Map and Pics: Click Here for Map and Pics.
3872 Miles, 120305 feet of climb , Days 1-52,
CA, NV, UT, CO, KS, MO, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, VT, NH and ME
CA, NV, UT, CO, KS, MO, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, VT, NH and ME
Questions and Answers about the Cross Country Challenge.
When I got home there were several questions that I
answered several times in several places. All the questions were genuine and
made me feel like they were with me on the trip in spirit.
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| Arrival home at Huntsville Airport |
A: She did not like the daily suspense and feared at any
moment she was going to have to jump in a plane to find me in some remote
hospital beyond the edge of civilization. We talked twice daily at least, and
heaven help the wayward husband if he forgot to text her in the evening that I
had arrived safely at the hotel. She was overworked taking on such man-tasks as
getting the yard mowed, pest control, and knocking down misbehaving smoke
detectors from the wall with the business end of a broom (and then stomping on
it until it stopped beeping).
Q: What was the silliest moment of the trip?
A: Laughing ourselves senseless on the ascent to Mount
Rose, NV. I don’t even remember the joke, but I do remember being laid out
along side of the road just below the summit and unable to breathe from
laughing so hard. The air was thin and did not support our chuckling!
Q: What hurt the most?
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| Soaking sunburnt hands in ice. |
A: My wrists. The speeds at which we rode required more
than a nominal cruising weight on the front wheel, and my nervousness kept my
arm and shoulder muscles tight. I constantly fought persistent numbness in my
hands. The same with my toes – I exerted all the weight against the instep of
my feet. For the expected answer, well no, my behind was already calloused by
the 1000 miles of cycling before I arrived in San Francisco. Yes, my knees hurt
too, but that was to be expected. That pain was already a fact of life and
blocked out of my thinking for the most part. I once got sunburnt on the back
of my knees from riding in the late afternoon sun in Nevada. The irritation
lasted for days. My riding buddies mentioned if I would pedal faster I wouldn’t
be out in the afternoon sun.
Q: What was the worst part of the trip?
A: The days where the lodging was inadequate, even
dangerous. And then there were the four days without laundry facilities. That really
stunk, literally. I think the trip planners will do a better job next year. To
be fair, there is no way for ride organizers to know about broken washers and
dryers, but could have provided shuttle service to Laundromats.
Q: What was the best?
A: The people, the ride, the land, and the hand of the
master Choreographer.
Q: What was the hardest thing to overcome?
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| Laughing ourselves silly at 7,777 feet Mount Rose Summit, NV with Sparks 4000 ft below us |
A: Mild vertigo. Keeping balance was a constant
companion, especially when I dismounted my bicycle. I found this challenge
exacerbated at higher elevations. Fixing my eyes on a horizon and taking
pictures did help. Looking down at the road through my trifocals gave to me a
new and special meaning to the word 'spin'. My Safety Rule #1 of the ride:
Never, never, never look back through my legs to see what gear I was using.
Part of the numbness in my hands was because I held on so tight.
Q: What was the most cherished?
A: My support team at home, church, and work. Wow.
Q: What day was the most fun?
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| Watch out! They Spit! |
A: Flat penny day! Not only did my single brother John
drive down from Chicago on Day 36 to visit, but I spent much of the rest of the
day with Claire riding from Champaign, IL into Crawfordsville, IN. Everything
seemed comical (like spitting llamas and ‘helmet hair’) and I spent much of the
bike ride laughing at funny stories with my presumed sister-in-law. (The rumor started that John was Claire’s husband
and he didn’t even know it!) As a bonus
we crossed our last time zone boundary – we were now officially in the East!
Q: What was it like to dip your tire in the Atlantic?
A: Strangely individual in nature, instead of as a team.
I can’t believe I raised my bike over my head as if I was a champion of
something. No, this wasn’t the highlight; it was only one of the way-stops along
the route. This may sound weird, but after our moment in the water we were
anxious to leave the beach and resume our ride together again. We had another
state line to cross; Maine was only eight miles away. Unwritten, the feelings
of ‘us’ was so much more coveted than any feelings of ‘me’, a truth that had
been sneaking up on us for days. We all (I suspect every last one of us) wanted
this journey to last longer. We had been in the crucible and become bonded.
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| A church wearing a funny hat |
Q: What was the most disappointing thing?
A: My timidity in sharing my faith. Second, my lack of
faithfulness to spiritual disciplines such as daily study of the Scriptures.
The best I could do was copy down a psalm in the morning and carry it with me
during the ride. (By evening I was carrying a soggy piece of ink smudged paper.)
Q: What was the most surprising thing?
A: I finished.
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| Bill, my roommate |
A: Most riders paid the premium price not to have
roommates, which surprised me. Then I found out why. Many bikers were veterans
of such adventures, and it only takes one bad roommate to cure a person forever
of risking roommate-from-hellatosis. I hope I was as good of a roommate for
Bill as he was for me, but that was not possible. To put it plainly, Bill was a
Godsend. Cooperation was the hallmark of our relationship.
Q: When did you find time to blog?
