was only ten miles to the second SAG stop, so I just gutted it out. One hill was just too steep to finish in high gear, so I walked the last twenty feet. I called ahead to the SAG stop, so when I got there, Gerard, super bicycle repairman, was only five miles out. I hung out, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and had some ice cream while I waited. The hardest part of the repair for Gerard was finding a new cable in the luggage trailer. After that, it was fixed in 7.35 minutes.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. I reached the hotel with 96 miles on my cyclo-computer, so of course had to ride two miles past the hotel and two miles back to make it my third centuray in three days.

Tomorrow I get to do it all again, probably (80% chance) in the rain. Whatever….

Day 41, 11 days to go, 103 miles, Wooster, OH

Good news first: You might remember that on day 22 Bob took a spill, hit his head and ended up in the hospital. Well, Bob lives in Wooster and entered out dining room to a big round of applause. Everyone was very happy to see him and that he’s doing so well. Rob, who broke his collar bone on Day 35 checked in to let us know that they’d put in a titanium plate and he is doing fine. I guess now he’ll have to get a titanium bicycle.


A few specifics about the day: 103 miles, 15.0 mph, 7,800 calories. Although the weather was generally cool, the road was very hot. Some roads are paved by dropping crushed stone on tar. Where there’s bare tar, it grabs your wheels like one of those ghosts in the movies who reach out and try to drag you down to boogey man hell. After the tar grabs your wheel, it grabs the next bit of crushed stone it sees, so that your tire looks like a hot fudge sundae sprinkled with peanuts. (I have to stop and clean them off the tire.) Going through macadam is simpler, it’s like going through quicksand. My tires have literally sunk into macadam patches in the road. The solution to this is just to avoid macadam.


We’ve encountered several “road closeds,” “bridge outs” and simple “detours” over the last forty one days. Some are on our direction sheets (“Turn left to gate that says, “Road closed” walk around gate, ride 1.4 miles til end. Slide bike under wire fence, turn left and continue.” Or “Follow road until concrete barrier “road closed,” dismount, carry bike over barrier, cross I-70W, cross I-70E, turn left and continue on shoulder of I-70E.” Then there are the unmarked, unanticipated closings like the one shown in the picture. The question in my mind is always, “How closed is it?” “Is it closed to me?” and “How far out of my way will I have to go if it is really, really, closed. Today the road was moderately closed; the left lane had fallen into the river. The right lane looked strong enough to hold me and my bike, so it wasn’t closed to me. I didn’t have to go out of my way.

“Mr. Tomato Head” lives in a small café in Frederictown (where their “small” sub is nine inches long). I guess with the outbreak of tomatoe-associated salmonellosis and the FDA warnings against tomatoe consumption, the cafe had to figure out creative things to do with their tomatoes. How humiliating, Mr. T. would surely be happier on a sub.

After dinner I took a little walk to get some exercise and was drawn to the town square by the sound of gospel barbershop quartet. It was the 11 th Annual Wooster Hymn Sing. The quality of the music was excellent, and not having been in church for 40 days, it gave me some spiritual solace. I didn’t agree with the theology that was preached between hymns, but the hymns and the music rang true.

Tomorrow’s ride will be very similar to today’s but a few miles shorter. Then it will be 10 days to go.

The whine: Today is day 41, there are 11 more days to go. I just have to gut it out and get through them. The ride is hard now. There is no more novelty to it. The scenery is beautiful but repetitive. There’s not much banter among the riders. The riders are all talked out. We know each other’s life story, views on religion and politics and favorite movies and books. So we're just grinding out the miles. It's important, but difficult, to remain physically and mentally focused. I can’t let up until the front wheel of my bike is in the Atlantic. I can do it.

A shout out for Elijah's Promise

Hi, Tom, we would so appreciate a shout out in the blog. Are all invited to your party (the more the merrier) and if folks can RSVP that would be great :)

Details are:
Who: All of Tom's friends, family and colleagues
What: A Victory Celebration featuring our "Around the Country" appetizers and desserts prepared by the Promise Jobs Culinary School students
Where: 211 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick
When: Thursday, July 31 from 6 pm to 8 pm
Please RSVP if you will be attending to elijahs.promise@yahoo.com or (732) 545-9002 ext 126

Thanks,
Michelle

Note from Tom: In addition to good food, good friends, and good karma, the party will allow you to see first hand the workings of the culinary school. If you've been invited, please RSVP. If you haven't gotten an invitation, consider yourself invited. It will be a lot of fun.

Day 40, Marysville, OH, 105 miles

Day 40? That means that there are only twelve days left. It seems unbelieveable that I've been riding so long. From the blog, you know that it's been a true once-in-a-life-time experience, but I, like most of the other riders, am ready to go back to my normal life. I wonder what that will be like....

