Cross Country by Bicycle

At last the tour starts in earnest.

2010-11-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

After two days what conclusions can I draw about Tunisia?

1) Sheraton Hotels are nice where ever you are and the one in Tunis certainly qualifies.

2) Make sure your cab driver knows where you want to go and how to get there. We had to transfer from the Sheraton to the Tunisia Palace, a 4 star hotel on a main street in Tunis. We were told the fare was 5 dinar (about $3.50). Before getting to our hotel we visited the Karthage Palace and the Olympia Palace (closed for about a year). On three separate occasions the driver asked pedestrians for directions. When we finally got to the Tunisia Palace the fare was 20 dinar. I offered 10 dinars and every curse the driver knew was thrown at me. Fortunately, he only spoke Arabic and I didn't understand any of them. Eventually he left with the 10 dinar, but he was not a happy camper.

3) When your in your 60's accepting drinks from strangers in a bar has few downsides. Karen and I were in a bar at the hotel when a business man offered us a drink. Unfortunately, he also only spoke Arabic, but the three of us spent a pleasant hour talking to each other as best we could and hope to meet again. The language barrier can be surmounted with a little effort, but there is little point when you are being cursed.

4) Today we ventured out with 13 other travelers to visit the Roman ruins at Durrga. It may be the best preserved Roman city in the world. The site is rather extensive and Roman roads are not the most level, nor are steps the most even. Handrails do not seem to have been invented by the Romans. Karen was concerned about being able to make it through the site. She need not have worried. She has more mobility than at least have of the members of the group. Karen will do just fine on this trip, but I am not sure about many others on the trip. The tour guide mentioned that Romans didn't live much beyond 50, this was attributed to lead poisoning from the use of lead lined pipes. Based on today's group I am not sure Romans would have been able to survive the rigors of city life once the got into their 60's. The cities of the ancient world were not elder friendly.

5) Our group appears to be gastronomically adventurous. Today's lunch was wild boar. Our guide was very surprised when only one person opted for the 'safer' alternative, chicken. Almost everyone on our trip has been on several Overseas Adventure Travel trips. (Some have been on as many as ten). Our guide might be surprised at the number of things OAT participants eat at least once on these trips. In my case having eaten rat (country, not city rat) wild boar seemed very tame.

Around the world

2010-10-31T14:09:00.001-07:00

This is not a bike trip but a trip around the world seemed like a big thing so I am going to add it to my blog. Karen and I are taking 7 seven weeks to circle the globe. We are stopping in Boston, Tunisia, Jordan, India, and Bali. Boston involved a conference at MIT and lots of visits with Boston friends. Tunisia and India are Overseas Adventure Travel tours and we are doing Jordan and Bali (recovery) on our own. The other bonus is that all the plane travel is with frequent flier points.

We are currently in Tunis and have met our tour group. They seem to be a nice group, but time will tell.

But before I start to describe our foreign travels let me say something about our week in Boston. I was there for an MIT alumni leadership conference. I spend three days attending meetings and one leading a discussion group about how to select venues for meetings. I also had meetings at various times with people from the school over the net three days. Two groups that meet via conference call met face to face for the first time because I, the only member west of the Hudson River was in town.

Initially left on her own Karen became antsy, made additional arrangements to see long time friends and did much better as the week progressed. She is also a little concerned about her knees. We stayed in our time share in the Boston Custom House and on our last night entertained six of her closest friends from college. She and two other college friends had driven a barge along a canal in southern France this summer. Being with friends you have know for 40 plus years can do wonders to your spirits.

We also had time to have dinner with my best friend from college, Dave deBronkhart. During my first cross country trip he was fighting for his life after being diagnosed with stage IV meastatic renal cancer. As I rode across the country to my reunion in 2007, he was being given a new treatment that works in only 20% of patients who receive it. It worked for him and we both made the reunion. Dave has written a book about his experiences, Laugh, Sing, and Eat Like a Pig: How an Empowered Patient Beat Stage IV Cancer (and what healthcare can learn from it). Dave has has become an important advocate for patient involvement in their medical care he has his own blog e-Patient Dave and also is a major contributor to another blog e-Patients
Lastly, getting together with Dave is always difficult because he is speaking at medical conferences almost every week. We saw Dave on Sunday after he had packed for a week trip to the West Coast.

We flew to Tunis via London on Friday 9:30 PM departure but had to check out by noon. We decided to see a movie, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, the third an final movie in the 'Girl' series. Good movie, but read the book and see the other two movies first if you don't want to be hopelessly lost. As that killed the hours between noon and 3, walked into the movie about Facebook. It was entertaining and I am sure that IT types relate to the founder more positively than do the rest of the world. My take, he is not without character flaws, and finds himself in a position he is totally unprepared for, but he is not a bad person. I'm sure that the movie bears some resemblance to reality, Hollywood's ability to tell a truthful story is only slightly better than your typical politician's ability to tell the truth.

The flight to Tunis had it's good and bad aspects. The good was that we were in first class. We had sleeper beds and were fed a fine dinner in the First class Lounge before we took off. The bad was that we landed at Heathrow and had a connecting flight from Gatwick. The overland part was a worry' but we hired a private car and it worked out fine. The first class lounge in Gatwick is not as nice as the one in Boston, but a far cry above waiting outside with everyone else. We could get used to this.

We arrived in Tunis from London. Met our guide who on his own time took us to our Sheraton hotel. We had dinner and went to sleep for the first real time in 30 hrs. Thirty hours without sleep was not a big problem when I was riding long bicyle rides in the 80's but I am older now and I can feel it. Well at least I can tonight.

May 26 – One week after completing the ride

2008-05-26T23:45:00.000-07:00

I have been back home for a few days now. I have done two rides and worked out in the gym a few times, but it is nice to not have to do a ride every morning. In fact as the weather in Berkeley has been a little cool over the weekend I have not ridden for the last three days. I had planned to do several rides this weekend, but it was either wet outside, not real rain, or it was cold, not real cold but colder than I would like. On each day I decided not to ride, it was a nice option.

I have also done a little work in order to catch up on things that I didn’t do while I was on the road. This has included seeing a lot of biking and non-biking friends, all of whom had different questions about the ride. However I have not been as busy as Conrad, who has made this sculptor of Darryl for his wife Karen.

When I got on my scale at home I discovered that I had lost about 10 lbs, but more body fat than weight. I also noticed this while riding. A ring I have worn for close to ten years and which was on my finger all the way across America, literally fell off my finger while I was riding last week. That had never happened to me before. Unfortunately, it bounced under my rear tire. I may have lost some weight, but not enough to save the ring from being crushed. It has been difficult to keep my appetite in check this week, so I don’t know if I will be able to maintain my new weight. I will have to work, because I know that last year I was not able to keep the weight off.

Lastly, several people complained about the lace of pictures on my blog this year. As I didn’t take a camera, I didn’t have access to pictures this time. I now have gotten a few from some of other riders.

The first is of me riding on day 3 in Arizona. There are a few things to note in this picture. I used a Camelback this year and it really made a difference in my ability to stay hydrated. I found it much easier to drink from it than from the bottles on the bike. For those who haven’t seen it this is the new titanium bike I bought last year. While diffucult to say, as I have ridden the red Mikkelsen for over 20 years, I must admit that the new Roark was nicer to ride than the steel Mikkelsen I rode last year. I also want to have you see what my club, GPC, thinks is an appropriate length for knicker shorts. Let me just say that I was glad that I never saw temperatures in the 100’s on days I was wearing the club kit.

The second is a picture of me at one of our motels. It is included to show that no matter how hard my days may have sounded, after a shower and a little rest I at least looked non the worse for the days ride.

The third picture is of ‘Team Roark’, two of the ride leaders also rode Roark bicycles. While both were far better riders than me, someone named this picture Papa Bear and the two Baby Bears. It really does show how big my bike is.

The last picture is of some of the older riders at the beach in Savannah. The younger folks said that they were inspired by what we had accomplished. The older riders were inspired by the enthusiasm of youth. The other riders are Perry (center) the oldest rider on the trip at 70 and Martin. Martin who was pleased to have his wife taking this picture on his 63 birthday. He thought it was a great birthday present.

I hope you enjoyed my musings about this trip. It certainly had its ups and downs in just about anyway you might care to use that term. In the end I am very glad that I did the ride this year, and even while riding on some of the worst days I seldom questioned my decision to ride across America for a second time. I will not say that it will never happen again but I have told Karen that I am not going to do the ride next year.

Day 27 Vidalia to Savannah – On to the Atlantic

2008-05-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

Today is a relatively easy day of 104 miles, but Mike put the fear of God into us last night by telling us we had to get to our meeting point for the final few miles to the coast by 2 PM. He even calculated times when we should be leaving lunch and the sag stops. Today as usual I started with the early starters. This is as it should be as I am one of the slower riders. However today as today started out cooler than we would have liked and likely to be far warmer at the beach this afternoon, I was underdressed. TO compensate for the cold air I pedaled faster. This seemed to work as my muscles generated more internal heat, but it also increased the relative speed of the wind and this had a pronounced chilling effect. I think on balance it was positive, but I am not absolutely sure. Eventually I passed all the other early starters and was not caught by the fast riders before the first rest stop. It was nice the be first for once, but that moment was short lived as within no time there were 10 riders at the stop and before I left, not the first, everyone was there.

Continuing on to the lunch stop the pace picked up even a bit more as we got a tail wind and the last of the hills on the ride were now behind us. After looking at my watch and tracking my average speed I was surprised to see that at lunch I was barely ahead of Mike’s pace even though I was riding about 5 mph faster than the rate had used to calculate the pace. Only after a few minuets did I realize that I was really over an hour faster than his proposed pace. The last 30 miles were through the suburbs of Savannah. The roads were progressively more crowded and there were more turns. This slowed the pace. The last bit was on the one road to the beach. The road had little or no shoulder and lots of SUVs and pickups with young people headed for the beach. Many were not happy to be slowed to any extent by 25 cyclists. We had the rudest drivers of the entire trip on those final few miles. Fortunately there were no incidents that caused any of us to be injured.

We gathered for a few pictures before heading out as a group for the beach. In those four miles I got a leak in my rear tire. It would have been terrible to miss the celebration because of a flat tire just before the end. Fortunately I found one of the vans, got a pump and put enough air into the tire to get to the beach with everyone else. (I also got back to the van, where my bike was loaded onto a van for transport to tonight’s hotel.)

The celebration on the beach was great. Everyone there was happy to have made it and we reveled in the warm Atlantic waters. We all had accomplished our goal. Granted some had been modified from those we set out with in Costa Mesa 27 days ago. We had been tested and we had passed. Maybe not physically as much as other cross country rides, but the emotional test was extreme and we all had to deal with it. Most did it in very private ways and there was surprisingly little talk among the riders of Darryl, either on the ride or at the beach. I took off my black ribbon and put it in the Atlantic and said a small prayer.

At the beach there was a lot of joy. Many of the Brits decided to take off their jerseys and go for a swim. Never was the term ‘white folks’ more apt. Many of the bathers were interested in our adventure and we were the objects of a number of pictures. Three of us, Perry, Martin and I –all resplendent with light grey or white hair, were corralled by four young female sunbathers and several pictures were taken of the girls and the ‘men who inspired them’. I will get a copy and post it in a few days.

We had our traditional ending banquet. I missed not having Karen in attendance so that she could have heard other perspectives on the trip. As we did last year everyone said something to the group. Some talked about accomplishing a goal, but the term bucket list, so prominent in the first meeting in Costa Mesa, was surprisingly absent. This was more than just another item on a list. Some spoke about over coming problems they hadn’t imagined before the start of the ride. Others spoke about some of the suffering on the back roads of Alabama and Mississippi. Many spoke of the friendships they formed over the last four weeks. Everyone thanked the leaders and the other riders for their support. I had a slightly different take on the ride and I will try to reproduce what I said.

First I want to than Mike and his staff for all the help they gave me during this ride, at times it was more than one would have expected. But having done this ride with Mike before, I guess I should have expected it. I also want to than all the other riders for their support and patience, and especially my roommate for these last four weeks Norman who had to put up with me each night.

I spent time riding with many of you, but mostly I rode by myself at my own pace. This allowed me to see more of the country than the wheel in front of me and to think about what I saw. Well what did I think about? On many of the hillier days I remembered a song my family sung on family car trips. I will not try to sing it for you, but it involved a bear that went over a mountain, to see what he could see and when he got to the top he saw another mountain, so the song repeated again and again and again. There were many places in Oklahoma and Alabama where the song went through my head again and again and again. I also remember a song from bus trips with junior high school athletic teammates. This song enumerated the number of bottles of beer on a wall and that after taking one down and passing it round there was one less. This song reminded me of a few British riders and was a good way for me to keep track of the number of miles I had to do on some of the longer days. (Note to most readers, Russ and Pete Shaw were known to have a ‘dinner’ of 3 or 4 bottles of Bud and some chips.)

I also was struck by the differences between urban and rural America. For those of us who spend most of our lives in urban or suburban settings with days in large glass covered buildings and nights in smaller buildings with green lawns and gardens it can be shocking to see how people in rural Oklahoma and Arkansas live. And yes there are people in those states as we fly over them at 38,000 feet. For the Brits I don’t want you to think that what you saw on this trip is representative of all of America. I hope that you can come back and visit our cities and national parks, but I suggest that you leave your bicycle at home, bicycles just aren’t that helpful in Manhattan.

I was struck by the poverty of the people on our route, not just the number of mobile homes and the number of vehicles in the yard, but the number of For Sale by Owner signs on cars, boats, farm implements and homes. There were far more than when I did this ride last year and the country needs to acknowledge that. We also need to acknowledge that no matter what you think of your economic situation, we can pay $4000 for a month long adventure and ride a $5000 bicycle. Most of the people we meet couldn’t do that.

I was struck by the obesity of so many of people we meet, there were some that it was truly painful to look at. I am not proud of having to admit that, but it is honest. We all have to be thankful that at the advanced ages that many of us have reached we still have our good health.

The other thing I saw was the large number of people who had a very difficult time accepting the fact that we were riding our bicycles across the country. They couldn’t conceive of doing it themselves, or of anyone they knew doing it. In fact many couldn’t conceive of doing anything else than what they were doing. One server in a Subway would not believe that I was riding across America. She accused me of lying. But when she accepted that I might be riding across America, she asked why I came to Aberdeen MS. There she had me; I had no answer for that question. (Note to readers Aberdeen MS was one of the smallest towns we stayed in, and the one that seemed most likely to disappear entirely in the next ten years. Subway was the best choice for dinner on that Sunday evening.) We have to be thankful that we can envision difficult goals like this trip and that we have the ability to work hard enough to achieve it.

This trip tested us in a number of ways that we almost certainly didn’t expect when we set out. There was very little bad weather and the winds were never a formidable foe. In fact on several days they were the best friend a cyclist could have. How many sub 5 hour centuries have you done before this trip? What did test us were the adversities that many of our fellow riders experienced. We are reminded by Jack and Karen just how close to the edge of disaster we are when we ride. A moment’s loss of concentration can lead to disaster. We also learned from Andrew and Greg that health problems can occur in people who seem to be in prime of health. We pray for the recovery of Karen, Jack, Andrew and Greg. But most tragically we learned how short life can be. The death of Darryl shocked each and every one of us. I hope that we realize that it could happen one night to any of us. It is ironic that Karen, Darryl’s wife had a quote on the trip web page of ‘Live for today; you don’t knot how many tomorrows you have.’

In closing let me give you a different quote. As many of you know I spent most of my professional life studying a disease called cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that slowly destroys your lungs. A friend of mine, Jill who has cystic fibrosis, gave me this quote. ‘Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the number of times it takes your breath away.’ I hope you all had several of those breath-taking experiences on this trip. I know I did, and I DO NOT mean those at the top of one of Mike’s surprise hills.

Day 26 – Perry GA to Vidalia GA

2008-05-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

Today is the next to last day of the ride. We are now almost at the end of our journey. We have crossed the high mountains of the west, the great plains of the mid-west and the hills of the southern states. The landscape is now flat with a few small rolling hills. Today’s ride of 100 miles has less than 2000 feet of climbing. I would be hard pressed to find any route of that distance and that little climbing in the Bay Area. We finally have gotten some heat in the last few days with afternoon temperatures neat 80, but morning temperatures have been no more than 60. Today it was warm at dawn and all day. We also got our first real taste of southern humidity today. My clothes were drenched with sweet within an hour. It did rain for a bit today, a five minuet downpour that I was able to avoid by getting under someone’s carport. But all things considered we have had rain on no more than 1% of the total distance of this trip. I think that is quite remarkable.

Today’s ride went through several small Georgia towns most with no more than 5000 people and a lot with far less. In general, we rode on lightly traveled highways, but for a considerable time we were on parallel county roads. Most of the time this was OK and the rural scenery and the lack of auto traffic made up for the slightly longer route. However one road was SO BAD. The thought of the extra 5 miles we rode from the main highway to get to and from this road, and the bone shattering vibrations of riding on this road for 6 miles will make me wish I had missed this ‘detour’ until the day I die. It was a tradeoff when the route was designed, longer quiet roads vs shorter busier roads. In general America by Bicycle has done a good job in making these choices, but in this case they made a big time mistake. Even Mike admitted that it was a bad choice.

While in general Southern hospitality has been very good and we have had few problems with any drivers during the entire trip, today was an exception. Let me change that a bit. There were two or three non-hospitable people along today’s route. The thousand or so other people we encountered today were all friendly and or hospitable. However, one car full of boys were responsible for two of our riders being hit by water balloons as the entered Vidalia. Just what someone wants after 100 miles. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Tonight I have visions of getting to the Atlantic tomorrow afternoon. I remember all the joy we felt last year. I am not so sure we will feel that way tomorrow. Yes we will be happy, but we will also remember those who started the ride but are not with us at the end. Reports on the four injured riders who left the ride indicate that they should all recover, although Jack who suffered a concussion on day three may have a longer road to travel. Unfortunately, Darryl can never recover. His death will always be a reminder of the fleeting nature of life. We all hope that Karen can recover from both the injuries she suffered in her fall and the even greater injury she suffered with the death of her husband Darryl. I have had a black ribbon on my bicycle since Darryl’s death. I intend to cut it off tomorrow at the beach and release it into the Atlantic. In this way I hope to help Darryl complete his journey.

Day 22 – Aberdeen MS to Tuscaloosa AL

2008-05-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

Today’s ride was about as good as any ride can get. The morning temperature in Aberdeen was in the high 40’s. It warmed up during the day to the high 70’s by the time we got to Tuscaloosa. The sky was clear all day. If yesterday was like one of those perfect fall days, when it’s cool but not cold; today was that wonderful spring day that occurs once a year. It is truly unbelievable that we could have ridden this far in the South and not had a hot, humid, miserable day. While the roads in MS were not the best, we only had 19 miles of the 110 in MS. Alabama seems to have far better roads. There was almost no traffic on all of today’s route. Lastly, my GPS recorded 4800 feet of climbing, mostly in relatively short, and often steep, climbs of 100 to 150 feet. The biggest climb was listed as 250 feet but I think that might be a little too big. Needless to say there were a lot of ups and downs and as Norman, my roommate, said, the route profile looked like an EKG for someone with a messed up heart.

Today as I entered Alabama I entered my 50^th state. I have now been in every state in the Union. Actually, I collected my last 3 states on this trip, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. I think that it is quite an accomplishment, it only took me 58 years to achieve it, but other more experienced travelers may not think it so much of a big deal.

I could have done without Tuscaloosa. Our route tried to avoid busy streets, but it was not too successful. I wish we could have gotten to our Best Western by another less traveled route. The final 10 miles through Tuscaloosa were not pleasant. Yesterday the sandwich maker in Subway wanted to know what all these cyclists were doing. At first she could not imagine, and would not believe, that we had come from CA. But when she finally accepted that we had come from CA and were going to GA, she asked why we were stopping in Aberdeen. Yesterday, I had no answer to that question. Today I do, Aberdeen is a lot easier to navigate on a bike than Tuscaloosa.

At one of the sag stops Chris was fixing yet another flat. If you read Mike’s blog you know that Chris has had a rough time with his bike, flats, broken spokes and problems with his brakes. A few days ago he invested over $1000 for a new set of wheels; they may be worth more than the rest of the bike. While he has not broken a spoke with the new wheels, they have not reduced the number of flats he has gotten. Today at the sag Mike was talking on his cell phone to a friend when he was asked to help Chris change his tire. He told his friend on the cell phone that he had to help someone fix a flat and his friend immediately asked if this was Chris. Mike exploded with laughter. It seems that Chris’s bike problems have become known to a very large number of people.

Day 21 - Senatobia MS to Aberdeen MS, 138 miles from nowhere to nowhere with nothing in between.