A: Every evening we were too exhausted to do anything else. Bill and I in the quiet of the room wrote each evening. This is the first time either of us tried to blog, and both handicapped. He did his on an iPad one finger at a time, and I had an old browser that only accepted HTML coded entries. Before shutting down for the night, we tested our text out on each other to make sure what we wrote was lucid and as close to grammatically correct as two tired guys could come up with. I was surprised that my blog had any repeat readers. I am also grateful for the advice I got: “If we want to know what Donner Pass looks like, we can ‘Google-Earth’ it. Tell us who you met and what you learned. We like good ‘people’ stories.” I learned from that advice. There may be beauty in the scenery, wisdom in the wind, but goodness resides in people.
A: Every evening we were too exhausted to do anything else. Bill and I in the quiet of the room wrote each evening. This is the first time either of us tried to blog, and both handicapped. He did his on an iPad one finger at a time, and I had an old browser that only accepted HTML coded entries. Before shutting down for the night, we tested our text out on each other to make sure what we wrote was lucid and as close to grammatically correct as two tired guys could come up with. I was surprised that my blog had any repeat readers. I am also grateful for the advice I got: “If we want to know what Donner Pass looks like, we can ‘Google-Earth’ it. Tell us who you met and what you learned. We like good ‘people’ stories.” I learned from that advice. There may be beauty in the scenery, wisdom in the wind, but goodness resides in people.
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| Another day of great riding weather! |
Q: Did you stop for bad weather?
A: Twice we were ordered into safety, once in Kansas, the other in Indiana. The first time I took shelter in a park pavilion, but that proved inadequate. I ended up in a meat packing store, and nearly froze to death in my skimpy clothes. In Indiana we waited out a storm at a gas station. Bad weather seemed to happen at night and our ride was unprecedented in two ways - sunshine and wind. The nature of the tour was that there was no allowance for weather days. The hotel and meal reservations were already made on you either rode to the next stop or took a taxi.
Q: What was the scariest moment?
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| But this one was friendly snake |
A: My encounter with the gang of hoodlums in Springfield,
IL. In a related moment, I once stopped
a family reunion in progress near there. I guess I was a real curiosity since I
was probably the only white person within a mile of the home. The conversation
started up with the kids and eventually the teens chimed in. They asked me why
I stopped and I said it was because of all the smiles I saw. The conversation
with about forty people in the front yards continued for about ten minutes, and
I eventually asked the question, “Which one of you ladies is the grandmother
here?” To my surprise five women all answered at once to claim that title. We
all laughed. I should have asked ‘great-grandmother’, but with that question I
risked insulting somebody as if they looked too old or worse, too young. I
would like to think all the men were inside watching a game or some different
noble activity – not a male over 12 years old was there. I think I met the
males elsewhere, like the south side of Springfield.
Q: What was the most heartbreaking moment of the trip?
A: Seeing injured riders return home.
Q: What was my favorite, least favorite state?
A: The roads in New York were the best on the east coast but I found the locals rather aloof and some hard to talk to making it my least enjoyable state. Don’t get me wrong: some of my best memories were encounters with New York residents – but oh, the bad ones were either painfully apathetic or combative in nature without a cause other than a faulty zip code. The most scenic roads were going up US 6 in Utah, my favorite stretch, and closely followed by US 50 along the Arkansas River in Colorado. Favorite? Tough question! Every day I seemed to find new reasons to call the place where I was currently located ‘the best place so far.’ But if I had to pick a favorite state it would be Alabama.
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| It's hard to surpass Lake Tahoe, CA for beauty |
A: The roads in New York were the best on the east coast but I found the locals rather aloof and some hard to talk to making it my least enjoyable state. Don’t get me wrong: some of my best memories were encounters with New York residents – but oh, the bad ones were either painfully apathetic or combative in nature without a cause other than a faulty zip code. The most scenic roads were going up US 6 in Utah, my favorite stretch, and closely followed by US 50 along the Arkansas River in Colorado. Favorite? Tough question! Every day I seemed to find new reasons to call the place where I was currently located ‘the best place so far.’ But if I had to pick a favorite state it would be Alabama.
Q: What was the most serious moment in the trip?
A: Three moments. Talking to the single parent truck
driver in Dodge City over breakfast, time with a lady and her friend the
daughter of an Indian Medicine Woman in Pueblo, and third, talking to Kevin on
his front porch in rural New York. It is entirely possible that Providence
arranged for me to have the time off from work, the finances to participate in
the trip, and the heart desire to ride across the country – if only to be
present at those three significant moments with those precious souls. God gave
me the privilege of seeing life defining events in the most unlikely of people
in the most unlikely of places.
Q: Would I do it again?
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| It doesn't get better than this! From my Welcome Home party |
A: No, because nothing could surpass the memories from
this trip. A different bicycle adventure, such as Europe, might be in my future
once I retire. Who knows, maybe a twist on the biking motif would be a string
of 100 mile rides on a tandem bike. I am quite sure my next life event will be
done with my family, such as a mission trip to a foreign land or rafting the
Grand Canyon. But... if my daughter asks
me to go with her on this same Cross Country Challenge, sign me up!!!
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