Today was another day in bicyling paradise. The farms in Ohio are smaller family farms with farm houses right out of a Norman Rockwall painting. The scenery is varried; fields, forests, small towns. The route was mostly flat, but with enough hills thrown in to keep me honest. At lunch time, we found a nice cafe whose owner happened to be the mayor. So we had a nice talk about life in small town America. The mayor made me a great frozen mocha late; it provided both the sugar and caffeine required for the next 50 miles. We're staying in a Super 8 hotel which is much nicer than I extected, and ate at the Bob Evans down the street, which was exactly what I expected.

Today's photogallery: 1. Crossing the state line. 2. Sue, who I was riding with most of the day, was ahead of me when the train crossing bells started to ring. "I think we can make it, Tom." she yelled, but I'd already slowed down, so I stopped. It turned out to be a very long train. I was very bored waiting for it to finish. I should have listened to Sue. 3. A picture of by buddies waiting to order at the cafe. 4. YES, A NEW VIDEO. This one is of my legs doing about 100 rpm, my normal cadance.

Now, please conduct the following thought experiment and then follow my instructions:

a.) place your imaginary camera with its imaginary viewfinder up to your eye.

b.) Put your finger (the real one, not the imaginary one) on the imaginary shutter button on the top of your imaginary camera.

c.) (this is the key part) slowly let your arm arc down as if you were taking an imaginary picture of your real knee.

What position is the imaginary camera in?

If you've done the experiment properly, the imaginary camera is upside down.

That is exactly the position my real camera was in when I took the video. Thus, the video image is upside down and not nearly as impressive as when it is right side up. Now I imagine that there is some computer software out there that would allow someone really good with computers to flip the video image 180 degrees. But I'm not that guy. There are several "work around" solutions. If you are using a lap top like I am, you can just turn it upside down -the the image will be right side up. If you are using a desk top computer, you can very carefully turn the monitor upside down. (Ask a grown up for help). Or, you can stand on your head when you watch it. Now that I think of it, all of this is a lot of work to watch ten seconds of my legs spinning. Maybe you should just imagine it.... Oh, if you've very observant, that scrape on my leg is from a table, not a fall.

Tomorrow will be a 104 mile day with an elevation gain of 3,000 feet. I'll be going back to Bob Evans for breakfast, rather than availing myself of Conti at the hotel. Every day the cue sheet gives us details on breakfast and dinner. Conti is almost always a breakfast choice. So for 40 days I've been trying to figure out who this Conti guy is, or how Conti Cateerers manages to follow the route, or what. Duh.... "Conti" breakfast is "contenental". Bad case of bike brain.

Day 39, 73 miles, Richmond, IN

It was what we call a short 73 miles. That is, the route was pretty flat, the wind was at our back, and it was all on one road. I left Indianapolis at 7:30 a.m. and was in Richmond by 1, and that was with stops and lunch. I felt particularly good about leading a pace line through a tricky stretch of shoulderless construction zone. I was careful but confident. That's a big deal to me because I don't usually get out front in a pace line. But with the wind at my back, today was my day.

We got in so early that I was able to take a nap, read a book, shop at WalMart and get a haircut. There was a hairstylist at WalMart, but I couldn't bring myself to go there. So I had it cut at the mall.

The America by Bicycle trailer is an iconic part of the trip. It can be stopped by the side of the road with Michelle reminding us to take on more water. It's the big bill board for a SAG stop- that means fresh water, fruit, rice kryspy bars, oreos, granola bars, and if we're lucky, a potty. So when I crest a hill and see the trailer in the distance, I get very happy. The trailer also carries all of our luggage. When we "load," it's into that trailer. It also has tires, tubes, pumps and other important bike stuff. At the end of the day, there are usually lots of hotels near the intersection, so when I see the trailer in front of a hotel, I know that it's my hotel. The ABB trailer has become an important part of my life.

In contrast to the bleak dried out and about to blow away small towns of Kansas and Missouri, the small towns in Illinois and Indiana are attractive and harken back to another time. Real main streets with real people with real houses that are not built using cookie cutters by Hogmainian. When I ride through a small town with its cute little college, I fantasize about what it might be like to live that kind of life.

Final notes on Indianapolis

This has been the best rest day since the beginning of the trip. Perhaps because I actually got two rest days, but also because of the classy suite hotel, its in town location, and the fact that Indianapolis is such a neat town. This afternoon I felt like I was on vacation!

It's thundering and lightening now. Better now than in the morning. The next several days will be rough riding with mileages of 73, 105, 104, 91, and 96 miles. Then we get a rest day in Erie, PA. The next rest after that is the end of the trip!