2008-05-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Last night a severe weather system went trough Mississippi and Arkansas. Several of the towns we rode through yesterday reported tornados. I don’t know how much damage occurred. It was not as severe as in Oklahoma, but being near to any tornado is too close for me. This morning was dry, cool (60’s) and the winds (20 mph) were from the west. It was a great day for a ride. In fact it never got hot or humid today. At this rate Mississippi might turn out to be the most pleasant state to ride through on this year’s trip.

Senatobia is not a happening place and I mentioned the food problems last night. Aberdeen is even less active. There are four places to eat out in town, a bar and grill which is closed on Mother’s day, an ice cream and sandwich place that was also closed, McDonalds and Subway. Despite my purchase of a milk shake at McDonalds a few days ago, I refuse to eat their solid food. This reduced my Sunday dinner options to Subway where a foot long roast beef sub, coke and chips had to substitute for dinner. I will see how I perform on this fare tomorrow.

The other important chore for today was wash. I washed ALL my cycling clothes and just about all my non-cycling clothes as well. With my cycling clothes now clean and dry, I hope to make it to the Atlantic without having to do any more laundry. I can then ship the dirty clothes back to Berkeley with my bike and have the Berkeley laundress take care of the problem. I am sure that among other things, Karen has missed while I have been on my adventure is the brightly colored cycling clothes that dry in the bathroom.

My biggest problem today was pollen. It was always in the air and being blown by the winds. I never have allergic reactions to pollen, but something in Mississippi must e just the right thing to set me off. Thank god for Sudafed and Visine. They certainly helped me today. The other hazard I faced was falling trees. Twice today trees or large branches fell into the road just in front of me. Once a small tree fell across the oncoming lane of traffic barely 50 yards in front of me; even if I had been 50 yards further down the road it is unlikely I would have been hit. In the other incident, a large branch fell into a ditch on my side of the road, just as I was passing by, neither incident caused me any harm other than to increase my heart rate for a while.

Today’s route went through the back country and rolling hills of MS. It was Sunday so many stores were closed However, we may have passed ten stores and gas stations and I can only recall two that were open. We saw a lot of rural country side, some farmland, some very nice homes on several acres, and some barely livable homes and trailers that housed both black and white families. We also saw a lot of churches and the only traffic on the road occurred when we passed a church just after the service was over. Today there was almost no traffic on the roads; I guess everyone was staying home with mother.

Each church we passed seemed to have a cemetery and many have what appeares to be fresh graves. Each time I saw one I immediately thought of Darrell. It is still hard to appreciate that he is dead. Other riders who have had accidents or became ill, leave the trip and gone home to recover. From the perspective of the people on the ride that is all that happened to Darrell. But we know it is not like that, but in some ways the closure has not been achieved.

Day 19 – Conway AR to Brinkley AR

2008-05-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Today was an easy ride, 100 miles and less than 2000 feet of climbing. This may seem like a long ride, but as the trip has progressed I have become stronger and provided I have 6 hours to spare and the winds are not in my face all day, it not a big deal. Today there was only one 10 mile stretch were he had real head winds so the winds were not that bad. One of the less attractive parts of today’s ride wais the flat terrain. This means that your butt should be glued to your seat. On roads where the surface is rough, this can be a big problem. Road surfaces vary among different roads with highly traveled roads and more recently paved roads generally having smoother surfaces. In Arkansas another factor is which county you are in. You can ride on a state highway that crosses several county lines, and the surest way to tell that you are in a new county is to notice the change in the surface of the pavement. Each county seems to have different specifications for their roads, some are very good and some from the prospective of cyclists are very bad, se la vie. In Oklahoma road surfaces varied from county to county, but there must be an election for local officials fairly soon, because each county would have two people running for county sheriff, and at each county line the names of the individuals on the lawn signs would change.

Our route took us around Little Rock through some nice country and on a few very pleasant rural roads. It also involved some urban riding that was not all that pleasant. The last 30 miles were dead flat and a long part was on a levee with water on both sides. It was strange to look out on both sides and see water for mile after mile after mile. We are now in the land of cotton. The fields are just now being planted. There are some very large farms with nice homes but there are also very poor people.

Today’s ride ended in Brinkley AK. Brinkley is a small rural town with a lot of motels and fast food places because it is also on I40. Today my first stop was at a McDonalds, where I ordered a big chocolate milk shake. Then since the roads were wet from rains early in the morning my next stop was the bike washing stand to clean the road grime from my bike. Then I got my room key and found my room. My bags were in the room because Norman, my roommate, had bought them to the room. We have an arrangement were the first person to see the bags, brings them to the room. Norm is usually the first rider to finish, however as he always beats the sag vehicle with the luggage, he may be in the room when I and the luggage arrive. So far he has brought my bags to the room more often than I his, but it is not all that one sided. Once in the room I took a shower and called Karen to let her know that I was safe. Then I set clothes out for tomorrow, have dinner, write my blog and go to sleep by 9 PM. 5 AM comes very early each morning. With the exception of cleaning my bike, occasionally having the mechanic fix something and the order of showering and calling Karen, this is my post ride evening routine.

Day 17 and 18 - Fort Smith to Conway

2008-05-08T19:05:00.000-07:00

Day 17 was a rest day in Fort Smith AK. I got a haircut and a massage. The rest of the day I rested. Of the 30 who started, we are now down to 25 coast to coast riders. We have lost two riders who only planned to do part of the ride, but we gained two new riders for the last third of our ride.

On day 18 we rode to Conway. It was a 125 mile ride with very few hills and a pretty good tailwind for most of the day. As a result I got to Conway in 7 hours. Yesterday night it rained and we started out with wet roads, but no rain. As the day progressed the skies became bluer. It also got into the high 70’s. So it was a nice day for a ride.

Our rout followed the Arkansas River and therefore had few long climbs. Spring has come to Arkansas trees are in leaf and there are lots of flowers in the gardens of the houses we pass. However tornados and severe hail of last month have put most natives I talk to on edge. In fact two men today expressed the concern that today’s nice weather was simply the calm before the next storm. I hope not, for their sake and for mine, as I would like not to see any tornados and any more thunderstorms this year.

As I ride the highways of America, I encounter a great amount of formerly wildlife. In Arkansas the most common animal on the road side is the armadillo. Their shell-like body must protect them from most other animals but it is no match for a car. I also see opossums, a few raccoons and the occasional skunk. In general skunks are the only animal I can smell. The skunk is another animal, like the armadillo, that is well protected from other animals, but whose defensive measures are also no match for a car. In Oklahoma and Texas there were lots of rabbits and I saw a few coyotes in New Mexico. In addition, there have been a great number of birds who probably were killed while eating a last meal or roadway carrion. There have been a few dead snakes. In fact I ran over one a few days ago. I don’t know if I killed it, but I suspect that I did put a large dent in it.

Rides like these become like families and all families are different. On this ride a lot of riders are counting the days to the end with a sense that they will be glad to see the ride end. Last year there was more a sense of sadness that our group would be splitting up, never to be together again. The feeling may develop on this ride, but I am not sure. First there are far more people who came with friends or relatives on this ride and therefore have interacted less with the rest of the group. But the biggest factor is that on this ride 1 in 6 riders is no longer on the road and one is dead. I do believe that there is a sense of fear/recognition of negative consequences of cycling. And a real fear that it might happen to any of us. Maybe we just want to be out of the danger zone.

Day 16 McAlester OK to Fort Smith AK – and the rains came

2008-05-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

Today was a little strange. Everyone was upset about Darrell’s death, and we all seemed to be dealing with it in different ways. One way we all shared was the addition of a black ribbon to our bikes. They are small and a nice symbol to remind us of Darrell as we ride. I think that I will take mine off the bike at the wheel dipping in the Atlantic. Everyone had questions and no one had any real answers. Those who speculated as to why were most certainly wrong. Well at best one might be right, but I doubt anyone will ever know the entire story.

We had a late, 8 AM, start because it was a short day and because many of us did not get to bed until later than usual. Some also mentioned having trouble sleeping, even after 145 miles. Starting at 8 was a mixed blessing because by then it had started to rain. So we should have been prepared. For me rain gear includes addition items rain jacket, booties, a rear light and a plastic shower cap over my helmet. Sadly a few riders started riding with none of these things. A few had black or dark wind/rain jackets and no rear light. They were hardly visible, when the black clouds of the thunderstorm approached. I thought to check my tires more often due the increased likelihood of flats when riding on wet pavement. Unfortunately I got one about 2 miles into the ride when something cut my rear tire. Since I needed a new tire, I was stuck until a van could get to me. There were a few mix ups and one van had to go to the hospital to check on Greg so it took about 20 mins. before a van got to me. By this time I had walked 400 yards to be under an overpass. This got me out of the rain and reduced my chances of being hit by the lightning that was now all around me. When my tire was replaced, I decided that getting into the van for a bit was better than waiting out the thunderstorm under the overpass. This decision eventually led to my riding to the first sag stop at 30 miles. When the thunderstorm passed I continued the ride from there. In the end I did 86 miles.

(Greg Light had ridden a lot with Darrell and when Mike told us of Darrell’s death, Greg ran from the room. I thought that he might have had an anxiety attack, apparently it was worse. He spent the night in the hospital and after tested today it was concluded that he should not continue with the ride. So of the 30 riders who intended to do the entire ride only 25 are still riding. I will miss Greg, but his prognosis is far better than Darrell’s. While on this terrible topic we hear that Andrew is doing well at home in San Francisco. Jack who crashed on day 3 is still having short term memory problems due to his concussion. Karen still has her hip problems and far worse now has to deal with the loss of Darrell her husband of some 25 years.)

The rest of roads today, while wet but who was I to complain, were pleasant with good shoulders and not much traffic on the highways. I played tag for much of the day with Bill and Christine’s tandem. Yesterday, they were forced to sag in because of a strange noise that seemed to be coming from their disk brakes. When they opened up the brakes, the noise persisted, ruling out the brakes as the cause. Today’s theory is that it is a bottom bracket problem. As this is less likely to lead to a life threatening failure, they chose to ride today. Hopefully, when they take the bike to a shop in Fort Smith they can get the problem resolved.

Routing today seemed a bit odd, in one place in order to avoid a mile of OK but not great highway riding, we were routed through a circuitous route in a residential area. I eventually got lost, ended up on the road I was supposed to avoid and was unable to find anyone who knew where the street I was supposed to take was. I found the highway I needed to be on at a different exit and started to ride. Later we had to get off the highway and take two rural roads that added a mile to our route. People who missed that turn didn’t see anything wrong with the section of the highway we were routed around. When we got to Fort Smith, we again had some odd routing in order to avoid some roads that we should not have been on, but it seemed to everyone that there must have been a better way. Maybe it was just that everyone who rode yesterday came in late and tired and wet. Any additional distance seemed under those circumstances would seem to be an even greater bother.

Day 15 – Chickasha to McAlester – The death ride

2008-05-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

This was going to be the hard day of the ride. It was a long day, 145 miles, and there were lots of hills, 6200 ft of climbing. We all started out early, I was on the road at 6:30. After a brief stop to add leg warmers and a wind vest, I began the ride in earnest. I learned my lesion from a few days ago, even if it seems warm at the start take a little extra clothing. As I told many of my fellows in the lab, this gives me class 2 intelligence. (Class 1 intelligence is learning from the mistakes of others. Class 2 intelligence is learning from your own mistakes. Class 3 intelligence is recognizing that you have made this mistake before.)

The route today was mostly through lesser traveled state highways and county roads. These roads had smaller shoulders and in general but less traffic. However, traffic on the state highways often seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere and greater vigilance was needed to ride safely today than on most other days. Today’s roads also traveled in straight lines, east-west or north-south. This is likely in part due to the fact that Oklahoma was surveyed before settlers were officially allowed in for the land rush of 1889. However like yesterday’s ride, the roads tend to go straight up and over any hill they encounter. And since the landscape is of Oklahoma is rumpled, resembling a rather large bed that was very poorly made, there are a lot of hills. The fist 65 miles today could be called rollers, but they were either to big or poorly spaced to get any sort of rhythm going. In the end I just had to be content to speed down the backside and grind it out going up the front side. Once we got onto county roads the coarseness of the road surface increased, the traffic decreased and the grades of the hills increased.

We went through several Indian reservations today each with a casino. Unlike Indian casinos in much of the country these were no mega operations. In general they were no bigger than a large service station and probably had less external lighting. From all I could see the natives in Oklahoma are not making a killing from gaming.

At our last sag stop there was a pizza/hamburger/chicken joint that also sold ice cream. Another rider’s milk shake looked so good, that I ordered one too. The woman who made it for me was working overtime with several tables to wait on, most with customers she knew by name. She appeared to be no more than 18, but she also had three kids in a booth, the oldest of which was at least 6. They were eating a pizza for dinner (it was 3 PM) and making a real fuss. I found a place to payback some of my Karma debt of a few days ago .I gave her a 100% tip for my $2.50 coffee milkshake, and much to her amazement, I proceeded to drink in one long sip.

Fortified with my milkshake, I was able to make good time over the next 30 miles of the ride. However, the last 5 miles through McAlester were another story. First I was beat, second it was rush hour and the traffic was heavy with drivers who wanted to get home, and lastly the route through McAlester was on some of the worst roads of the tip. The last mile was on an access road along a major highway. The road surface was terrible. The traffic coming and going to the Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and similar big box stores was horrendous. Lastly, the motel was not where the route sheet said it should be. In desperation I called the van to get help. They said that yes the route sheet was wrong and that I should go back along the frontage road, under the highway and along the frontage road on the other side to get to the motel. Apparently, the Holiday Inn express had crossed the road in the two years since America by Bicycle last did this ride. I don’t know why the chicken crossed the road, but I am sure the Holiday Inn crossed the road to exasperate Bill Reenstra at the end of a very long day.

As much as I wish that I could say that my day then ended with a shower, dinner and a nights rest, I can’t. We had a rap meeting to discuss tomorrows route, these are either in the evening or at breakfast before we start so even though the rap session had originally been for the next morning having it in the evening was not unusual. What happened after the session was. Mike told all the riders that one of the riders Darrell Keefer had died in his sleep the night before. To say that we were shocked was an understatement. I knew that I hadn’t seen Darrell during the day but, that often happens because people ride at different speeds and tend to get spread out over the day. In fact before Mike made the announcement none of the riders knew. It was shocking to say the least as Darrell was one of the strongest riders in the group, he was relatively young at 51, and he was a large presence in the group. He started the ride with his wife, who fractured her hip on day 3 and when she left the ride he would have left with her, except for her urging him to continue. The day before he died he rushed to get to Chickasha early so that he could spend time with his son, daughter-in-law and two year old grandson. He must have introduced his family to every other rider that evening; he was so proud of them. It is really hard to put this into perspective. While all riders know that bad things, even death, can happen when we ride, no one thinks that they will die in their sleep. We are all too fit and no matter what our age, far healthier than most of the people we see along the ride. Why would we be at risk? It is a wake up call, and as Darrell’s wife posted on Mike’s ride site her favorite quote is "Live for today, tomorrow could be too late."

Day 14 - Elk City to Chickasha: Half Way There

2008-05-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

Today was another cold start with temperatures in the low 40’s at 7:30 AM. We left a little later in the morning in order to let it warm up a little. Today’s wind was from the south southwest, so we started today’s ride with 15 miles to the south. While most of the ride was on roads that ran due east, the wind never seemed to be of any help today. Most of today’s ride was on rural county roads and we had more turns than usual because many of the roads are unpaved in sections. We came upon several intersections where a perfectly paved road suddenly became gravel or dirt. This required the route to zig and zag. It also meant that if you got off route you were likely to discover yourself on a gravel road – as sure sign that you had missed a turn. While several riders found themselves in this predicament, I was not one. I rode with three other riders this morning, but I left them at the lunch stop and finished the ride on my own. This required a little more effort and some more mental work to stay on route, but it also let me ride at a pace that best suited to me.

There were lots of farms with crops of hay ready to harvest. There were lots of cows in the pasture. At one intersection a fellow rider commented that this was a long way from everywhere and that he would hate to run out of milk. Within a few yards we realized that there were dairy cows on this farm and that milk was probably closer than we had thought. It being Sunday the roads were fairly free of traffic but we did see a lot of cars around the many churches we passed.

We passed the half way point on the ride from coast to coast today and Mike took pictures of each of us as we approached that point. A few riders decided to ham it up for the camera. I simply rode to the sign on the road, had my picture taken, and rode on. The goal is to get to Georgia, not to get to Nowheresville OK. Well in point of fact we did pass a water tower that proclaimed that it was in Nowhere OK. I didn’t see a sign for the city line, but I may have missed it.

It was a long day, 125 miles, and I didn’t finish until 5 PM. Even the usually fast riders did not get in until after 4 PM. Tomorrow is the longest day on our ride , 145 miles, to McAlester OK. When the last of my laundry is done I will be going to bed as early as possible and hoping for favorable winds tomorrow.

Day 12 – Dalhart to Pampa TX

2008-05-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

Burrrr. This morning was cold, and what’s more, I didn’t determine how cold until after my luggage was loaded onto the van. Since I didn’t have my long fingered gloves, I rode the first 12 miles one handed. The other hand was held behind my back in an attempt to keep it warm. Every half mile I would switch hands. After 12 miles I stopped at the first store on the road. I hoped to find some hot chocolate but settled for what passes as coffee in the non Peets drinking parts of the world. As I was about to pay for the coffee I saw some while liner gloves. When I went to pay the cashier asked what I was doing, everyone else in the place was preparing to tend to their farm land or to work in the oil fields. So I guess a shivering person in bike clothes looked a little out of place. I told her that I was from California and I was cycling across America. She said the coffee and gloves were on the house. I simply could not give her money. At this point another woman said that while she was married with five kids, ‘Honey’, the cashier, was looking. When I said that I was married, Honey’s friend replied that Texas was a long way from California. I suspect that Honey’s friend was going to be reprimanded at some later time. I left to store with a smile, but also in Karma debt. Twenty miles down the road two other riders told me how they had made good investments in gloves at that store. Both paid retail, or more, for their gloves.

Eventually the day warmed up. Our route turned so that the winds were more to our backs and we started to speed across the Texas Panhandle. By no means the fastest rider, more likely in the slowest third of the group, I did today’s ride of 110 at 20 mph.

There was very little to see along the route. I saw a few cows in pastures, many more cows in several feed lots, a lot of ‘cricket’ well pumps, and a large number of trucks from oil service companies. The trucks were not a major problem because Texas has WIDE shoulders, at least a lane wide on most two lane highways. We had our lane and the traffic had theirs. The highways are one good thing about Texas, even though I am sure they were not designed for the benefit of cyclists.

The motel, from what I could see the only one in Pampa, was near a Wal-Mart. This allowed me to restock items for my long ride fuel of choice: a mixture of apricots, gum drops, prunes, and walnuts. This plus the lunch food and some fruit at the sag stops gets me down the road. When I talk to the other riders, many have problems with the offered food options and seem to run on power bars, gels, and powders. I have used my mixture for years and see no reason to change.

The one sad note of the day was that we learned that Andrew, a 47 year old Brit who lives in San Francisco and who started off as one of the strongest riders, spent the night in hospital. He had been feeling ill for a few days in the higher elevations and when the doctors in the Dalhart ER checked him out, they concluded that he had had a minor heart attack. Needless to say all of us were shocked by the news. Our hopes and prayers are with Andrew.

Day 11 – Tucumcari to Dalhart TX

2008-05-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

If yesterday’s story was a tail wind today’s was about even more wind. Today’s ride was 96 miles on US Route 54E. Our road was strait as an arrow and went to the northeast. Today’s wind was from the west-southwest at 25 mph. This resulted in a very fast ride. We started at 8 AM, fully 90 min later than our usual starting time, and we lost an hour when we crossed the NM-TX boarder. However, the lead riders still got to Dalhart shortly after 1 PM and I arrived at 1:30. My average speed while on the bike was nearly 24 mph for 96 miles. Even with 30 min off the bike at two rest stops; I rode 96 miles in four and half hours. I suspect that if the ride had been in the other direction I would have been lucky to maintain 10 mph.

There was very little to see on the ride today. We passed through only one town of any size and had a rest stop at an out of business gas station. I averted my eyes from the Welcome to Texas, Home of George W. Bush sign at the Texas boarder. I also held my breath when I rode past the Texas sized feed lots just west of Dalhart. To the south there was a vast open space that was sparsely filled by Texas brush. I wonder if this is what W is so fond of cutting on his ranch? If there were any animals out there they were not seen by me.

On the north side of the road there was a rail line that paralleled our route but there must have been a problem with the tracks because I saw only one train all day. I also saw several vehicles that I would call rail-trucks. Rail-trucks appear to be standard pickup trucks; they even have tires, that have been modified to run along the tracks. I guess they have train wheels. They carry workers to and from places were repairs need to be made. It appeared that repair work was being done today. I wonder how much disruption this caused to the system and if they can route trains onto other lines. The work must be complete, because as I write this in the evening I can hear train whistles. However, I don’t think they will keep me awake tonight. My daily rides have been very good for inducing sleep by 9 PM.

From what I can see Dalhart exists because of the railroad and to a lesser extent the feed lots. If you lived here, Dalhart would seem like a great place to be from and a rather poor place to be. Tomorrow we are off the Pampa. This the first part of the ride that I didn’t do last year, so for the first time I can’t visualize the next day’s ride as I drift off to sleep.

Day 10 - Las Vegas to Tucumcari (110 miles)

2008-04-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today’s story is wind! When it is at your back it is a great thing. When we go outside the motel at 5:30 it was blowing. It is still blowing this afternoon. Fortunately, Tucumcari is East of Las Vegas and the winds were from the WSW. The winds blew at a steady 25 mph with gusts to 40. I rode much of the ride at over 20 mph, but on many small downhills I found myself going over 40 mph. I hit a maximum speed of 49 mph but several riders reported going as fast as 55. I is also a strange experience to top rollers at 20 mph and feel that you are really going slow, but after reaching 40+ mph on the downhill 20 mph seems slow. In general it was a glorious ride except for the few times when the road headed south and we had to fight a crosswind, in several places it was a real fight to keep the bike from going into the other lane.

My average speed for the first 100 miles was 20 mph. I slowed in Tucumcari because the route turned more toward the South and because of a few traffic lights. Tucumcari is on old Route 66. Today we crossed the route instead of riding along it. I think we will encounter it again in Oklahoma, but I am not sure. I didn’t see much to recommend Tucumcari, but our Best Western is nice. The road we rode on today, NM 104, is as deserted a highway as I can imagine. It has a good road surface and in a few places the surface is great. But over the 105 miles from the town limits of Las Vegas to the welcome to Tucumcari sign I was passed by 30 vehicles, 5 were America by Bicycle vans (1 passed me 4 times). So if I were to ride the route on some other day I might expect to be passed by one car every 4 miles. What more could a cyclist want, a sunny day with tailwinds, a good road, and no traffic. Well a down hill road would be nice. Today we lost about 2000 feet from start to finish, but also had 5000 feet of climbing. Still all things considered this was a great ride.

Last year when I did this day’s ride the winds were not as favorable I got in to the lunch stop 2 hours faster this year. I also recall having real problems at the end of the ride. There was a mesa that was always out in front of me and that it seemed I would never reach it. Today I saw the same mesa and in almost no time I had to turn my head to the side to see it. Oh what a difference a year and a tailwind can make.

Days 8 and 9 – Rest and Albuquerque to Las Vegas NM

2008-04-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

We rested on the eight day. Our accommodations in Albuquerque were not the best, but they had washers, so I did laundry. I got my phone fixed. Now I am not dependent upon Skype and the Internet. I also got a massage and cleaned my bike. Yesterday when I got in I had a very good Mexican meal. However today I could find no other ethnic food enthusiasts, so to be social, I ate some very forgettable meals in Albuquerque. I also worried about the ride to Las Vegas. Last year I only was able to complete half of the ride. This year I wanted to finish this ride.

With the coming of morning (no 5:30 AM, morning was still a long way away), I loaded my gear onto the van and had breakfast before heading out. After riding through eastern Albuquerque and followingI40 into the hills, our route headed north toward Santa Fe. The road goes up and down in the hills, but mostly up. There are a lot of nice suburbs and a fair amount of new construction. It was very different from the type of houses we had seen for the last few days. The road continued to the north and we got into an area with some ranches. They were all very nicely kept and most likely tax write offs for second homes. Lastly, we went through the town of Madrid. A few years ago arriving in Madrid would have been like going through a time warp to a Hippy village of the sixties. It still has that flair but while artists still sell their creations and tie dyed shirts a clearly in evidence, there has been a good deal of yuppie construction. The Disney film ‘Wild Hogs’ was filmed in Madrid. What will be there in ten years is not at all certain.

My road continued to the north past more traditional ranches and lots of open space until it reached I25. On the other side of I25 was the town of Santa Fe. I never go into Santa Fe and I felt somewhat like Moses being denied entry into the Promised Land. This is also where I gave up the day’s ride last year. While not seeing Santa Fe was disappointing felling good and ready to tackle the last half of the ride was a much better feeling.

I25 goes northeast from Santa Fe to Las Vegas. For the first 30 miles it climbs through ever more forested land until it crosses a pass at 7500 feet, the maximum altitude of our ride. There is then a glorious downhill of almost ten miles, before a rather long, no seemingly interminable, series of rolling hills in ever more open country to Las Vegas. The pain in my legs and feet during those miles was lessened by the realization that I would accomplish my goal completing the days ride this year.

What differences were there between this and last year. First this year we had a rest day in Albuquerque, while last year we didn’t. I am sure the recovery day helped a lot, especially on the climbs. Another difference was that the weather was much kinder this year. Last year it was cold and while it didn’t rain, there was always a threat of rain. Today it was cool but there was sunshine all day. I don’t know if I am fitter this year, but I suspect that the rest and weather were the biggest factors in allowing me to complete today’s this year.

Day 7 Gallup to Albuquerque

2008-04-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was cold today was Freezing! At 5 AM when we got up it was 24 degrees, burr. We ate the motel breakfast offerings, not at the Denneys next door. I would have preferred Denneys. Mike held us until 8 AM when it had warmed to 33 degrees. I guess he thought that at this temperature no one would freeze to their water bottles. We set out on Route 66 and eventually climbed to the Continental Divide on I40. It was not that bad a climb. But considering that the Santa Fe Trail and the Santa Fe railroad also used this pass to cross the Continental Divide, the grades could be that great.

At the divide most everyone took the required pictures. I didn’t because my camera was left behind in Berkeley and I have yet to learn how to use my cell phone as a camera. I guess I need to ask a ten year old. Last year the ride down the Eastern side was very fast. I recall dropping off a paceline and maintaining 23 mph on my own for over 20 miles. I thought that this meant that the Eastern side was a relatively steep decent. Accordingly I added a laver at the divide. I now was wearing two pairs of shorts (this helps with the saddle sores I have), a pair of tights and leg warmers. On my feet I wore heavy wool socks, cycling shoes and wind proof shoe covers that also covered my ankles. On my torso I had a wool cardigan, two jerseys (one long sleeve and one short) and two wind breakers. On my head I had two head covers under my helmet and full covering of my ears. I would have been ready to descend Mount Diablo on the coldest Jan 1 on record. Unfortunately I discovered that the grade on the Eastern side was even less than that on the Western side of the divide, maybe 2 percent. Last year’s fast descent was due to a tailwind, today we had a headwind. The descent was slow and required constant pedaling for 40 miles. Progress was so slow that the lunch stop was moved from mile 87 last year to mile 53 this year and still riders were getting to lunch later this year. It just shows the power of wind and the way we seldom consider that our fast riding might be due to a tailwind.

By lunch I was exhausted and I sagged in to Albuquerque. When I got to lunch I discovered that the four people I thought were behind me had already stopped riding for the day. The first riders got to the motel about 5:30 and the last riders to complete the ride came in at 7:30. For everyone who completed the ride, it was a very long day. We are all looking forward to the rest day tomorrow. Besides from the cold and my over dressing, the major impression I get from this area of New Mexico is the dry, remote beauty of the land and the difficulty that the people who live here endure to make a living. Another rider commented that from Gallup to about 3 miles from Albuquerque he had not seen a single house with a lawn or garden. The most common exterior decorations I saw were derelict cars parked around the house. It is an all together different world that coastal Americans just don’t get.

Day 6 Winslow to Gallop NM

2008-04-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

It was cold this morning and the people who prepared the breakfast at the motel decided not to come in. Mike told us about today’s ride. Get on I40 in Winslow. Get off in Gallup. Well there was a little more but not much. Then we walked or rode to Denneys for Breakfast. We got on the road a little late this morning. Early on the most exciting thing was navigating flooded streets in Winslow, no it didn’t rain, after a water main break.

There is so little good to say about this section of I40 that I won’t say very much. The scenery is boring, and the few homes in the towns along the road are trailers with multiple derelict cars parked in the yard. In places the road surface on the shoulder is the pits, literally! The winds were mostly in our faces. On top of this today seemed to produce flats in almost everyone’s tires. I got one, my first of the ride. By this time last year I had 6, so that is an improvement. Many riders hade several flats today. One had 5. Riding narrow racing tires on bad roads will produce flats every day. Riding over potholes and tire fragments will cause flats. Riding with a group increases the chance that you will be unable to avoid an obstacle, even if it is called out by the leader. Riding in a group that stops for everyone’s flats slows down your overall pace. Consequently I who rode alone because the pacelines were a little to fast for me today was able to keep pace with most riders because I had less time off the bike fixing flats. I am not sure that I recommend this strategy under all conditions but it worked for me today.

After the last rest stop we got off I40 and rode 20 miles on back roads to Gallup. Last year our motel, likely the worst we stayed at and an absolute pit, was on the West side of town. This year the motel was on the East side of town – add 10 miles to the ride. In total we rode 30 miles into a head wind, I think I averaged 11 mph for that section but that could be high. It was hard. I even had a small longing for the motel we stayed at last year as I went past it. I also was one of the early finishers today.

Gallup is a town that several people have told me they will not be visiting again. The Santa Fe mainline runs through Gallup. It is the first town in New Mexico when going East on I40. There are more rundown motels, restaurants, convenience stores, and gas stations that you would ever want to see much less visit. There are a lot of gun shops. Every one drives BIG cars or BIGGER pickup trucks. If you want to know where gas is being consumed in this country think Gallup. On a per capita basis they must be near the top of the list – they drive big cars longer distances. It is a long way between anything. The other thing I saw a lot of in Gallup was stores selling Indian products. Signs advertised Indian blankets, jewelry, pots, artifacts and fetishes. I haven’t found out what an Indian fetish is.

This year’s motel is a big improvement over last year’s. Unfortunately, there is only one close by restaurant, a Denneys.

Day 5 - Cottonwood to Winslow

2008-04-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

Today was a day of contrasts. After our usual breakfast we headed from Cottonwood and its dry sagebrush to Sedona. Sedona is of course known for its lifestyle and the red rocks that attract the rich and famous to this town. However, without the rich and famous Sedona would be little more that dry sagebrush surrounded by beautiful red rock cliffs. As we continued past Sedona through the Oak Creek River valley, the cliffs got closer the pine trees more plentiful and after a while we were in a forest. Ultimately the road goes up the cliff in a series of switch backs and cyclists slow down and breathe more deeply. At the top there is a great overlook where you can see the road you just climbed. It seems as if the sweet from your brow would land at the base of the assent.

Along the road from Sedona there were all sorts of groups that had taken responsibility for litter removal, local businesses, families (often in memory of someone), and local organizations (churches and a rescue group –Ropes that Save). The weirdest was a group ‘Ye Will Not Throw Trash Here’; I don’t know but it might work. Another strange thing I noticed was that as I approached the climb the road on my Garmin GPS looked as if there was a small red bead on the red line for the road. As I got closer, I could expand the scale and see that the bead was in fact the switchbacks on the climb.

Once the climb was over we headed for Flagstaff a large town with at least two universities and a railroad. It also was the first time we encountered the Santa Fe mainline. It runs through the town and all North-South roads seem to have graded crossings, so when a train comes to town all North-South traffic comes to a halt. This may not seem like that big a problem and maybe for the residents of Flagstaff it isn’t, but many trains are a mile and a half long and they slow down when going through towns. In addition based on what I saw in the afternoon when we followed the mainline on I40, there are several trains every hour. One might never imagine how much stuff is moved by the railroad. I was told that the railroads are benefiting from the high cost of gas because they are the most energy efficient was to move goods. Who would have thought that someone besides the oil companies would benefit from the high price of oil?

Flagstaff is also the first place where we rode on old US Route 66; it is the main street of Flagstaff. A little ways out of town Route 66 disappears and we were on I40 for 50 miles to Winslow. I rode at over 20 mph for most of it. It felt like a tailwind but in reality the air was calm, it was just that we lost 2000 feet over those 50 miles. Flagstaff to Winslow is high desert with nothing of note but Meteor Crater, a quarter mile in diameter hole, about six miles from I40. I didn’t bother to go have a look since in addition to the extra miles they charge $15 to see the crater.

Winslow is a town with little reason to exist. There is a railroad stop and they have built exits from I40, but the evidence of poverty for the people who are not living in the boarded up buildings is oppressive. Three or four stores make some money at the corner made famous by the Eagles song and there is a parked flat bed Ford, sans the red headed girl. So while I didn’t get a lift into town from her this year, I should be glad that this year I saw her truck. Our motel was the same motel from hell of last year. The only improvement over last year was that the air conditioning worked; but with temperatures in the fifties that was only a small plus. The staff and food service was just a bad as last year.

Winslow has one interesting aspect, Las Posedia, a hotel and restaurant. The hotel was built by the Harvey Corporation in 1930. I was the last of the Harvey hotels on the Santa Fe line. It has been restored and is a magnificent piece of Southwestern architecture. The hotel is a tourist destination and the restaurant is great. It is not 5 star dining, but it is so much better than the other fare in town, low end franchises, that you marvel at the fact that it even exists. Five of us had a wonderful diner as we watch the trains pass by. We then went directly to our beds where we dreamed of a fine meal and the 130 miles of I40 that connect Winslow to Gallup NM.

Day 2 - Across the Desert

2008-04-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

Today started a little too early. 5 AM wake up breakfast at 5:30 and on the road by 6:15. The sore muscles we earned yesterday were there to remind us of yesterday and warn us about what was to come. The first 25 miles were flat to downhill. Starting from a few feet below sea level this would seem to be hard to do, but our first rest stop in Mecca (California) appeared to be 180 feet below sea level according to my GPS. There is no reason to make a pilgrimage to this Mecca, it is a poor farming town and as far from Palm Springs in life style and wealth as you can imagine. The difference is as striking as that between the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the worst sections of the Bronx.

After leaving Mecca we climbed into Box Canyon; this is a wonderful road. It climbs 1500 feet in about 15 miles and for much of the time you ride through these scenic mounds. It is one of the places where our leader always takes too many pictures,

Once we got to the end of box Canyon we were on I10 for the rest of the day, a 70 mile ride across the desert to Blyth. Last year it was 80 in the shade at Blyth and we had a tailwind to get us there. This year it was 90 and there was no tailwind. Also like last year, there was no shade! We worked to get in this year, and if you didn’t drink your water you suffered greatly. I carried two water bottles and a small Camelback; I didn’t run out of water, but I was glad to see the rest stops every 25 to 30 miles. I don’t know how the riders with only two water bottles did it. Since 110 is a common temperature for Blyth in the summer don’t try this ride on your own.

After we got into the motel, we met to discuss the tomorrow’s route. While sitting in a shady corner of the parking lot, one rider passed out from dehydration and was rushed to the local emergency room. We hope that she, a twenty year old woman, will be OK. However, there could be no better way to make the point about taking care of yourself on this ride. We will see if the rest of us get the message. I also ant to point out that Mike who was describing tomorrows rout stopped in mid sentence and directed the staff to get her to the local ER. She and the van were off in less than three minutes. I was impressive.

Day 4

2008-04-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

Today the ride went from Wickenburg AZ to Cottonwood AZ. It is a relatively short ride of 104 miles. However, there are three large climbs and likely 9000 feet of climbing. I didn’t finish the ride.

Last year I couldn’t finish the first climb, but after taking a sag to lunch, did the last two and rode into Cottonwood, having done all but 19 miles of the ride. Today I resolved to get to lunch, however that was all that I could do. As I have mentioned, this year my performance in climbing hills has been poor. This has been evident on this year’s ride, where I have done reasonably well on the flatter sections but struggled in the hills. I might suggest several reasons but I won’t.

On a more positive note, the roads were very nice and the scenery was breath taking. As a friend with Cystic Fibrosis once told me: life is not measured the breaths you take, but by your breath taking experiences. Today had big numbers for both sides, but I will remember beauty far longer than the work. Someday I may forget why I couldn’t finish the ride but I will never forget what I saw today.

The problems with my bike appear to have been resolved although the approach was let’s change the chain because I can and then when that failed to resolve the problem let’s replace the cassette, the gears on the rear wheel, and then lets makes some adjustments to the real derailleur. Personally, I would have chosen a different order. However the chain is not skipping and the noises that I thought were coming from the bottom bracket seem to be gone.

Tomorrow we ride through Sedona, climb to Flagstaff and finish the day in Winslow AZ. I will look again for the girl in the flat bed Ford especially during the last 20 miles of the ride. Last year she did not show up but I will let you know what happens this year tomorrow.

Day 3

2008-04-25T05:25:00.000-07:00

Blyth, CA to Wickenburg, AZ – 114 miles and 2965 feet of climbing. This is less than the Pokeslow ride to Danville, which is considered to be a ‘flat’ ride and is only 50 miles long. In general the winds were favorable, the heat was not too oppressive, there was an 8 mile decent into Wickenburg, the roads were OK to good and there were only two turns. In general the riders from Florida and southern California seem to be doing best in the heat. The major problem today was rumble strips. In Arizona they are like open pit mines, about 4 inches by 3 inches and over 2 inches deep. I am sure that they are great for keeping drowsy drivers on the road, but boy are they a problem for cyclists.

One rider fell after hitting a rumble strip. He hit is helmet on the pavement, among other scrapes and abrasions, there was concern about a concussion. The medics brought in a helicopter and took him to a hospital in Phoenix. He will not be returning to the ride, but should be OK to ride in a month. He was lucky. Unfortunately his wife was riding with him; she also fell but was not badly hurt. I think she will leave the ride, but we shall see. Several years ago on another America by Bicycle ride she fell on her face, she lost 4 teeth and needed 200 stitches. However after 3 or 4 days in the van, she started riding and finished the tour. I am not sure what to make of this. I am inclined to agree with everyone who is not trying to cross the country by bicycle and many who are and say that this was crazy!

Tomorrow we are into the hills/mountains – three 3000 foot climbs. We shall see how the flatlanders from Florida do. However I will have to ask others at the end of the day because, my hill climbing ability, while never good, has not come around this year. I intend to get an early start and try to ride as much as I can in the cool of the morning, but unless the weather changes dramatically it could be quite hot during the climbs. They were hard enough last year - when it was in the 50’s.

A word on heat and water. Last year I carried 4 water bottles. I found it hard to drink enough on many days. This year I have a small Camelback and two bottles. The Camelback is more comfortable than some of the first models that I used 15 years ago. It also keeps the water cold. This is a good thing although I did like to have the water in the Camelback send shivers down my spine. This year I am drinking more. It may be the heat bu I think it is due to the greater ease of drinking from the hose on the Camelback.

Day 1

2008-04-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

Newport Beach to Thousand Palms 122 miles 4600 feet of elevation gain.

Today we got up at 5:30 and had a great breakfast at Denney’s. We left at 7 AM and rode to the Pacific where we dipped our rear wheels. Karen was there this year to see the event. I gave her a kiss, told her I loved her and started my ride. Today’s route was the same as last year’s. Well the terrain was the same, same bike path for 30 miles, two climbs and a great 30 mile down hill with a tail wind. The downhill into Palm Springs was run at between 25 and 40 mph. Most importantly today I had NO flats and me rear wheel is still intact. Last year I had four flat and trashed my rear wheel. Today was a much better day!

While I have been very apprehensive about my conditioning this year, I rode near the front of the group all day and got in fully 2 hr before last year. I guess I am better than I thought, but we shall see over the next few days.

My roommate this year is from Florida and seems to be able climb hills as well as ride the flats. He finished with the first group today. He also seems like someone who I will like – he is a fan of Keith Obermann.

It is definitely going to happen

2008-04-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

I will be riding across America this year. The training, albeit less than I would like, is now complete. The logistical planning is done; Karen and I rented a Highlander and drove to Newport Beach on Saturday. Almost all of the decisions about what to take have been made; I just need to pack. The bike was checked out and pronounced ready to ride; I took a final tune-up ride on Thursday.

This year’s ride is different than last year’s. Ending in Georgia and not Massachusetts is really a rather trivial difference. No the major difference is that I know what to expect. The first ten days are on the same roads as last year’s ride. I know where I failed on last year’s ride and I have to ask myself can I succeed this time. I hope so, but in reality I will just have to try again this time and see what my limits are.

Confidence There seem to me to be two reasonable ways in which one can be confident that they will accomplish the task at hand. The first way comes from having done the task so many times before that there is no logical reason why you will not complete the task this time. The second to believe you have skills that far exceed the task at hand even though you have not previously done the task. These approaches can help one achieve success, but neither assures success. Even if you have completed a task many times, others have not. Why will you always be able to avoid the problems that have stopped others? If you haven’t attempted something before, no matter how good you are, there is always a chance that you will fail. The reasonable person has confidence in their ability, but acknowledges that there are circumstances that could prevent success.

There is a third far worse way in which one can become confident – by having a willful ignorance of the extent of the problem at hand. Most riders on this trip are really in that category. They have little if any experience with the problems they are likely to encounter during 26 days of riding 100+ miles a day.

On this ride everyone is confident they can do it. One of the more important things is to learn why they are confident and separate those with skills that exceed those needed to ride across America from those that have not acknowledged the magnitude of the task at hand.

Last year my confidence came from skills that I thought were sufficient and an inability to understand the difficulty that riding across America entails. This year while I may be better able to complete the ride, I have less confidence in my abilities to finish. I know what is necessary and have a more realistic view of my strengths and weaknesses.

Getting Ready

2008-04-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

April 8, 2008

Today I rode with a group of 20 friends in the morning. There are a few former racers and most riders are over 60. This not a slow ride on a flat course we average 20 mph for 30 miles. Well, two 15 mile rides with a stop at Starbucks. It is a fun ride. My ride went very well today and even though the ride was about 1% of the distance across America it helped my confidence. (It is interesting to think that by doing this ride every week for two years, I would ride as far as my cross-country trip. Many riders have done this ride religiously for 5, in some cases 10 years. Just think about it going across America in 2 hr pieces ridden, once a week.)

My only trouble was caused by changing my tires yesterday. As I started out the back brake squeaked and the bike didn’t track like it should have. Luckily, quick stop to reposition the rear wheel fixed the problem. I have decided to ride Specialized

Roubaix Armadillo tires this year. Based on today’s ride the give a good, responsive ride and maybe I will not get four flats on the first day, like I did last year.

I am also using Mavic Ksyrium SSC SL wheels. I have ridden with these wheels for 6 months and I like them a lot! I would normally be reluctant to use any wheel with ‘esoteric’ spokes, but these are the same wheels that the tour leader rode last year. The other reason for the new wheels is that they came on the Roark custom bicycle I purchased last summer. We stopped in the Roark factory in Indiana during last year’s ride. After taking a good deal of ribbing over my ‘prehistoric’ bicycle last year (it was only built in 1983), I decided to buy a new bicycle. As I was impressed with the Roark operation and all three leaders on last year’s tour rode Roark bicycles, I decided to buy one too. After 6 months and a little over 2500 miles, I am still in love with my new titanium bicycle.

Other changes for this year include a Garmin GPS unit and a bell. Boy is the GPS a cool toy. I can load the entire route across America into it. I can display road or topological maps. It can compute and display everything you could imagine, with the exception of cadence (how fast I pedal). Technology is wonderful. However on Sunday, I forgot to turn it off when I got on the train after my ride to Davis CA. All of the sudden, I noticed that my average speed was increasing rapidly and that my maximum speed was 80 mph. As for the bell, I have come to the conclusion that a bell is the best way to warn pedestrians, joggers, dog walkers, and casual cyclists of by presence behind them. As for people with Ipods, there is some chance that they will my bell, and I believe that a speaker system with a train whistle would be overkill. I also do not want them to drop dead from freight in front of me.

So, I guess I am getting ready for another adventure.

Training

2008-04-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

April 6, 2008

Two weeks before the start and I am not doing as well as I would like. I have been fighting the flu, maybe several, all winter. One in January dragged on into mid-February – in all about six weeks. Karen and I spent a few weeks I Mexico, lots of sun and no colds. However on our return we sat next to a couple that coughed for the entire plane ride - three days later we were both sick. Three weeks later I am close to OK and I just completed my first 200 mile week of the year.

Today’s ride, April 6th, was a club - 105 miles from Berkeley to Davis CA (3500 ft of climbing) with a return by train. I did OK, a few min over 6 hours. The short hills really took a toll, but when we had a tailwind, I was holding 21 to 23 mph. I am encouraged but still am apprehensive. This year I know how hard the ride across America will be, 2900 miles in 26 days on the road; even with two rest days it is going to be hard. Last year there were some very hard days and a few times when taking a sag was the only thing that made sense. I hope to avoid that fate this year, but as two of those days last year are also on this years’ route, I have a few apprehensions.

I had hoped to start the ride this year at 185 lbs, last year I was 195, but it seems more likely that I will be 200 lbs at the start. Three weeks ago I knew my legs abs and back where stronger than last year but with this cold I can no longer be sure. I am going to due a 65 mile ride tomorrow. This will give me three days in a row with 60 mile or longer rides. I am still not sure how well my body will be able to recover after several long days in a row.

I am also concerned about Karen. She had an arthroscopic procedure on her knee on Thursday. Both of us thought that her recovery time would be shorter than her surgeon suggested is normal. She likely will have limited mobility when I have to leave. I worry about her being alone in Berkeley. I know that our friends will take good care of her. The good news is that while she has not left the house since the operation she is walking around without crutches and reports that he knee feels better than it did before the operation. I hope she will be OK. If she needed me to take care of her, I would forgo the ride and forfeit the several thousand dollars I have paid in a heartbeat. I hope it does not come to that, but we shall see.

Doing It Again

2008-04-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

March 31, 2008

Well, it is time to let the cat out of the bag. In December I made a down payment for another cross country bicycle trip. And in February I
committed to the adventure by making the final payment. So again this year April and May will find me on the road. I hope to see USA with my new Roark custom titanium bicycle. A Chevrolet might be more nostalgic but it would be a different experience.

I have a few concerns about this trip. Overall the trip last year was a great experience and trying to reproduce that experience may be like catching time in a bottle; we shall see. There also were some hard times on the ride last year, how could there not be, and of late I have been recalling more of them than I might like. It is funny how the mind starts down a path and them seems to only find things that reinforce the path. I simply have to start redirecting my thoughts.

I have also had some real health issues. Nothing serious, but a series of flu like colds – one in November, a five week bout in January, and now a two week one from which I am just recovering. Needless to say my mileage is down – I only have 1300 miles so far this year. I should get to 2000 by the start but a long way from the 3500 I had hoped to have ridden by the start on April 20th.

I am riding with America By Bicycle again this year. At least three of the four leaders from last year’s trip, Mike, Barb, and Karen, will be back.
They are great and a major reason why I choose to do another ride this
year. This year we will ride from Los Angeles to Savannah, Georgia. The route will go through Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama, the only three states in the Union that I have never been to. No offense to anyone with a strong attraction for any of this states, but I believe that I could live a contented life without ever visiting this area of the country. However, it will be nice to have been to all 50 states.

Ultimately I need to ask, why am I doing this? The simple answer is that I can. Admitting that I can’t would be concession to age that I am not yet willing to make. For me this is not a life-changing experience, it is a life-affirming experience. I want to know that I still have it; well, maybe not like I had it 20 years ago. Most assuredly will not be able to keep up with everyone on the trip, but by the end of the day I will have gotten to the same place as everyone else on the ride.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.” Dylan Thomas

May 26 - Riding with MIT Cycling Team

2007-05-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday the MIT cycling team and the Alumni Association arranged for me to do a ride. I need to give a special note of thanks to Kristen Naegle and Katha Washburn for setting up a great event. I hope the other riders had as good a time on the ride as I did. I rode on nearly deserted roads through Boston and over the Longfellow Bridge to Cambridge. I have been in that area east of the campus many times since I graduated in 1972 and it seems to change so fast that I never recognize anything. I found Ames St and was able to ride past East Campus where I lived for four years and then onto Memorial Drive. As I went by the Great Court I saw a group of Japanese tourists taking photographs and asked them to take some of me. When I told them what I had done they all wanted pictures with me. I then went to 77 Mass Ave and repeated the same process. There must have been three tour busses of Japanese tourists in front of MIT. I later learned that there are even tours that go through the Infinite Corridor and that it can be hard to get to classes on time if you find yourself behind one of these tours. MIT was never on anyone’s agenda as a tourist destination when I went there. I guess tech has become trendy, at least with the Japanese.

Kristen, president of the cycling club, and Katha, who works for the Alumni Association, arrived a few minutes later. We took some more pictures. Over the next 15 minutes about 15 riders arrived, mostly graduate students, as undergraduates had to be out of the dorms by today. We did a pleasant ride out to Lexington Green; it was billed as a social ride, which means you can talk as you ride. There were a number of nice roads with reasonable amounts of traffic. I was pleasantly surprised. They even found a hill. Let me say this about the hill, it might have been visible on the route profiles for the I days rode in Illinois where the terrain was as flat as a pancake, but on most other days I would not have taken any particular note of this hill. We returned by a different route and I was reminded of one of the many pleasures of cycling – you get to see places even in your own backyard that you would never have seen were it not for cycling.

I decided to ride back via the Esplanade. So I crossed the Harvard Bridge, paying appropriate homage to the number of Smoots I traveled, then I turned onto the Esplanade. I soon discovered that there was a large concert at the Hatch Shell and needless to say I had to walk the bike. I thought that everyone who hadn’t left Boston the night before must be on the Esplanade. When I finally got back to the Charter House where Karen and I are staying, I discovered that there were even more people at Quincy Market. Where do they all come from? Having ridden across rural areas of the US for 4 weeks I might not have seen this many people in total over that time. I will just have to adjust.

After a few days off the bike it is time to access the ride. Am I glad I did it? YES! Would I do it again? Yes. How do I feel? No aches or pains and while I will fly back to Berkeley, I feel like I could ride back if I had the time. It was a great adventure. I wish I had been able to ride every mile of the ride, but I didn’t. I described a method for grading my ride a few weeks ago. With the rain, my fatigue, and the bike mishap in Missouri, I figure I rode 89% of the total distance. Based on the assumption that an A grade requires 90% or better, I have to give myself a B+ for the ride. On the MIT 5.0 grading scale, I guess I get a 3.9, which as I try to recall is about what my GPA was at MIT. As time goes by some things seem to stay the same.

I will be staying on the East Coast for the next two weeks seeing friends and family in Boston, New Jersey and Philadelphia before attending my 35^th reunion. I plan to be back in Berkeley on June 10^th. I will see my friends in Berkeley then.

May 25 – We All Go Home

2007-05-28T06:44:00.000-07:00

Friday morning I woke up and had nowhere to ride. I got up and saw about half the group board the vans and get taken to Logan Airport in Boston. Then I did a final laundry, so that I would not have to carry five days of dirty cycling clothes with me for the two weeks Karen and I plan to stay on the east coast. (I also didn’t want to hear her comments about having to wash the socks I wore on the beach yesterday.) I said goodbyes to the rest of the riders, those who had families at the wheel dipping and had other plans for getting home. It was a sad time as I am unlikely to see any of these riders again. That seems to be how it is so often in life today. People come together to work on a project and when it is finished they separate often never to interact with each other again. Certainly there are those among us who can keep those bonds of friendship despite the obstacles of time and distance we face in today’s world. However, it seems that this is getting harder today and it has never been easy for me.

As we rode across America we came upon a great number of small towns, each seemed to have a neatly kept graveyard, with monuments, both large and small, to the former residents of the town - the ancestors of the current residents. There was a stable sense of community. We also heard it in the roadside stores and restaurants we visited; people knew each other and talked about the things that were going on in their lives. We only heard snippets of conversation, but they were between people who shared a common history. It is something many of us who live in urban America never experience.

That day I saw two examples of community through the eyes of my wife, Karen. First we visited her aunt who is 95. She is mentally alert and in good health except for macular degeneration that has taken most of her vision. She lives in an assisted care facility but is far better off than most other patients. One of her two sons visits her regularly and Karen sees her whenever she is in Boston. However, she has become isolated as she has no one with whom she can recall shared experiences. The other example happened at dinner. Karen and I dined with one of Karen’s high school friends, Julie. They had been good friends but had had little contact since high school. Although their lives had gone in very different directions there was an immediate reconnection. They were able to recollect about their time together and had interest in what each other had done during the last 40 years. When they talked about Karen’s mother Julie recalled many positive experiences. I hope that after tonight’s conversations Karen will have a more balanced view of her mother.

The lesson for me is that I have very hard time fitting in to groups. I am far more likely to look in from the outside, than to be part of an inner core. On the bike trip I never rode consistently with any group of riders. I can say that this was because I never found riders who rode at a pace and with a style that I was comfortable with, but it is also true that I tended to be less than willing to alter my riding styles to fit with those of the other riders. It has been one of m major failings in life and in the end I can only hope that I will not become truly isolated and without any community of friends.

May 24 – The Atlantic Ocean

2007-05-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

Today we made it across the country. We dipped our bikes into the Atlantic Ocean in Salisbury MA. Getting there from Keene NH was another problem. Our route today was in reality two separate days of cycling that had been added together. The morning ride of 70 miles was a very scenic and hilly route along country roads from Keene to Manchester, NH. The course would make a great one day ride. It has 3 sustained climbs of over 12% and many other climbs and downhills. The roads were rural and for the most part devoid of traffic. The views are great! The afternoon ride went through Manchester, yuck, and then on to the Atlantic via some relatively flat country roads. They were we encountered about 8 miles of recently tarred road. I am sure it improved our ride but my riding partner could only think and often comment about how bad it was for his bike to ride on roads like this. If on a 3500 mile journey you are complaining about the surface of a road 15 miles before the end you need a serious attitude adjustment.

While I struggled a bit with today’s ride, it really didn’t matter the fastest riders waited 5 miles from the finish for the slowest riders to get there, before we all went on to the Atlantic Ocean together. We dipped our front wheels into the Atlantic to end our ride. It was a joyous time many riders where me by family at beach. Karen met me and shared in my joy. It was wonderful. Kasper’s family (mother, wife and son) were there. I guess that in Holland the police are held in higher regard than they are in the US. We also poured the bottle of Pacific Ocean water into the Atlantic. While the air temperature was about 80 the ocean temperature was about 50. Twenty-eight riders who were old enough to know better got very wet and didn’t mind at all. After the celebration on the beach we put my bike in our rental car and drove to the motel. About half the riders rode the ten miles to the motel and somewhere along the way picked up a police escort. They arrived behind a police car with lights ablaze.

After most of the riders had packed their bikes so that they could be sent by UPS or be taken on the airplane, we had a final banquet. All but one of the riders, who had to leave early that evening, and lots of family were there. We toasted our success; we all got to say something about the ride, our feelings, our fellow riders and the leaders. The range of comments was dramatic. Many were simply thankful for the help and friendship they received from the leaders and their fellow riders. Some recalled memorable incidents during the ride. Others described the experience in reverential ways and thought of themselves as being blessed for completing the ride. I was thankful for the support of my wife as well as that of the fellow riders and staff. I thanked the staff for all the mechanical, emotional and physical support I received. I was pleased not to have had the most flats on the ride, I missed that honor by one. I also did not to have spent the most time in the van one rider had an Achilles tendon problem early in the ride and had to sag for five days while it healed. I was also pleased that after my bike was repaired in Quincy IL I rode every mile.

Many riders expressed a pride in their accomplishment. I have a great deal of trouble feeling that emotion. I look at it as if I did nothing special when compared to my fellow riders. I never felt a special sense of accomplishment when I became an Eagle Scout, graduated from MIT, climbed the highest mountain in Peru (22,000 ft), got a Ph.D., or completed Paris-Breast-Paris. In very case many others accomplished the same thing with me; I wasn’t any different than the other members of the group. I guess that I have never compared myself to the general population, only to the cohort of people doing the same things I am. It is an interesting character trait that I have only come to recognize in full lately. It keeps my ego in check but it limits my ability to feel joy and take pride in the accomplishments that I do achieve. On balance I like being that way but it certainly is something to think about.

May 23 - Through Vermont and on to New Hampshire

2007-05-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

We were all concerned about today’s ride. It was 125 miles long and had some big hills. I tried to get an early start and for about 15 miles was the first rider on the road, something that I never had been before. There were some very nice rolling hills in New York State. We crossed the Hudson River 20 miles north of Albany. It is a smallish river at that point and it brought back a stream of memories. When I was 11, my Boy Scout troop did a canoe trip from the Southern end of Lake Champlain down a barge canal to the Hudson and then on the West Point. In ten days we covered 180 miles. There were 8 canoes with 4 scouts in each and only one adult leader on the water. Most of the canoes had a leader who was going to be a junior or senior in high school. They seemed like very old and responsible people to an 11 year old. I know times were different and that my parents must have really trusted the scoutmaster, Mr. Donnelly. Fortunately we had no problems, but I have often thought about what could have happened. I was reminded of this when we crossed over the Hudson at a place I must have canoed under 46 years ago.

My parents first lived together in Troy NY, where my father went to school. As we went through towns north of Troy I recalled hearing how my parents had been in these towns 60 years ago. I brought me another connection to my past. I wondered if they had seen the same vistas that I was seeing, or had it all changed so much in the last 60 years as to be unrecognizable today to a visitor form the past. I hope not.

As I approached the Vermont state line I started to hear a click in the bike with each petal stroke. I flagged down the mechanics van and Mike inspected my bike. He found several problems including a loose bottom bracket, but not the source of the clicks. Convinced that the bike was not going to fall apart and kill me I continued on. I never found the problem that caused the clicks but the day before Dave Thompson had a problems with a clicking noise. He spent 20 minutes trying to find the cause until he realized that it was due to a bottle of pills in his jersey pocket. I never found the cause of my clicks, but I made sure that they were not due to anything in my pockets.

After going through Bennington VT we had a long hard climb that eventually lead to a roaring downhill. I limited my speed to 40 mph, but several riders got up to 55 mph. One rider became so fearful of the downhill that he had to be sagged to the motel. It is really a shame because while with a little bit of practice a bicycle can be held at almost any speed on a downhill, it is much more difficult to convince the brain that it is safe to go down a hill. For me the downhills are the just reward I get for all the work I expended getting to the summit. There were several additional climbs and some other glorious downhills before we got to Brattlebourgh.

Once in Brattlebourgh the ride to our motel in Keene NH went became far worse. The roads were OK for cycling, but the constant presence and noise from an endless stream of cars and trucks made for a very unpleasant finish to the day’s ride. It was almost 5 PM before I got in, by far my latest finish. During the last 15 miles little clouds of doubt about completing tomorrow’s equally hard ride started to fill my head. I fear they will only be exiled from my conscious brain by tonight’s sleep, what they will due to my unconscious brain tonight I know not. The surprising thing about this is that I rode from Bennington to Keene 20 years ago as a latter part of a double century. I honestly don’t recall it being too hard but I am sure that there was less traffic that day than there was today. I don’t know if it was the increase in traffic or my increased age or 30 days on the road or a fading memory that has led me to feel so differently about this section of road.

May 22 – Syracuse to Amsterdam

2007-05-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

Today Kasper woke up to learn that the US would not let his son come to America because he was on his mother's passport, even though she was also coming with him. Kasper had to write a letter of explanation, have a policeman? sign it (as an American official), and FAX it to the Netherlands. He is hopeful that this will allow is wife and son to travel tomorrow. Only one day delayed.

Today’s ride of 120 miles was along the Eire Canal, through a region of New York that was once a major reason why this is the Empire State. But increasingly the mill towns along the canal and Mohawk Valley have seen much better times and are now a sad reminder of America’s, no the world’s, tendency to use an area’s resources and when they are exhausted, or can no longer compete with another one, move on.

There were some interesting sights along the road. One was the worlds’ smallest church. It sits in the middle of a pond and has room for two people. However, you need to swim with the current growth not a pleasant choice, or take a boat to pray in the church. Another was a view of the fields to the south of the Mohawk Canal.

One of the things that we have seen as we came across the country is the progressive increase in the numbers on the Interstate roads we cross. We started in California crossing I5 and riding on I10. In New Mexico we rode on I40 and I25. Since New Mexico we have not ridden on any Interstates but as we continued to cross the country in a Northeasterly direction the numbers on the Interstates have increased we have now crossed to the North of I90. Tomorrow we will be East of I89 and eventually we will be East of I95. This has been one way that I have been using to measure my progress across the country. I have previously talked about how we get a very myopic view of the country and without the Interstate grid it would be hard if not impossible to know where in the country you were. Certainly, the landscape has changed as we moved across the country but without the Interstate grid it would be hard to place where you were in the larger context of the country.

All and all it has been a good day, a few close calls with potholes in the road, but I finished strong and am looking forward to attacking Vermont and New Hampshire.

Sorry for the delay but Internet access has been spotty and the rider/writer busy/tired.

May 21 – East to Syracuse

2007-05-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

The ride from Batavia to Syracuse was 121 miles and for that distance a very easy ride. We started from Batavia after a breakfast at Bob Evans. They opened at 6 AM and all 28 riders were outside waiting to come in and eat. Fortunately the restaurant had been warned the night before. Standing outside in cycling clothes was a chilly experience as there was frost this morning. By 6:45 when I started it was a little warmer but not much. I rode most of the day with Ian, a rider who lives outside Boston. We both have the nice problem of only needing one plane ride to do this ride. Most riders flew to the start and then will fly from the end back home.

We set a comfortable pace on the gentle rollers that made up much of the route. We went through a number of small towns each of whom had seen better days and each with their own claim to fame. The most notable was LeRoy which claimed to be the place where Jell-O was invented. We passed through Geneva on Lake Seneca and had no problem understanding why the town was named Geneva, especially after having been to its namesake in Switzerland. Like Geneva the town of Seneca Falls has some remarkable Victorian architecture and would be worthy of a visit when I had more time to explore.

There were more chocolate chip cookies today and they were just as good today as they were yesterday.

For me the most interesting part of the day was riding on some of the roads around Syracuse. My mother lived in Syracuse for several years when she was growing up. I have no idea where the family lived, but some of the parks we went through must have been there in the 30’s when she lived there. I likely was going past places that she knew well. I will never know for sure, but there was a very strange sense of connection.

Ian and I finished the ride with AJ our lone rider from the UK. Many riders have had family or friends that lived near the route visit them during the ride. One who lives in Illinois seemed to be having a family congregation as we passed through the state. It got to the point where we would tell any slowly moving car that passed us that Rob Landis was just a little bit ahead. Many others will have friends at the end of the ride on Thursday. AJ’s wife had been in the US visiting friends in Pennsylvania for several weeks but has left of England and so she will not be at the end of the ride. It seemed like a shame to me, but I really don’t know their situation. Well today as we arrived at the motel four friends of AJ from PA were there to great him. He was totally surprised and overwhelmed. It was so nice that they came and that they surprised AJ.

May 20 – Old Bicycles and Cookies

2007-05-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Today got off to an inauspicious start. The weather channel could not provide any local weather. It was better to open the window and determine that it was raining and in the 40’s. Breakfast was a buffet; it was good with the exception of the pancakes that had to be cut with a knife, preferably a steak knife, even after syrup was liberally applied. The pancakes would have made good Frisbees.

Our ride today was only 84 miles, 87 with a necessary detour. It was divided into two nearly equal parts. The first 40 miles was from Dunkirk to Orchard Park where we toured the Pedal Power Museum. The world’s largest museum dedicated solely to bicycles and bicycle memorabilia. It has a remarkable collection of bicycles from the earliest bonebreakers and ordinary bikes (ones with one large front wheel) to bikes of the 50’s and 60’s. As owning a bicycle in the 1880’s was as expensive as owning a car is today, the degree to which bicycle motifs were used in everyday items is amazing. I have included a few pictures. I have heard a few riders commenting during the ride about whether anyone has ridden across the country on a fixed gear bicycle. I knew it had been done but didn’t know when. In the museum there was the first ordinary that was ridden across the country in 1884. It took about 100 days and in many places in the west there were no roads! I am glad that I waited for improved bikes and transcontinental roads before doing my ride.

The 40 mile morning ride to the museum was cold, temps in the 40’s, with wet roads and a little bit of drizzle. I got one flat from a small wire that though my tire needed to be steel belted. The 40 mile afternoon ride to Batavia NY was cold, temps in the upper 50’s, with wet roads, periods of rain and headwinds. I got two flats. Well, I got one from a piece of glass and a second one because the tube I used had a slow leak from a patch I put on before. I also made a wrong turn in the afternoon, in part because I was so frustrated with my second flat of the day. I am not sure which part of the ride I liked better but there was one ray of sunshine in the afternoon. Shane, our mechanic, was driving sag with his nine year old grand-daughter. When he fixed my second flat of the afternoon, his grand-daughter offered me a chocolate cookie from a palate of cookies her mother had made. I am no fool, so I thanked her and had the very good cookie. I was the last rider and about 10 miles from the end of the ride Shane waited at a turn to make sure that I made the right turn and that I had enough water. His grand-daughter offered me the last cookie from the plate. I told her I couldn’t take the last one but she insisted; then said that there were more. So I had a second cookie. When I finished the ride I told her that I only made it to the end because of her second cookie. She may be nine but I don’t think she was naive enough to believe that.

Our motel is a Days Inn, however the other half of the same building, just down the hall is a Motel 8. We have experienced motels that have changed their names between the time the organizers book the rooms and the time we arrive. But I have never seen one motel building with two different motels. I don’t know but we may have caught a motel in the act of changing its name. Unfortunately going back to Batavia NY to check out if one motel is being converted into another or if this is a stable situation is not high on must do my list, so we may never know.

May 19 – Ohio to New York

2007-05-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

Today’s ride went from Niles, Ohio to Dunkirk, NY at distance of 134 miles. The route went North in eastern Ohio and then along Lake Eire through Pennsylvania to Dunkirk. It was the second time we went through a state in a day. Today was cold, upper 30’s with frost at 6 AM and never got above 65. But the winds were from the west and they literally blew us through PA and NY. I missed our hotel, the Ramada Inn has become a Clarion, this required me to bike back 2 blocks, it was the hardest cycling of the day. I rode alone for the last 110 miles, largely by choice as the route had a number of places where I felt it would be unsafe to ride in a paceline, lots of places where problems with the shoulder would appear too fast to be avoided when riding with others at 24 mph. Riding alone I managed 20 mph for much of the ride. I may have felt like I was superman but in reality if I had spread my wings I could have gone 15 mph without any pedaling. Dave Thompson and his riding partners took pity on me this morning and I rode with them for the first 25 miles. I let them go and continued on alone, but I must have been doing OK because I got to both SAG stops today before they had left. At the end there were only six riders who finished before me today. Like I have always said, “Give me a relatively flat road and a big tail wind and I can do pretty well”. That is what happened today.

We rode through a few Amish villages in OH today. We have seen Amish people in every state we have been in since Missouri. They are far more common than we city folks would think. Even if you don’t see the Amish, or their horse drawn carriages you can recognize their presence by the horse shit on the road. I recall a 60’s song by Tom Lear who bemoans the pollution being produced by cars but concludes that the pollution produced by horses would be worse. With what we now know about global warming I am not sure that he was right. However, what I do know is that as cyclists, at least those who wish to avoid flats and brush their tires with their gloved hands, do not like riding through horse shit. In addition both cyclists and Amish carriages tend to ride on the left hand side of the road so it is often hard to avoid the byproducts of equine locomotion.

We passed several wineries today. A few cyclists went in to taste. As it is my firm belief that wine tasting and cycling should not be mixed, I did not partake. Consequently I can not report back on the quality of the wine produced on the shores of Lake Eire. I can report that as of today the wines are just starting to show any signs of new growth. I wonder what this says about the length of the growing season and what this means to the wine that is produced. In general, Western New York and Pennsylvania seem to have the latest spring of any place we have visited on this trip. I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.

On a lighter note about 15 riders went to a family restaurant before checking into our rooms. As we left a 30 something black woman can up to us and said that we had the nicest asses she had seen in along time. That is one way to make the day for a bunch of 40 and 50 year old men. We also had a small problem at breakfast. Our restaurant, a Perkins, was 0.8 miles into today’s route two of the slower riders turned the wrong way and went back on yesterday’s route for 7.0 miles before finding a Perkins restaurant for breakfast. They were surprised that no one else was there and they added 15 miles to already long day. One of them, Andy, has had a history of making wrong turns on this trip. I am not sure why he has gone wrong so often, he is a very smart guy from England, maybe it has something to do with his having to ride on the right side of the road.

May 18 – Why We Ride

2007-05-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Today we rode from Wooster Ohio to Niles Ohio, about 95 miles. We continued our trek across Ohio. What is most remarkable is that we have been able to avoid all major industrial areas of Ohio. My mental image of Ohio from this trip is at odds with any sense I may have had about Ohio being an industrial state. I may still think of Ohio as an industrial sate, but at least I know that there is a green swath through the state that is at least a mile wide. It is remarkable that we travel across the country by way of route sheets, detailed lists of turns to make and hazards we have to avoid in order to get to our next nights accommodations. On some days in the west route sheets might involve 4 or 5 turns and notations for 2 or 3 sag stops. For the last few days route sheets have listed more than 50 turns and hazards. While may see similar amounts of the country on the days with many turns, we seem to be focused on a much smaller area. We don’t get a big picture view. Our leader who has led tours on this route for ten years, can describe every turn on a route from memory and point out potential problems. However, he and the rest of the staff have very limited knowledge of things that are just off the route. Riding a bike gives you a far more intimate view of the land than you can get from a car, but at the end of the ride I will know a lot about a very narrow ribbon of land that stretches from California to Massachusetts. I will have experienced a part of Americana, but only a part, one that is heavily skewed toward rural America.

In the past few days we have ridden by many people who are out in their yards or doing errands in cars. We have waved to each other in passing, but I wonder what they would think if they knew where we started and where we intend to finish. I doubt that they could comprehend what we are attempting to do. They surely would have trouble with the issue of why we are doing the ride. In general, we do it because it is a challenge and because we are physically able to meet that challenge. It is a very limited challenge that for most of the older riders confirms our mental image that we are not yet ‘old’. But I doubt that any of use could climb Mt Everest or sale a boat across the Atlantic. What we are doing is not comparable to the 49’ers traveling to California in covered wagons or European settlers coming to the new world. At the end of our trek we will get on an airplane and go home to Wisconsin, Florida, California or Missouri. What we get out of this ride is the knowledge that almost all the people we meet could not do what we are doing. We get the knowledge that we are a few steps further from the grave than most Americans of a similar age. We get the knowledge that we have more time and financial resources than most of our fellow Americans. It is a confirmation that whatever failures we have suffered in life we have done better than most of our fellow Americans. That may not be politically correct but it is true and it is reassuring when everyone we meet believes we are all crazy.

May 17 – Rain, Cold, Wind, Hills, and Incorrect Route Sheets

2007-05-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

As you might guess from the title, I have had better days of cycling. It rained last night in Ohio, nothing like we had in Kansas, but unfortunately the weather didn’t see fit to stop raining until 10 AM. That meant that the first three hours of our ride were in the rain and that for the rest of the day the roads were wet. We all cleaned our bikes when we got in. My rain parka and long sleeve wool jersey never came off today. That also goes for the cycling booties and leg warmers. The hotel shower cap that I had over my helmet to keep the rain out in the morning was used to keep the cold wind from whistling through the vents in my helmet in the afternoon. Baby it was cold outside, especially when you stopped. It was pleasant to smell the wood fires burning in the homes we passed. However it led to the question, why am I out here when it would be so nice to be inside? The wind did blow from a westerly direction today, something like NNW and our route was to the NE. Yes it could have been worse, but it was not good.

Central Ohio is the first part of the ride, aside from mountainous parts of the ride between Prescott and Flagstaff AZ where there were abundant trees. We have either been riding through arid desert regions or grassland. Now the presence of trees means that the land was not fit for farming so the trees were not cleared, that in turn means that the land is too wet or too hilly to farm. In Ohio the land is hilly. While a few of today’s roads followed geographical features, valleys or natural passes through the hills, most seem to have the same unidirectional focus of the roads in Kansas and Illinois. They go north-south or east-west no matter what. As a consequence there are some pretty spectacular short steep climbs and descents in Ohio. We may have done all of them today, it certainly felt like that at times. The roads would have been fun to ride if it were a sunny day and you were doing a 50 mile loop, but they were not what I wanted for the final 50 miles of a cold, damp century.

Lastly, there was the route sheet. Usually they are great everything is just as described and the distances are accurate to the nearest tenth of a mile. Today’s route sheet was that way until the final 10 miles then while the roads went in the same direction that the route sheet indicated many seemed to have different names. Then there was the bridge that was out with no indicated alternative route. The leaders have up to now always indicated alternate routing when necessary, but not today. Finally after struggling though a final section were there was little correspondence between the street names on the route sheet and the street signs. We were directed onto a freeway and then one exit later off, but told to turn in the wrong direction to get to our motel. After going the indicted half mile down hill on a road with some pretty bad traffic, I asked if someone if they knew where our motel was. Yes, it was a mile away on the opposite side of the freeway. Needless to say it was not the best end for a hard day’s ride.

On a positive note I was contacted by the MIT cycling team about the possibility of having them accompany me to an ‘official’ finish at 77 Mass Ave. It may not happen for one reason or another but I am flattered by the offer and to know that they are interested in what I am doing.

I promised to calculate how I am doing on this ride. Well on the ride from my home in Berkeley to the start of my ride I didn’t ride 185 of 495 miles, mostly because of rain and some because of my fall. So far on the America By Bicycle ride I have not ridden 367 miles. These were for a variety of reasons that include exhaustion, weather related issues and my broken crank arm that kept me off the bike for almost two days. Up to today the length of my route has been 3147 miles 495 miles to the start and 2652 from the start to Wooster Ohio. I have ridden 85% of the total miles. Based on the grading system I described yesterday, I would get a B or a GPA of 3.5 at MIT.

May 16 – Wind and Clouds and Rain

2007-05-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

Last night a front moved through Indiana and Ohio. Temperatures dropped into the 60’s and the roads were wet in the morning. Conditions changed dramatically. We had some good winds today but we also had threatening skies and more than a few drops of rain. I got left behind at the start and was by myself for the entire day. This was not too bad, but it meant that I arrived at the hotel about one and a half hours after the first people to finish today’s ride. Today we rode on some of the nicest rural roads we have been on so far. It has been amazing how once we left Kansas we have been able to find roads that go through hamlets where as in the West roads only went to towns, large or small, and we had to ride through the towns. In one respect this reflects the larger number roads in the East and the fact that there are good roads to all the smaller farms. The West may have the most spectacular scenery but I really think that there are nicer roads to ride in the East.

Let’s take stock of how I am doing. I have been loosing weight, primarily because I can’t eat enough to replace the calories I burn each day. This will not be a great problem once I reach the end of the ride. Some of the pains I had in my shoulders before the ride and in the early days are much better. I have been trying very hard to improve my riding posture and I think it is working. At the start of the ride I had a lot of numbness in the fingers of my left hand, there is still some in the tips of the fingers, but it is much better since I increased the padding on my handlebars by taping a sponge onto the bars. I fell on the first day as I was cycling to the start of the ride. My knee is fine and the only reminders of the fall are a few holes in my knicker-riding shorts. When I fell last week I lost some skin from my left elbow, it is healing and causing me no pain. I have been taping my left ankle and it has helped quite a bit. Lastly, I have a sore butt. It is not so bad that I can’t ride but it can be a reminder that I have ridden over 2000 miles since I started. All in all I am doing OK for an older guy and even most of the younger riders will, when confronted, admit that they have about the same number and type of problems that I have admitted to.

I am also trying to determine how to evaluate my performance. I think the best way is to grade my ride as if I were a student at MIT. (Fortunately, I am not.) I will calculate what fraction of the total miles in my trip I have ridden. At MIT As are worth 5 points, Bs 4 points, and so on. If I ride 100% of the distance I should receive a grade of 5.0, for 90% I should get a 4.0 and so on. I am working on math and will let you know where I stand tomorrow.

May 15 – Titanium, McMansions and the East

2007-05-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

The first order of business today was a tour of the Roark bicycle factory. Roark makes custom titanium bicycle frames. They are really nice bikes. Several riders wanted to know if I was interested in a new bicycle. I think they are suggesting to me that my bike might be a little old and that if my bike were lighter I could ride faster. That may be true but I like my old bike. Several people have commented that I should at least have indexed shift levers in the brake levers, all modern bikes have these, but I like my downtube shifters. Sure I would like a new bike, but do I need one? Probably not. I can dream of riding like Lance, if only I had a better bike. However if I got a better bike and still couldn’t ride like Lance, I would have to find another reason for my lack of speed. I think I will keep my old bike and my fantasy.

Today’s ride was from Lebanon IN to Richmond IN a ride of 105 miles. We skirted the northern suburbs of Indianapolis on a route that is becoming less attractive each year. Because of our tour we didn’t start riding until 9 AM. That would have been no problem if the winds had been a little better; 6 hours on the bike and half an hour for two stops, in by 3:30. Unfortunately, it was not to be. I rode alone all day today, mostly by choice. All the riders I normally ride with had left before I started and the roads were so nice to start out that liked being on my own. The roads were quiet, a mixture of farm land and exurbs, kind of like Danville and Dublin were 20 years ago. As the ride progressed the area became more like that area today with McMansions and new developments being created out of what was farmland. There was a resemblance to areas around Radnor PA and the outer suburbs of Boston. I am sure that everyone knows of an area like these. They can be OK for riding but as the number of houses increase, the shopping malls come and then the sprawl. It is starting in Indiana, I saw more cement trucks today than I have seen on the whole trip so far. In a few years the route will have to be routed further from Indianapolis.

The next section of the ride was through rural farmland. It was pleasant but most of it had a vicious wind that could most charitably be called a crosswind, but seemed tome to be into my face. It truly beat me up, so that the last 35 miles along US 40 were nowhere near as pleasant as they might have been. US 40 runs parallel ton I70 through a number of small towns that soon will be completely forgotten but in the 40’s and 50’s had a major highway running through Main Street. Richmond where we ended today’s ride is a big city and the traffic on US 40 increased as we got closer to Richmond. However 40 miles from Richmond US 40 is a 4-lane highway with wide shoulders and NO traffic. Several times I rode for over a minute without being passed by a car going in either direction. This was in the middle of the afternoon. If it wasn’t for the two flats I got US 40 would have been a very memorable road. In summary, it took me 7 hours on the bike to cover 105 miles and with stops and flats it was after 5 PM before I got to the Holiday Inn.

Richmond marks our entry into the East. It is the first town where I get the sense that the natural resources in the environment have been used and that regeneration will be close to impossible. There are lots of places in East that are like Richmond and there are some in the West. Richmond CA comes to mind. Our ride has avoided major cities where ever possible, primarily because they are usually not bicycle friendly. We have also seen lots of rural towns that will be only ghosts of there former selves in 10 years and will be all but gone in 20. However, I haven’t gotten the impression that when they disappear the land will be an environmental disaster zone. We can rail against the practice of slash and burn farming in the tropics, but in reality we have been doing the same thing in America, only at a slower rate. America is a great country, with natural resources that can support our present population and more, but we must realize that this seemingly limitless natural bounty can be exhausted if care is not taken. We just seem to be building a new world for those who can afford it and leaving those who can't behind. Is that really the American way?

May 14 – We will take what ever we can get

2007-05-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

"You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you can get what you need." A wind from the west was what we wanted, what we got was 20 mph from the south. About 20 miles of our 120 were due north, so for those legs the wind was great. For the rest of the ride a crosswind was better than a headwind. All told I rode 120 miles today in the same time it took me to do 77 miles yesterday. I would call that an improvement, but we still haven’t seen a true westerly wind. Indiana is less flat than Illinois. There seem to be more towns than in Illinois, but that might be due to the fact that we are getting near Indianapolis. The farmers in both Illinois and Indiana have planted their corn; it is about 6 inches high and blowing in the wind. In Kansas it seemed like they hadn’t started to plant and with all the rains that they had while we were there it may be a while before they can plant any crops.

We lost another hour today as Indiana has for the first time this year gone on daylight savings time. The result is that at 8 PM there will be at least another hour of sunlight and at 5:15 when we wake up it will be dark. There are also a lot of irate Indianian farmers who don't like getting up in the dark. I have been told that someone wrote to NPR claiming that the reason for all the bad weather this spring was that by going on daylight savings time earlier there was more time for the sun the heat the country and that this added heat caused the bad weather. I am not sure that I believe this theory, but I haven’t heard any other explanations.

When you ride a bicycle you get to see a lot of things that you don’t see from a car. One thing is highway litter. I have talked about shredded truck tires on the Interstates before. In states with high values for the return of cans and bottles there are far fewer containers along the roads and you often see scavengers picking up cans and bottles while riding a bicycle. There is always more debris on small bridges and overpasses than along the highway. Traffic tends to blow litter off the shoulder and into the grass on the side of the road where it can’t be seen or puncture you bicycle tire. On bridges there is usually a barrier that prevents the debris from getting off the road so it accumulated.

Road surfaces can vary greatly. Some states seem to like cement highways others prefer asphalt. As another rider said “We have been building highways for almost 100 years and apparently we still can’t figure out what the best way is.” The texture of the surface can also vary greatly even on good roads with out cracks or potholes there can be big differences in the smoothness of the surface. Sometimes the difference in road smoothness can cause a 4 or even 5 mph difference in cycling speed without any increase in perceived effort. Another thing you see while cycling are numbers written along the highway surface. These are surveyors’ measurements and depending on the state are painted on the shoulders of finished roads at 100 or 500 foot intervals. They can be fun to count onto roads where it seems that you will never reach your destination. In Illinois they do not paint the marks onto the road they stamp them into the fresh concrete or asphalt. This leaves a permanent record as opposed to pained numbers that eventually fade into oblivion.

Tomorrow morning we are going to take a tour of the Rorke bicycle factory. They only make custom titanium frames. Several riders have suggested that I might want to consider a new bicycle since my current one is 24 years old and made with an old fashioned technology, steel. After hearing the costs I do not think I will be tempted, but you never know.

May 13 – A Mother of a Day

2007-05-13T19:56:00.000-07:00

Today was going to be easy, 77 miles of flat farmland in south-central Illinois. It is also Mother’s Day. For one or both of these reasons we started riding at 9 AM. Everyone was awake by 5:30 and had eaten by 7 at the latest so we sat around and waited until 9 when we could but our luggage in the van and depart. 77 miles for us should be a cakewalk, without any wind no more than 4 hours on the bike would be needed, with a good tailwind we could do the ride in 3 hours, hence the late start. However, today we had a 15 mph wind from the east and all but about 5 miles of short zigs and zags were due east of Illinois’ grid like secondary road system. I took me just over 6 hours to finish the ride and for all but 10 miles I was working in a paceline. It was as hard as any century I have ever done. Since there were no hills we were in the saddle all day. For the first time on the ride my butt hurts. It is not a rash or boils, no it is just sore. I don’t know but maybe I have lost all the cushioning fat from my derrière. I will have to look into that possibility. I do not believe that I have lost that much weight on the trip, but it has been redistributed within my body.

We had a tee-shirt swap tonight. It worked like this, everyone donated a tee-shirt and got a number from the ‘hat’. Then the first person selected a tee-shirt. However that shirt wasn’t necessarily his, as any tee-shirt could be taken from someone else until it had been selected three times, then it was out of the game and whoever had it had it for good. One rider donated a cycling jersey, it changed hands very quickly but by the time the fourth person selected it had had tree owners and was out of the game. I was about the tenth to select and chose a shirt that had already had two owners; I got something I liked and didn’t have to worry about someone taking it. I donated a GPC Century tee-shirt from 1992, it has a tandem with a cyclist and bear as the stoker on the front and a bear with the remains of a bicycle and no cyclist on the back. Andy a rider from England took the shirt early on and no one else seemed interested until the next to last person selected Andy’s shirt. He was crestfallen. The look on his face was priceless, so much so that after the swap was over the other rider gave the GPC tee-shirt back to Andy. Our club century will now be known in England. All in all it was a fun event.

I must report that the crank arm Karen sent me and that we installed on my bike last night worked without any problems today. I have shifted between the three chain rings in the parking lot so that also seems to work, but for the entire ride today I was in my middle chainring, the one I used yesterday. I really haven’t tested shifting between the front chainrings under actual road conditions. So I can only say that I hope the problems of my broken crank in Missouri are behind us.

As I prepare for bed I and hoping the Weather.com will be right and that tomorrow’s winds will have a westerly component we ride due east again from Tuscola IL (south of Champaign) to Lebanon IN 121 miles. Another day with headwinds would be a killer.

May 12 – On the Road Again

2007-05-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

I started today’s ride from Quincy IL to Springfield IL (108 miles) with some concern about the new chain rings. Since I couldn’t use the large chain ring my maximum gear was limited, but without any real down-hills I didn’t think that this would be to big a problem. When we started I noticed another problem, my computer was not working. I quickly discovered that I had lost the magnet from my rear wheel. As breakfast was at a restaurant 14 miles into the ride, I was able to get a new one from the mechanics van at the breakfast stop. This allowed me to determine where I was on the ride, but only after I converted mileage from the bike computer to that on the route sheet. It was difficult at times, but I probably avoided going brain dead during a number of long flat miles into a headwind.

Breakfast was at a very nice place called ‘Mike’s Place’ - no known relationship to our leader Mike Munk is known to exist. The restaurant served great food but was overwhelmed by the presence of 30 cyclists; service was very slow. Once we got back on the road I was able to stay with a paceline until a mile before the next rest stop, 40 miles into the ride. By keeping my time off the bike short I joined another paceline but could only stay with them for 15 miles. I then rode into lunch, 70 miles into the ride, alone. Lunch was in a gas station parking lot, a common location for rest stops as they will usually let us use the bathrooms and we can buy some types of food in their stores. Soda and ice cream are big favorites. Again I started with a paceline but had to drop off after 10 miles. I continued on alone until I was about 15 miles from the end when I latched onto another line that was passing me. They pulled me to the motel.

There I got my room key and found a FedEx box from Karen, my replacement crank arm arrived. I also found that several riders we being met by families in Springfield. One by his son and daughter in law who came from Wisconsin with a cooler of beer and cheese, another from Indiana who was met by his wife and four kids ages 8 to 16. It was nice to see a few of the rider’s families.

After one false start we were able to install the original TA chain rings and right crankarm with the left, Campy, crankarm that Karen sent me. It is an odd setup, but the bike has components from at least 3 different manufacturers. It is not the recommended way to set up a bike, but it seems to be working. I told the mechanic, Shane, that the crankarm would be old, but when he saw that it had a Suntour pedal with toe clips and a leather strap he for the first time realized what I meant by old. For non-cyclists that style of pedal hasn’t been used for over 20 years. But it is an old bike and an even older rider.

May 11 – Exile

2007-05-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

Today I rode in the van. My bike could not be fixed last night. I have a picture of my poor bike with one broken crank arm. In reality it is a relatively minor thing on the bike but like many things proper functioning requires that all systems work properly. This interdependence is so pervasive that we tend to ignore it, but it is essential for the proper functioning of cars, computers, our government, society, and even the environment. We risk causing significant problems when we alter components within any of these systems.

However the major emotion starting out today was disappointment. I have ridden in the van before. Previously it has always been because something on the road had caused me to reach a limit beyond which I couldn’t or shouldn’t go. Today was different the choice had been taken out of my hands and there was simply no way for me to ride. I felt estranged from the rest of the riders. At breakfast the hotel staff questioned where I was part of the group as I did not wear riding clothes today. In the town of Baynard, population 192, a reporter asked us what we were doing and proceeded to interview people about our ride. She also wanted a picture. I felt excluded from the group. We crossed the Mississippi River on a small ferry today, the Paul B, I took a lot of pictures of the cyclists on the ferry but by choice I did not get into any of them.

On the positive side I did get to take several pictures of the roads in Missouri. I think this one gives a good impression of the terrain in this state. It is anything but flat. I also got to help many of the riders as many ran out of water between two support stops. Lastly, I got to see some of the problems that cyclists create for motorists. Many things that we as cyclists do all the time for our own safety, cause problems for motorists and the resulting friction between the auto and cycle communities. When there are no shoulders to ride on, riding into the lane provides a measure of safety by forcing cars to make a commitment and cross the center line before passing. That is very good when there are long sightlines and little traffic. Then autos have little trouble passing cyclists. However on hilly roads, where cyclists go up hills more slowly and need more of the road to avoid minor road hazards, this can cause bigger problems for autos who must slow down and wait for the cyclist to reach the top of the hill before passing. On down hills cyclists are going faster and need even more of the road in order to ride safely. Here autos can also have problems passing cyclists although the sight lines are generally better.

OK enough of the auto-cyclist carping. What’s happening with the bike? Will I ever get out of the van? The simple answer is yes. I will be able to ride tomorrow. I went to a bike shop in Quincy IL, Madison and Davis Bicycle Center. The original owner, Madison, still works in the shop he has owned for 60 years. The younger owner, Davis, has worked there since 1964 when he we 13. With over a hundred years of experience they were able to find a way to get me back on the road. I got a cheep triple crank set that has 175 mm long crank arms as opposed to my usual set up with 180 mm long crank arms. There is a very large difference! The other problem is that the large ring can’t be used because the front derailleur can’t reach that far, so my largest gear tomorrow will be a 42/12 or 95 inches. For tomorrow’s relatively flat roads it will do just fine. The other issue I discovered as I left the shop is that my saddle had to be raised 5 mm. It is also surprising how big a difference that makes. This should work until tomorrow when I will get a 180 mm left crank arm that Karen is sending FedEx overnight to Springfield IL. We will put that and the original chain ring on the bike and I should be as good as new.

Lastly, for puzzle fans the answer to the puzzle for Wednesday. In simple terms the modular difference between the first two numbers is used to generate the third and fourth digits. The first member of the series is 0000, the 25 th is 2468, the 50 th is 4949 the 75 th is 7418 and the 99 th is 9876. In base 10 modular arithmetic 8 plus 5 is 3 as the ten’s digit in 13 is dropped. For instance for 4949 the difference between 4 and 9 is 5 so 9 plus 5 is 14, or 4 and 4 plus 5 is 9. For 7418 the difference between 7 and 14 is 7 so 4 plus 7 is 11 or 1 and 1 plus 7 is 8. I hope everyone who is interested can 1) see how my series was generated, 2) how boring it can be to ride through some parts of this country and 3) what lengths I can go to, to amuse myself.

May 10 - Bad Breaks and Bottom Brackets

2007-05-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today was going to be a signature day in my ride, 145 miles across Missouri from St Josephs to Kirksville. The route was hilly with large rollers all the way. Someone said that if they flattened all the hills in Missouri it would be our biggest state. I’m not convinced but after today’s ride I understand what they mean. Last year the route was 8 miles longer. I wonder if plate tectonics has pushed Missouri together and made the hills higher than last year. If this is true it would be a very serious problem. Why at this rate in 400 years the Atlantic and Pacific coasts would be joined together and it would be no big deal to bike across the country. I have a route profile and a picture of the road to show any doubters what I mean about the route.

While the flooding has made some small streams raging rivers and has flooded some road and many fields and houses it has also made for a very vibrant spring. There are flowers on the fruit trees and lush, albeit, wet pastures. There was a beautiful fog hanging over some of the lower fields this morning as we rode on some lovely little county roads. While state and federal highways have numbers, county roads in Missouri have letters today we rode on roads W, O, V, Z and UU. I guess if they have more than 26 roads they start giving them double letters designations. Highways in Missouri could be more bicycle friendly; they could have wider shoulders. This would also please the motorists who sometimes have to slow down while a cyclist climbs a long hill at 8 miles an hour, or worse blindly pass the cyclists without being able to see oncoming traffic. The one area with a good shoulder was an area with a large Mennonite population. There, there were wide shoulders for the horse drawn buggies. However the state put a large rumble strip down the center of the shoulder. It doesn’t bother the Mennonites as their buggies easily straddle the rumble strip, but it was not bicycle friendly.

Unfortunately, today’s big event was a fall taken by yours truly. I am fine with only a few small scrapes on my left side. Really I am OK. At the time I was riding with Karen a ride leader and Pam a registered nurse from Missouri. Once we determined that I was OK, Pam was calling a local friend to see if there was a local bike shop. I would have gotten up and finished the ride, were it not for the problem with my bike. You see my fall occurred because I snapped a crank arm while powering up a hill. After my fall I had half a crank arm attached to my left shoe. You think walking with cycling cleats is hard, try walking with a pedal and half a crank arm on your shoe. In Berkeley the solution would be to go to the nearest bicycle shop and buy a new crank set. Riding on rural roads in Missouri is very pleasant until you need to find a bicycle shop. The ride leaders had the names of two cycle shops in Kirksville but they turned out to specialize in motorcycles. There were also a lot more John Deere dealers out here than in Berkeley. I also suspect that the Mennonites might have been able to make me a crank arm out of steel, But I didn’t pursue this option.

When we got to Kirksville the tour’s mechanic thought he might be able to fix me up with another crank set from an unused bike. Unfortunately there was a small problem with differences between Italian and English bottom brackets. Mine was Italian and the other was English. For all non-techie cyclists don’t worry about this difference; I don’t understand the difference either. We are now hoping to get something that will work from a bike shop in Quincy IL, our destination tomorrow night. However, we are not out of the woods yet. Bottom bracket technology is I am finding not all that standardized and it has evolved greatly in the last 24 years since my bicycle was built. A small bike store in a small town like Quincy may have on their back shelves exactly what I need and it may have been there for 20 years just waiting for me to come by. (I was not able to compatible components at the bigger mail order bike on-line bike stores.) As a last resort Karen is sending me a left crank arm from an old crank set that I have at home. I may finish the ride with a TA chain ring and right crank arm and a Shimano left crank arm. We shall see.

May 9 - On to an New State and Better Weather

2007-05-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

We left Topeka today and rode to Atchison to cross the Missouri River into ‘The Show Me State’. We then rode on to St Josephs, the start of the Pony Express. Today was a GREAT day. There are no two ways about it. It started with a very cute do not disturb sign that I saw on my way to breakfast. We are not conserving energy. There was a rainbow over Topeka as I started my ride and it only got better. What made today’s ride so good? There was no rain. The roads were for all but a few miles very nice to ride on. For most of the day I rode in a 6 or 7 man paceline, where almost all of the riders knew what they were supposed to do. There was the small problem that I missed the turn for lunch, but when I discovered that I had missed the lunch stop, a mile down the road, I decided to push on and was one of the first to get to the hotel. Lastly, the ride was only 85 miles long.

It also occurred to me that the Santa Fe railroad, now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, or BNSF, was once the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. I have traveled through all three of those towns. Until today I never realized that there was a town called Atchison.

I hope we have left the bad weather of Kansas behind us, but more importantly that the weather leaves Kansas as they, and much of the mid-west, need a break. When we crossed into Missouri we got a good view of the Missouri River that has come over its banks in Atchison. Tomorrow’s route has been altered because the original road is under 2 feet of water in at least on place. We know that the first 30 miles of the new route are water free and hope that the next 115 miles are also passable. Yes, we will be riding 145 miles tomorrow, our longest day of the ride. The route is said to be hilly with steep rollers for the entire distance. For my GPC friends I suspect that it will be like riding Hwy 1 from Point Reyes to Fort Bragg without the view, rolling hills and headwinds have been promised. We have also been warned about Missouri drivers.

As I have been riding alone quite a bit recently, I have been paying close attention to the odometer on my cycle computer. The following are six consecutive numbers in a series of 100 four digit numbers; 2727, 2840, 2963, 3074, 3197, 3210. Leading 0’s are permitted. I don’t want you to give me all the numbers in my series, just the 1st, 25th, 50th, 75th and 99th numbers. Maybe one of my classmates will be interested enough to provide an answer. I will reveal my answer in my post for May 11.

May 8 – Rest Day

2007-05-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

Today would have been the best day for riding in the last week, but we took a scheduled and for most much needed rest day, our only one until we reach the Atlantic. While rest days are billed as days for the riders to recover, I believe their most important attribute is to let the staff rest. It is the only day they get off for a month and I am sure that they are shopping and repairing equipment on their ‘day off’. I slept in late and had breakfast at 7:30.

I and most everyone else did laundry. There were a great number of people who went to what may be the one bike shop in Topeka. I didn’t go but asked someone to get me a few small things. My roommate went last night and bought out the entire supply of Armadillo tires, seven. After taking two he then sold of the rest a cost to other riders, first come first served. After the spate of recent flats Armadillo tires have developed a cult reputation. We will see if that reputation is deserved.

I also had a massage today. One rider found a massage therapist on line in February and booked an appointment for today. He has had problems with an Achilles tendon and has not ridden that much during the last week. He offered the appointment to someone else. They told me about getting a massage and I asked if they could see if I could get one too. It turns out that she was willing to come to the Holiday Inn and take people in her car to her office. While I was getting a massage another rider called to set up an appointment. As she drove me back to the motel her comment was ‘and I thought I wouldn’t be very busy today’. I gave her card to the leaders and sent her an e-mail giving her the date when the next America by Bicycle tour would be in Topeka. With regard to the massage, I am feeling much better and ready to tackle the second half of the trip.

May 7 – Back on the Road Again

2007-05-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

Today everyone suffered from the effects of yesterday. A relatively easy 105 mile ride proved to be a good deal harder. We were able to go more slowly, some would say forced, and see both the beauty of the now rolling Kansas countryside and the aftermath of the rains. Topeka where we are tonight had over four inches of rain on May 6^th. Several hundred people were evacuated by boat from their homes. Fortunately, our Holiday Inn appears to have been on higher side of town and there was no direct evidence of flooding in that area.

Kate is leaving the ride in Topeka. We will all miss her eternally cheery outlook. We will continue to marvel at her cycling ability. Hopefully we will all realize that good cyclists can come in a variety of sizes and shapes and that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Last night some of us took her out for dinner at a Japanese steak house, a Benihana like place. The food and the chef’s show were good, but the best thing was when the waiter tried to open a bottle of Champaign with a cook screw. Fortunately, I saved the day by jumping up opening the bottle for him. The Mumms was good, the food very good, but the mental image of the befuddled waiter will last a life time.

So let’s take stock of our last three days in Kansas. Friday we rode from Liberal in the southwest part of the state to Dodge City. Except for some bad winds the ride was great but that night the town of Greensburg, 40 miles from Dodge City was destroyed by a monster tornado. Fortunately for us it occurred at night and we didn’t worry about tornados on Friday evening. On Saturday the winds were very bad for the first part of our ride. The riding got easier as we went through Kinsley, Larned and Dundee on our way to Great Bend. Kinsley, Larned and Dundee all had tornado sightings that afternoon and evening. On our Sunday ride to Independence we again had strong winds and played hopscotch with thunderstorms all day long. We rode through Ellinwood that was flooded from the previous night’s storms. We passed through Lyons, McPherson, Galva and Gypsum Valley all of witch were flooded by torrential rains on Sunday, but only after we got through the towns. Sunday night there were flash floods in Independence and Topeka where we are tonight. If the Kansas Chamber of Commerce were to compare this week’s destruction and the America by Bicycle route they might be well advised to ban America by Bicycle from the state.

I hope that America by Bicycle is not banned from Kansas because despite all there recent problems I have found Kansans to be the nicest people we have encountered on the trip. The state while lacking some of the mountains and breath taking vies of Arizona and New Mexico has its own natural beauty that evokes deep images of the American Heartland and of an unhurried time that many urban American’s secretly long for. In the western part of the state there are immense flat planes with fields that are now being prepared for planting. In the east there are rolling hills with cattle ranches. Throughout the state there are well kept back roads with little traffic and as far as I can tell universally considerate drivers. Cyclists would enjoy riding in Kansas. After the better part of a week in Kansas, I know why Dorothy left but I can also appreciate why she would return.

May 6 – My Risk Reward Ratio

2007-05-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

Today was not a good day. Our group rode in the rain all day with winds from the east considered the norm. The problem was avoiding about ten thunderstorms in the area of our ride. They had a general tendency to catch us from behind or block our intended route. The thunderstorms were the last straw for me, I rode in the van while most of the others endured for over 10 hours to ride 124 miles. In one place we had to make a major detour to avoid a flooded hwy and two towns we passed through today are under water this evening. Judging from the size of some of the creeks we passed today I expect them to be over their banks tomorrow. As we will be downstream, we may have trouble with our route. Today’s other major problem was flats there must have been over 30 today several riders had three or four and one rider stopped for 13 times for the flats of his riding partners. Wet roads and small sharp stones from recently flooded roads do not make for flat free rides. At one point I just gave my front wheel to a rider who had flatted for another time. Without knowing who’s wheel he had he described my 20 year old 36 spoke wheel with a rusted Phill Wood hub and 15,000 miles as a ‘piece of crap’, but that wheel got him home without any more flats. It will also get me to the Atlantic and be ridden when I get back to Berkeley.

I am not really happy about not riding but I do question people who choose to ride in these conditions. I think that there are a lot of people who want to do the ride no matter what. This combined with the time table of hotel reservations at fixed dates, means that people have to ride under the conditions that exist. The leader is well aware of how he felt when he first rode across the country, he wanted to finish no matter what and he knows that that is how many of the riders on this trip feel.

I have talked to several of the riders who struggled to complete the ride. The consensus is that many would have been happier if Mike, our leader, had called the day unridable and prevented every one from riding. At several times during the day saying that there was no shame in taking the sag if you were hurting, would have let several riders step over the line and get in the van. However, pride and ego would not let most riders take a sag. Mike has a strong military background and not persevering through the tough times is not how an effective military runs. Having been in the van with Mike, I would never question Mike’s commitment to the safety of his troops/riders. The leadership skills come with a price. While the military ethic of individual sacrifice for the group is not present, neither is neither is the ability to help riders when they have to make decisions about the level of pain they wish to endure. Lastly, and to Mike’s everlasting credit, once someone makes the decision to abandon a day’s ride there is no questioning of that decision.

Ultimately everyone got to Independence, although Dave who fell several days ago went over the handle bars again today when a large dog attacked his front wheel less than a mile from the motel. He was checked out in the hospital and rode the next day, although with a new helmet as his old one suffered five cracks in the fall; better one’s helmet than head.

The best choice for dinner was a Pizza Hut across the street. Four of us went there to eat. Our waitress lacked something; we were not quite sure what until after giving three of us our drinks she seemed to have problems figuring out who got the fourth drink. I saw a good tee shirt for her. It had a picture of the scarecrow and said “About that new brain did the Wizard ever get back to you”. As there were literally sheets of water coming down when we paid for out meals, the manager had one of the delivery boys take us to the motel. It was a very nice thing to do, but the passenger seat flour and the flour in the back seat were ankle deep or greater in discarded fast food containers, about which the driver showed absolutely no shame.

May 5 - Why Dorothy left Kansas

2007-05-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

What a difference a day can make! Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of a small benign wind. Little did I know that a much larger wind would land on a town less than 40 miles from where I was staying. The massive tornado, thought to be the biggest ever to touchdown in Kansas simply destroyed the town of Greensburg. Tonight I am in Great Bend KS about 50 miles northeast of Greensburg. I had to buy a few things so I walked to the Wal-Mart, about two blocks. While there I overheard three separate conversations between people who a family in Greensburg. It is a terrible tragedy. I am sure you have seen the pictures, it is all that is on the television in Kansas.

When we woke up today there was some concern about whether or not it would be safe to ride. I would have had no objection to either a yes or no decision by the tour leader. Today’s ride was flat and mostly to the east although the last 50 miles were to the northeast. The wind was from the SSE at 25 to 30 mph, according to the national weather service. The first 35 miles were truly brutal as the wind came across your right shoulder and into your face. It was so strong that our bikes had a 10 degree tilt into the wind.

We got in to Great Bend about 12:30, did laundry, showered, cleaned our bikes and talked about what would happen tomorrow. Bottom line depends on the weather. After dinner I was back in my room watching the reporters describe today’s storms. They were moving up the road we were on today. I knew all the towns they were talking about. At the end of the list of towns in the storm’s path was Great Bend. (There were tornado warnings, golf ball size hale, high winds and rain.) As it got closer I contemplated what I should do. I know about earthquakes and have been in hurricanes but a tornado would be something new, something I would like to avoid. The motel is a rather large structure with meeting rooms a wedding tonight. (The bridesmaid’s dresses were the most ghastly shade of green you could imagine. I was reminded of an old MasterCharge ad were the tag line was “having a friend worth wearing a lime green chiffon bridesmaid’s dress… priceless.”) Well I digress; all hotel guests and people at the wedding were herded into several small internal rooms in the motel. It was an interesting mixture of two groups, cyclists and members of the wedding party, being pushed together in a crowded subway car. After the storm had PASSED the national weather screen for the area looked like what I show in the picture. This was better than it had been 30 mins before! All the storms tonight are between Dodge City and Great Bend.

I have learned my lesion DON’T be thankful for a little wind.

On a more positive note I calculated that early in tomorrow’s ride I will pass the half way point in my journey for my home in Berkeley to MIT. Taking the 3459 miles for the America by Bicycle ride and the 485 miles on my route from Berkeley to the start gives 3944 miles and half way is 1972 miles. I swear that I did not fudge the figures to get that result, but it seems appropriate as 1972 is the year I graduated. For the true nerds that is 1882613.2 Smoots.

May 4 – Wind can be a wonderful thing

2007-05-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

Today we rode from Liberal Kansas to Dodge City. Our route had one turn from US 54 to KS 283. After riding in a crosswind for three and a half hours, I turned into a gentle tailwind for the final 20 miles. Riding alone my speed went from 16 mph with a heart rate of 120 to 22 mph with heart rate of 95. I don’t think my spinning instructors would be happy with ether level of exercise but who cares; they didn’t ride for 4.5 hours. Today was a short day only 83 miles of flat Kansas road. Starting at 7:30 I had a leisurely lunch from 9:30 to 10:15 and arrived in Dodge City before 1 PM. One trouble with lunch at 9:30 is that my stomach can’t handle the pickles that have become a staple of my on the road lunches. They are a great way to get salt during a ride.

We passed more trains today. I measured one at a mile and a half. Spencer, that would be long enough to stretch from your house the all the way down Euclid Ave to the Berkeley campus. That’s pretty impressive! (Spencer is my 4 year old neighbor who loves trains.) But aside from the length almost all the cars were flat beds with containers or large trailers on them. I have seen coal cars and a few tanker cars, but no box cars. What is a present day hobo to do?

Some of the riders are starting to let their hair down in a figurative manner. Kasper, who is from the Netherlands, bought himself a set of spurs yesterday and started today’s ride with them on his cycling shoes. Mike our leader also showed up at breakfast wearing spurs. Terry one of the two women riders proclaimed that Mike’s were bigger than Kasper’s. It was a major ego deflator for Kasper, but I, and Terry, can assure you he had recovered before the end of the ride. Kasper did admit that spurs do not seem to evoke the same response from his bicycle as they do from a horse. And I worried about the response an errant spur might evoke in a tire or a derailleur.

We were able to walk around Dodge. Unfortunately we were too early for the summer tourist attractions. I don’t know if that was for the best or not. We did see monuments to Boot Hill and Wyatt Earp and one of our younger riders learned that sarsaparilla is not a fermented beverage.

I will end today’s with two sadder notes. Today May 4 is the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State shooting protesters against the war in Viet Nam. It marked for me the final straw in the loss of my childhood beliefs that the government was there for the protection of its citizens. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I came to believe that the government has an agenda and is perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to defend that agenda. That shooting caused the closing of most universities in the country, including MIT and to its everlasting credit or shame, depending on who you talk to, the cancellation of graduation. While I pray the events of this day never happen again, I wonder why today’s students show so little concern about our present war.

I recently read a posting on my friend and classmate Dave deBronkart’s blog. He is undergoing treatment for renal cancer. It has spread to a thigh bone so he can't stand on that leg. He mentioned that his butt hurt from sitting so much and that he was trying to develop stronger muscles to let him sit for longer times. It occurred to me that that could also describe my situation. Long distance cyclists always have aching butts from sitting on bicycle saddles and by riding we are trying to build strong muscles to let us sit for longer times. Both Dave and I are on journeys that we hope to complete but where there is a considerable risk that we will fail. The difference is that while I have only a few chips on the table Dave has gone all in. If one of us is to fail I pray that it be me.

Anyone who knows Dave has I am sure seen Dave's blog www.CaringBridge.org/visit/davedebronkart. He writes exceedingly well about his journey both mental and physical from initial diagnosis to treatment. Those who don't know Dave might also have a look at his blog. He is describing a journey that many of us will take and seeing how Dave has dealt with his cancer may make dealing with similar problems easier for us all.

May 3 – I think we’re in Kansas, Toto

2007-05-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

Today almost made up for yesterday. The rains are gone for now, the road from Dalhart TX to Liberal KS (US54) is flat and for the most part has good pavement and a wide shoulder. We started today’s ride at 7:30 when the tour leader, Mike, decreed that it was light enough to start. As the Texas panhandle is the Western most region of the Central Time zone, dawn comes later. I joined a fast moving paceline of seven riders. We were working well at 19 mph for about an hour. Then we were passed by a second paceline of eight riders and when the two groups joined together our speed increased to over 23 mph. While I could hold the pace this was too large a group, if anyone had a problem several riders were going to be involved in a crash. I dropped back and continued at a slower pace. Fortunately, there were no crashes and after 35 miles the riders broke up into smaller groups of 4 to 5 people. This was far safer and probably let the riders catch a few glimpses of the country side.

What do I mean by this? When I am in a paceline I have one thing on my mind, the distance between my front tire and the person I am following rear tire. I want my tire to be as close as possible without over lapping on either side and never having our tires touch. If that happens I will almost certainly fall, as will a few of the riders behind me. Since my ideal distance is 6 inches to a foot, all of my attention has to be on the wheel in front of me. I also have to trust that the other riders are doing the same thing.

While riding alone I passed some large windmills, notice the truck in the picture. They were hardly moving today, for me that was nice but for power generation it has some drawbacks. As I took the picture I was passed by Bob Long who said that these were smaller windmills that only generate 1.6 megaWatts. What does this mean? Your monthly electric bill is for so many kilowatt-hours. When turning these windmills generate 1600 kiloWatts each hour.

When I talked to Bob I discovered that he owns a trucking company that specializes in hauling oversized objects, such as prefabricated pieces of these windmills. I also learned that he grew up in Fairlawn NJ about ten miles from Rutherford NJ, the town I grew up in. Who would have thought that we would cross paths 40 years later while riding bicycles across America?

We rode through the Oklahoma panhandle. There were few things of interest along our route. I saw some of these radial arms that are used to irrigate farmland. You can see them from airplane windows as large green circles or in Google Earth images. Well the radial arms are half a mile long; the circles are a mile in diameter! Rutherford NJ is basically a mile square; until I went to MIT the boarders of Rutherford pretty much defined the edges of my universe. Not that I didn’t see a large amount of the area around Rutherford and the country as well, but always with my parents or while supervised by other adults.

The only notable town we went through in Oklahoma was Hooker. Hooker, population about 1200 has done everything it can to attract tourists based on its name. There are tee shirts with the town name used in just about any way you can imagine and then some. For a town that started because the steam engines need to get more water every ten miles and today has a farmers’ co-op silo along side the train tracks it has done what it can to promote itself.

We crossed the boarder into Kansas and are now in Liberal KS. I do not know about the political views of the locals but the one café I at in had a country Western / religious teamed radio station playing as background music. The station was from Liberal KS. About 20 years ago Liberal discovered that no town in Kansas had laid claim to being where Aunt Em’s farm was located, so Liberal declared itself to be he site. The information center is at One Yellow Brick Rd, billboards proclaim that Liberal is Oz-some, and there are statues of the characters and streets named after them in downtown.

May 2 – Rain

2007-05-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

Today’s ride went from Tucumcari NM to Dalhart TX a miniscule 96 miles with almost no hills. On a good day with prevailing winds this would be a 4 hour dash. We could leave Tucumcari at 7 and get to Dalhart by noon, even with the loss of an hour due to changing time zones. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Some of you may have heard about the severe weather in New Mexico today, fortunately that was south of us. We just got rain and when the wind blew it was in our face. It took about 6 hours to do this ride and it rained on us for most of the day. Still it was a short day, just not the easy day we had hoped for. All of us would like an easy day before to long.

The rain today was a pleasant spring rain, an April shower that came 2 days to late. It would have been a very nice day if you had no pressing commitments, a good book to read and a friend to spend the day in bed with. It was even an OK day if you had a car and needed to run a few errands. What it was not good for was cycling 96 miles. Cycling in the rain is never fun but with the proper clothing it can often be tolerable. It took me three tries and about 50 miles to get it right. First rain paints were to warm today, so I took them off and used leg warmers. My legs got wet from the rain but not drenched from sweat. I also needed to find the right shirts to wear under my rain parka. Ultimately I determined that a thin wool layer (purchased in New Zealand) under a cycling jersey would be best.

I rode with Dave Thompson, my friend from Radnor, PA today. We got a little late start and were the last to finish although we probably rode faster than a third of the riders. He could have ridden faster and left me today but he didn’t, something that I truly appreciate. Since I now live in California and Dave splits his time between Florida and Ontario Canada, no one really believes that we knew each other before the ride.

During one rainier time we were passed by a freight train with empty coal cars. As out motel is right on the tracks in Dalhart, I suggested that we might hop on the train and get to Dalhart faster. During the day we passed that train two times as it was sitting on a siding waiting for another train to pass. Eventually, we lost sight of the train but as we returned from dinner at least four hours after we arrived we saw the train pull into Dalhart. It is good that we stayed on our bikes.

Coming into to Texas there was a sign welcoming us to Texas and proclaiming that Texas is proud to be the home state of President George Bush. It was enough to may me want to return to New Mexico. However, the road surface in Texas was much better than that in New Mexico. I suspect that this was due to political pork and that I need to thank either George or Tom Delay. Oh what a terrible position to be put into. Well tomorrow we will leave Texas cross Oklahoma and spend the night in Liberal, Kansas. I will keep you posted.

May 1 – Las Vegas to Tucumcari NM

2007-05-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today was a very good day if the wind gods had given us wind from more favorable direction it would have been a great day. Our route was via NM hwy 104. There is nothing for 110 miles along this road with the exception of a dammed lake and a few boating and fishing related stores. I have pictures of the road ahead and the road behind but they fail to show the enormity of the vast emptiness. The other feature of today’s ride was one remarkable descent as we came off the edge of a mesa. I hope these pictures do the descent justice. Lastly you see is that spring has just arrived to this part of the US. That may not be a big deal to those of you in New England or the Northeast, but for a Californian it seems very late.

Physically, I am doing much better today than yesterday. I have less numbness in my left hand than yesterday. My ankle was taped today and I did not have to big a problem with it or the knee. I tried not to push big gears and turn smaller gears faster. For non-cyclists you can achieve the same speed by using a big gear (greater distance on the road per turn of the cranks) and turn the cranks slowly or by using a small gear and turning the cranks more rapidly. Turning the cranks faster puts less stress on ankles and knees. I tried to keep to the low stress plan today and was for the most part successful.

Most of today I rode alone. I did this by design as it is harder to spin the cranks rapidly when riding with others in pace line. Riding alone gives you time to think about a lot of things one thing I thought about is that in about 2 days I will have reached the halfway point in my journey to MIT. I also realized that I need to calculate the distance from my home in Berkeley to MIT in Smoots. Smoots are an MIT tradition and measure 5 feet 7 inches. I don’t know how far my route will be, but I did determine that there are 945.672 Smoots per mile. Making that calculation while on the bike was mentally challenging; I got 945.66 while riding. The number 945.672 was obtained with the calculator function of my computer, just to make sure. Now I need to determine total miles I have ridden, currently over 1600.

The other aspect of riding alone in such a vast space is that you can look out at a feature in the distance and estimate how far away it is. I saw a mesa today that looked to be 2 miles away. In fact it turned out to be over 10 miles and as I was riding at about 10 mph I had some time to think about the process of reaching a goal. I have spent most of my professional life trying, with others, to find a cure for a genetic disease cystic fibrosis, CF. About 20 years the genetic defect that causes CF was discovered. At the time the CF community could see a cure for the disease and it looked to be very close at hand, sort of like my mesa. We thought that we would have a cure long before today. We can still see that cure and are still working to get there. While we are closer than we were 20 years ago, we still don’t know if we are as close as we originally thought we were. We will not know that until we get there, but just like today’s ride if you keep pedaling eventually you can reach the goal. It is only when you stop pedaling that you don’t make it.

April 30 – Albuquerque to No Where

2007-04-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

Today’s ride was supposed to go from Albuquerque to Las Vegas NM, by way of NM 15 and I25. For me it ended at the start of the freeway. This day has been called the hardest on the trip. That descriptor has been used for two other days last week and just last week before yesterday’s ride two leaders told me that the only other hard climbing day would be in Missouri. Let’s be clear boys and girls here can only be one hardest day.

Let’s see what went wrong today. First at 5:30 it was relatively warm in Albuquerque, enough to make riding without arm or leg warmers or a wind vest seem very reasonable. I took warmers and a wind vest and after the first climb from 5000 to 7000 feet I would have liked to have something else to wear. NM15 is a very pretty road but has some big climbs after the climb out of Albuquerque before it ends at Santa Fe.

It would have been helpful to have had more information before today’s breakfast, but that is the way this trip works we get route sheets and information about the day’s ride at breakfast. Today breakfast was disorganized because the restaurant’s morning staff had not been told to expect 30 hungry cyclists at 5:30. In addition, the route sheets went missing and new ones had to be copied while we waited for our meals. I thought that today’s oral description of the route and weather was poor at best, but I understand why.

Yesterday I replaced the worn out cleats on my shoes with new ones. This requires some precise alignment in order not to cause injury to your knee. I am not sure if I got it right because both my right ankle and knee hurt and are being iced as I compose. I will check that tonight. The problems with my joints were the major reason why I stopped riding today, that combined with the fact that I was having trouble keeping up with even the slowest riders. I am also having some numbness in my left hand, it is not bad but I have put a kitchen sponge on my handle bars to help ease the pressure.

Today’s ride was 135 miles long. Sometimes I don’t appreciate how far we ride when I ride my bicycle. Today I rode the second half of the ride in a van, it was a surprisingly long ride. I also waited at a rest stop for riders we had passed on the road to arrive, it took a very long time. The perspective of distance for bicycle riders is different from that of people in a riding in a car, but I don’t think long distance cyclists really see how far they go each day. (We also get a different perspective of distance each night at or motel when we ask for directions to someplace to eat; some place we can walk to.)

Since I got in early with the luggage van I helped unload, got to my room, took a shower and went with the staff to Wal-Mart. I bought some tape for my ankle, which is now shaven, and an ice bag. Barbara the rest stop coordinator bought lunch and sag stop supplies for two days – two carts full. Items occasionally were purchased in 4’s, but 10’ and 15’s the norm. At check out it was nerve wracking to have a checker who ring up each item separately instead of scanning one item and multiplying by n. When she wanted to put each jar of pickles into a separate bag Barbara had a hard time controlling her frustration. But eventually we got it all into the van. It is surprising to be presented with the food that 30 cyclists will consume for lunch and snacks.

I have often ridden by a large field of, say, spinach and thought that there should be enough spinach in that field to feed everyone in the US. Or spotted a semi from Lays Potato Chips and wondered who could eat all those chips. I know I am mistaken but the scale of our consumption never ceases to amaze me. I suspect that the fields of Kansas and Missouri and Illinois and Indiana and Ohio will make me wonder once again where does all that food go?

I hope tomorrow is a better day for me and as we have two relatively easy days ahead of us I can recover.

April 29 – Continental Divide

2007-04-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today’s ride was from Gallop NM to Albuquerque NM. (With words like Albuquerque spell checkers are great!) We started out early today because breakfast at Denny’s was 8 miles up a cold road, temperature at sunrise was 42. This was better than the lack of a breakfast we had yesterday because cook staff at the motel’s restraint failed to report to work. Do I believe that, no, but that was there story and they were sticking to it.

After filling up on pancakes and eggs I headed toward the Continental Divide. It was a very easy climb up I40. If there hadn’t been an overpass when we got off of I40 at the divide there would have been no significant climbing. However as this is the route taken by the Santa-Fe railroad, I40, and route 66 you might think that the civil engineers would have looked for an easy way to cross the divide. While the signs talk about water flowing to either the Pacific or Atlantic from this point, that is not quite true. Water on the western side will ultimately flow to the Colorado River which never makes it to Mexico, much less the Sea of Cortez. Water on the Eastern side flows into the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico. It is a small point, but it will not be until we get to New York State that we will have rivers that flow to the Atlantic Ocean. Not withstanding these small problems I had a friend take a picture of me in my GPC jersey standing at the Continental Divide.

While we joked that the ride would be all downhill from the Divide to Boston, it sure started out that way, 90 miles of a gradual decline toward Albuquerque. There was only one problem, headwinds! If you could get behind another rider and out of the wind it was not too bad, but if you were by yourself it was nasty. About half of those miles I was alone and hurting. The last 15 miles into Albuquerque involved a climb of 4 miles on route 66 and then 10 miles of downhill on Central Street into town. While our leader claims to have gone 50 mph down the hill, I didn’t get over 35. But it was fun just the same and I am here to tell you about it which I might not be if I had pushed the speed in today’s cross winds.

I have been asked for more pictures by some readers so here are a few of what northwestern New Mexico along route 66 looks like.

I hope that the saga of my wheel is over! There was a wheel for me when I arrived in Albuquerque and the mechanic was able to put my old free wheel onto the new wheel and install it on the bike. I will see what happens tomorrow as we head to Las Vegas, New Mexico. I suspect that Las Vegas New Mexico is not as exciting a place to visit as its name sake in Nevada. However with the abundance of Indian land there is no shortage of casinos in New Mexico.

April 28 – I40 and Trains

2007-04-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today was a hard day, there are no two ways about it, with 128 miles, few thousand feet of climbing, and headwinds at 15 to 20 mph most of the day. In addition almost all the riding was on I40. Interstate riding is noisy, it is hard to talk with other riders. Also using ear plugs would be dangerous because some of the noises you do hear tell you a lot about what is happening around you. Without your hearing you would be in greater danger and more dangerous to your fellow riders. Riding in groups or pace lines helps to reduce the effort as only the first rider is breaking the wind, no not that kind of wind breaking, and the others exert less effort as the ride behind. This can work well on an Interstate but often the shoulder is full of debris and if the lead rider doesn’t point the hazards out to the others riders can crash. Trust is a necessary component of group riding and it takes time to develop that trust with other riders. For a big rider like myself it is more difficult to get the benefit of the pace line because smaller riders don’t block all to the wind that hits me. However riding behind me can be very enjoyable – one friend has called being behind me like being in a micro-climate.

The other problem with group riding is flats. We all get them but if say everyone in a group of six riders waits whenever anyone gets and fixes a flat the group time can be slower that the time for a individual who rides by himself and only stops when he gests a flat. Today was my turn to get flats. I got one when some glass cut my tire, after trying to repair the damaged tire I got a second flat and had to get a new tire. This put me and Dave Thompson toward the back of the pack with fewer people to ride with. This made it more difficult for us to make good time and for a long slow day. I know Dave could have ridden faster than he did today, so I am very appreciative of his staying with me today.

The country side is as vast as it is empty and some of it had a certain beauty. But mostly today’s ride involved counting the mile markers and figuring how far it was to the next exit and how long it would take to get there. At times I was doing this every mile. At one point as I was climbing a long grade my speed in mph decreased as I got from 18 mph with 18 miles to go to 15 mph with 15 to go. I was reminded of Zeno’s paradox and worried that it would always be 1 hour until I reached my next sag point. I will know when the riding is very boring when I start calculating distances in Smoots. Smoots are an MIT institution; 1 Smoot = 5 ft 7 inches.

I also wanted to talk about trains for the last two days I40 has paralleled the Santa-Fe. I have seen more trains today than I have seen in years. From what I can see someone is sending a lot of stuff to someone else. Spencer, the four year old who lives next door in Berkeley, would have loved seeing all the trains.

This didn’t get posted on April 28^th because I fell a sleep at my computer and when I woke up I decided that if my readers would like the saga to continue it would be better go to bed and finish tomorrow.

I have also noted from responses that a lot of different people are looking at my blog. Basically three types 1) cyclists I know, 2) non-cyclist friends, and 3) MIT alums. Sometimes comments are more relevant for one group than another. If anyone wants an explanation of something I said they can e-mail me make a posting on the blog.

April 27 – Red Mountains and Route 66.

2007-04-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was looking for the girl in a flat bed Ford. I was hoping that some where along I40 between Flagstaff and Winslow she would slow down and take a look at me, but no luck. I guess that at 57 I am not as good a catch as I was at 22 but for my age I am not doing to bad.

We started out by going through Sedona. If it were always like it was today morning temperatures in the 50’s and highs in the 80’s with clear skies and a little wind I might consider living there. However I suspect that even being accustomed to California home prices I would be shocked by real estate costs. The red cliffs are stunning and the canyon was beautiful all the trees in their spring shades of green. After being awed by the scenery we climbed through Red Rock Canyon to Flagstaff. The climb was not as bad as yesterdays climbs and the view from the top was if anything better. Some of the road we climbed is shown in today’s pictures. The other has my friend Dave Thompson in front of some red cliffs. After the climb we rolled through pine forests. For non-bikies means terrain hat goes up and then down and then up and then down … depending on the size of the ups and downs this can be either fun or painful to ride. Today’s rollers were on the painful side.

We got to Flagstaff for our lunch stop. Arizona has one very interesting feature. When you enter most towns there is a sign that tells you the population of the town and the elevation or when the town was founded. Now we all know that whatever the stated population of the town is, it is not the actual population of the town, people die and move and are born. In addition, after every census there will always have to be a new sign. Signs in Arizona are different they give the elevation and the date the town was founded, two bits of information that are unlikely to change. It seems to me that this is a very reasonable thing to do.

After going a short way from out lunch stop we turned onto Route 66, well for the first 4 miles it was a bike path, safe but not the thing dreams are made. However the last 6 were on the original road. Could any cross country trip be complete without experiencing Route 66.

Sadly all dreams must end so we had to continue to Winslow on I40. We rode through a high desert that seems to support sagebrush, a few cacti, and a lot of rocks. It was a stark contrast to Sedona, but I bet the real estate is cheaper. Over 45 miles we lost 2000 feet, had a good shoulder (12 feet wide with a good surface and little debris) to ride on. We also had the Semis, to drag us along and even with a head wind we could maintain 20 mph, until someone got a flat. I didn’t get any today, but several of the people I rode with did. Actually, if it were not for the noise, the extra draft that overtaking trucks provide would make Interstate riding a great way to get from point A to point B, and much faster than city streets or country roads.

I got to Winslow by myself, having dropped a few and having been dropped by more than a few. I found nothing in Winslow to warrant a visit except that it is the only place to stay between Flagstaff and who knows where. I guess I will find out tomorrow. I had a difficult time finding the motel. I probably did two extra miles getting to it. A few more days like this and I will have made up the miles I sagged yesterday.

The Comfort Inn double booked my room, but they found another for me and my roommate. Then we discovered that the air conditioning was not working. Enter my roommate who has just finished his Masters in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins. No, he didn’t fix the motels AC, but he did figure out how to get a giant room fan that is now making the room livable. It is a little noisy but far less than riding on the Interstate and it is removing the smoky odors from our non-smoking room. As our tour leader said there are some areas of the country where a non-smoking room means that it is not presently on fire.

April 26 – Done in by Mountains, Water and Performance

2007-04-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

Thursday seemed like it was going to be a good day at 5 AM, good but hard. We were going to ride from Wickenburg AZ to Cottonwood AZ, by way of Prescott AZ. This would require 100 miles of riding and about 9500 ft of climbing. Nothing I haven’t done many times. However many riders, especially those from the east and mid-west who had never seen a mountain from a bicycle seat, were very concerned. Our route, via hwy 89, involved three climbs of about 3000 ft.

My troubles started at breakfast. We didn’t eat at Denny’s and while the breakfast buffet was good it featured eggs and bacon - NO CARBS. I didn’t figure this out until 20 miles into the ride. I also bought a gallon of water at a gas station, filled my four bottles and drank most of the rest. I must have been very dehydrated, because within the next 25 miles I had consumed more than three of my four bottles. Most riders carried two bottles that were to last them until the first rest stop at 40 miles. This combination and the time spent buying the water, really only a few minutes put me at the back of the pack, and loosing ground on the others. By 25 miles and 5 miles into the first 6 mile climb I had hit a wall. I got into the sag wagon and was taken to the first rest stop. It is kind of sad to get off the bike as it means that I will not ride all the way across America. I didn’t ride all the way from Berkeley to the start, and I know that all riders will have to be sagged 5 miles in New Mexico due to construction on the route so no one will be able to ride all the way across America on this trip. So it might not be too bad and I have proven to myself that I am not too proud do what is necessary, even if there is some loss of face.

After lunch and with another gallon of water on the bike or in me, I felt good enough to finish the ride and the last two climbs. The first climb into Prescott AZ went fairly well with the exception that what looked to be the summit with a nice downhill, turned out to be the first of many false summits over the next 8 miles. The scenery was great and there was a nice downhill into Prescott. We didn’t linger in Prescott because the last climb was reputed to be the hardest. I wasn’t easy, four miles of 6 to 7 percent grades after ten miles of a steady 3 to 4 percent grade. My cycling friends all know of harder climbs, usually shorter and if in the Bay Area at sea level. This climb topped out at 7100 feet. I have picture to prove it.

The ride then went down to Cottonwood. Since Cottonwood is below 4000 feet and only 10 miles from the top of the climb there was a large technically demanding downhill ride into town. Before we got to Cottonwood we went through Jerome. Jerome is an old coal mining town, which has become a tourist destination. One of its most popular attractions is the Haunted Hamburger where you can by a Ghost Burger. I don’t know why it is called the Haunted Hamburger, but they may make the best hamburgers this side of the other world. They also have a view across the valley toward Sedona that is to die for. It is one of the few views that I would consider trading for ours in Berkeley.

The saga of the wheel continues. Yesterday after some work I was able to confirm that my wheel had been delivered, so I thought that once I got to the motel I would be able to have my new rear wheel installed and return the borrowed wheel, which has performed admirably. I got the box with the wheel, my bike and a new tire to the mechanic. When we looked at the wheel we saw that I was sent a mountain bike wheel. For the non-bikies mountain bike wheels are 650 cm in diameter while road wheels are 700 cm. Clearly there had been a failure to communicate. After talking to Performance Bicycles on the phone I was able to arrange for a second wheel, hopefully of the right size this time to be sent to me. Hopefully, by Monday I will be on my own new wheel, but I will keep you posted.

April 25 – Arizona Deserts

2007-04-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

Today we rose before the sun, our usual procedure, and I had another fine breakfast at Denny’s. Yum, but it gets me down the road. My friend Dave Thompson remarked that the one aspect of his training he didn’t do was eat Denny’s breakfasts for a week so that his digestive system could adjust to a low fiber high cholesterol diet.

Today’s route went from Blythe CA, over the Arizona border on I10 and after 35 miles on the interstate we turned onto US60 and rode to Wickenburg AZ. Wickenburg is a Western town. It seems to have a tourist trade based on some history of mining and whatever. An Italian restraint is named the Mine Shaft and stop signs say WHOA. Perhaps the tourists love it, but I think it is very tacky.

Today’s ride was not to hard, 117 miles with 4,000 feet of climbing. Temperature was not that bad either probably not getting above the low 90’s. One of the bigger problems was the roads. In general the surfaces were not too bad, but the Arizona Highway Department seems to be in love with rumble strips. Rumble strips are the groves on the side of some roads that let sleeping drivers know they are about to go off the road. In principle they are not a bad thing. However for cyclists they in general separate a shoulder from the main road. This can making salmon courses trough rode debris more difficult it can also make it impossible to ride on the edge of a smooth road and force cyclists onto very rough shoulders. And in Arizona rumble strips are akin to open pit mines. The cuts in the roadway are 8 inches wide 6 inches long and at least 2 inches deep. And they are separated by no more than 6 inches. Going over them with a bike can be a life altering experience, even if you do not crash.

One of the biggest pluses today was the scenery. There were saguaro cacti along the route. I find them to be beautiful, as long as I don’t have to have close contact with them, but another rider thought they were making an obscene gesture to all who passed through their habitat. It is all in the way you look at things. One rider seemed to be more interested in interacting with cacti than I; this just looks like either a flat tire or a stabbing pain in the butt waiting to happen. The county side passed between some very nice mountains but most of the time the road did not venture near the mountains, something I appreciated. We went through the small town of Hope AZ; someone has a sense of humor because as you leave the town there is a sign proclaiming that “You Are Beyond Hope”.

On a day like this we would typically have three rest stops, one for lunch and two for food and water. I have mentioned that the food is OK but not outstanding. Today the third rest stop was set up by a couple that did this ride several years ago. They wanted to give us all the things they wished they had had at the rest stops, also all things that we don’t have either. Their rest stop had big chocolate chip cookies, doughnuts, fruit (melons, strawberries and mangos), soda and shrimp with cocktail sauce. I passed on the shrimp, not my idea of ride food, but many riders really chowed down, apparently with out any GI problems. I do think that this is a great endorsement of America by Bicycle, even if they did poke some fun at the company.

I mentioned my need for a new rear wheel. Well when I finished the ride today I called tomorrow’s motel to see if the wheel had been delivered. I was told by the front desk that it had not been delivered. I called Performance Bicycle and they assured me that FedEx had delivered it and told me who had signed for it. I then called the motel again and, after talking to three people with no knowledge of the package, but who knew that the person who signed for the package worked for the motel, someone was able to find my package. Hopefully all will be well after tomorrow’s ride, and so far the borrowed wheel has given me no problems. For two days I have had NO flats. I am no longer the leader in the dubious category of most flats: I intend to stay out of the lead for the remainder of the trip.

I will finish and go to bed with visions of tomorrows ride to Cottonwood AZ in my head. There is a perfectly wonderful, relatively flat route from Wickenburg to Cottonwood along an interstate, but we are going by way of US 89, it is about the same distance but has by all accounts 10,000 feet of climbing in 100 miles. At least I KNOW that I can finish the route as I have often done rides as hard as tomorrow’s ride will be. The funny thing is to see how many riders from the Midwest and East have never done any ride with anywhere near this much climbing, several are very concerned and a few are scared. I shall let you know what happens.

April 24 - Desert riding on I10

2007-04-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

Today started with breakfast at Denney’s at 5:30. I believe that I have about 30 more early morning breakfasts at Denney’s in the near future. Each day I have a choice of French toast and eggs or waffles and eggs. Some days I also get to have hash browns. Whoopee! I will say that we do get enough calories for breakfast.

Yesterday my four flats made the Mike's, our tour leader, blog.

http://www.bamacyclist.com/Journal2007/Fast07/07fast.htm

If you need another view of the ride you could check out his blog. Mike is a really nice person, good leader, and great cyclist. If this because of or in spite of his spending 20 years in the Air Force I do not know. The other crew members have also be very helpful especially the mechanic Shawn would does yeoman’s work each night to keep our bikes in working order. From what I have seen during the last two days his job is not going to get any easier as we move eastward. There seem to be a lot of very nice racing bikes with spiffy wheels that I don’t think will make it to the Atlantic. I really believe that my need for a new rear wheel yesterday will become a relatively minor problem before we reach the end of the ride. I hope everyone’s bike makes it, but I would not bet on it. There was someone today with four flats, I don’t know if he had any yesterday, but as I had none today, at worst I am only tied for having the most flats. I am hoping to fall behind the leaders in this race very quickly.

Today’s ride was east from Palm Springs to Blythe CA. After an early sprint to Mecca CA, a town with little positive going for it and definitely not to be confused with its name sake in Saudi Arabia, we climbed Box Canyon. If I can figure out how to do it I will post a picture of me in the canyon. Box Canyon is very impressive and quite beautiful. Our leader, Mike, thinks it is the nicest road on the ride. It being only day two I am not sure that I am happy to hear that. However I think that there could be a lot of very nice seconds on the trip, at least I hope so.

Once the canyon climb was done, we got onto I10 for a 65 mile excursion across the desert. There were three stops for us along this section of I10, but only one place where tourists could get any services. It was a lonely road, inhabited mostly by 18-wheelers and today by 30 cyclists. We had our lane, a wide breakdown lane and the 18-wheelers had their two lanes and we kept to ourselves. The major hazard was the tire debris that the truckers leave in the breakdown lane when they get a blowout. Steel belted tires have very fine wires that seem to have a need to leave dead tires and jump into whatever new tire comes along. When that tire is a bike tire the wires eventually cause a puncture. They can be so small and hard to locate in the tire that the same wire can cause several flats in one tire. Ouch! Luckily, I didn’t have any wires latch onto my tires. Riding on a freeway is not all bad as 18-wheelers can also be a cyclists best friend. Every time one passes you the draft they create can add half a mile per hour to your speed. The effect can last for up to a minute.

We were also lucky today as the temperature never got above 90 in the shade. Not that there was any shade on the road, but temperatures over 100 are usual for this part of the country at this time of year. Lastly, I want to say that physically I am doing fine and looking forward to tomorrows ride and getting into Arizona.

April 23 – The real ride begins

2007-04-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday was an organizational day so that our bikes could be checked, and we could meet our fellow riders and learn how the trip would be run. Important but kind of boooring. I also meet Dave Thompson a friend from PA who is doing the ride. I kind of talked him in to it. He told be he would like to do something like this and when I told him what I was doing, he decided to come too. It was nice have a going away dinner with him, his wife Sandy and Karen.

Today we got a wake up call at 5 AM, went to breakfast at Denny’s at 5:30 and had a late departure at 7 AM. Tomorrow we leave at 6:30. Our first stop was the Pacific Ocean where we dipped our rear wheel into the water. Tradition, yes but we had to walk and carry our bikes across 200 yards of sand, the water was cold and then after returning with our bikes we had to remove the sand from our feet before putting our shoes back on. I may be lacking in team spirit but why not just start the ride.

Well after that things started to bet better. The first 35 miles of today’s 135 were on a bike path along a canal that because of Friday’s rain surprisingly had water in it. These miles were flat and easy. We then started to climb on a bad road and I got a flat. I and a few riders with me fixed it in short order and we were off. After 10 miles of up hill we got to lunch. It was not too bad by century ride standards, but certainly less inviting than the Grizzly Peak Century lunch. I ride with the GPC cyclists in Berkeley. After lunch my new tire with 60 miles of use found a razor blade in the road – flat number two and a new tire to boot. I was very fearful and careful for the rest of the ride. We had several miles of road construction and a bigger hill, about 2000 feet to climb. The climb had a nice road surface and shoulder but nothing pleasant about the views and traffic, lots of traffic. When we got to the top we had 50 miles of down hill into Palm Springs. We started to fly at 25 to 30 miles per hour. Some of the ride was on I10, yes it can be legal to ride on interstates, but only if there is no alternative road. We got off I10 on to a frontage road that has not seen any repair since I10 was built 50 years ago. I avoided many pot holes until one caused my third flat. I needed someone to loan me a tube, as I only carry two. (The flat I got on Thursday was my first this year!) The first tube I got had a leak already, so I got to change my tire twice this time. Once I got under way again our group of now ten riders rode the next 25 miles at 30+ mph. There is a wind farm outside Palm Springs and all the wind mills were facing us and turning madly. Translation – tail wind. About one mile from our motel I got a slow leak but rode in on the soft tire, flat number four. The mechanic on the ride looked at my rear wheel, the site of all my flats and pronounced the wheel trashed. He was very right, there were two flat spots and two bent sections of one of the rims. There were two spokes with no tension. The tour had a spare wheel to loan me so I can ride tomorrow, but I had to call Performance Bicycle and order a new rear wheel. I can get one sent to me in three days. So if I don’t ruin the group wheel I should be OK. This also means that the rear wheel I dipped into the Pacific will not make it to the Atlantic. However a world where I can see on line what I am ordering over the phone (using a cell phone and an 800 number) and where products can be shipped by FedEx to the backwaters of Arizona is really quite nice. I guess there have been some improvements in the quality of life since 1972.

For those more interested in me than my bike, as I finish this installment I must say that I feel great. I could start tomorrow’s ride right now. So for the physical part so far so good.

April 21 - Southern California

2007-04-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

Saturday was very nice, the rain had cleared the smog from LA and the city looked as good as it gets. It was cool but not cold. I rode from Santa Monica to Newport Beach about 50 miles. Today’s challenge was to navigate without a cue sheet and with only a AAA map of an area that I didn’t know. I got on a Bike Trail in Venice that went along the beach and seemed to have a great number of recreational cyclists. None seemed especially fast as in 6 miles I was never passed, but for the most part the riding was fun. The bike path went onto a beach road and after a few miles into a parking structure (only in LA). The bike path ended at Palos Verdes and I had to climb a few hills to get over to the area around Long Beach. After getting a few directions, I discovered that even cyclists who looked like they might be serious riders were likely to have never gone more than 5 miles from their home. This meant that information about the local area was good, but information about how to get to a distant point was very spotty. Conclusion: ask directions to a nearby location that you think should be on your route and not about how to get to the end of a longer ride.

While climbing the hills in Palos Verdes I rode for a while with Mark, the only rider I rode with on the entire trip from Berkeley. Mark was a triathlete out for a hilly ride. He got me through Palos Verdes on some nice roads and pointed me in the right direction at the top of the climb. I am not so sure how much he competed, as he thought that my 50 mile ride was ‘ambitious’, but he was good company. The ports around Long Beach are the pits. Fortunately, it being Saturday, the truck traffic was minimal but the yahoos in pickups and SUVs were a little frightening at times.

Once through Long Beach I got onto hwy 1 and headed south to Newport Beach. There are some nice bikeways along the 15 miles of beach, but hwy 1 also has a great bike lane. It is so much better than the sections of hwy 1 we ride on in Northern California or the 50 miles north of Santa Monica. I rode on the bike paths until I had had my fill of dog walkers, rollerbladers with ipods so loud that I could hear their music as I passed them, and skateboarders. When I ventured on to the hwy 1 bike lane, I found that there were a great number of cyclists who rode fancy bikes and wore great clothes, but didn’t have the ability to justify their investments. It was very Southern Californian. Since my ride goes through no large cities I hope that this is the last I see of the Southern Californian ethic.

April 20 – Rain and Good Friends

2007-04-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday I woke up at the usual time of 5 AM to see heavy rain from the motel window. As the ride for today was relatively short, I figured I could see if the rain dissipated. This involves sleeping for an hour and rechecking the conditions from the window. The extra hour of sleep was welcome, but there was no change at 6 AM. I decided not to ride and slept until 8. The decision was predicated on several factors: 1) Karen could take me and the bike to Los Angeles. 2) I have ridden in the rain many times; it is not something that I need of want to practice. 3) Much of the day’s route was to be on Hwy 101. Even it the rain stopped the pavement would be wet and each passing car and semi would spray me with water in proportion to its mass. At 10 Karen and I let for LA, well to be precise Nancy and Mark’s home in Beverly Hills. I admit that as it had stopped raining by 10 I felt some guilt over my decision. However once I saw the condition of the shoulder on the first section of 101 I was glad that it rained, as it would have been very nasty even on a sunny day - lots of stones and broken pavement in the shoulder. Then around 11 the skies opened up. It was difficult to see far enough to drive a car! Being inside was so much better than being outside.

By 12:30 we were at our friends’ home and as it almost never rains in Beverly Hills the skies had naturally cleared. Their house was formerly owned by Jean Harlow and then some time later by Rita Haywood. There are several pictures of both actresses in the house in the house. As Jean Harlow lived in the house when she died, it is a site for the ‘Dearly Departed Tour’ that goes to places in Hollywood where stars died. The tour van just stops in from of the house and the driver/guide talks about Jean Harlow. It’s not really that bad. However one day Nancy took the tour. When another rider asked about a bathroom stop, Nancy volunteered her house. The driver almost died when he realized where Nancy lived; he had never been in any of the homes on his tour. I guess some days you are just lucky, like I was that I was to have not been riding on Hwy 101 or the Pacific Coast Highway when the heavens opened up.

April 19 - King City to Buellton

2007-04-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

Today was cold. 41 at 7:15 when I started and it never got to 60. At least the winds blew from the North and while it tried to rain all day, raindrops never fell on my head. Riding the wave of the future 100 years after Butch Cassidy proclaimed it so can be a little intimidating. This was never more so than the several places where I had to ride on US Hwy 101. Hwy is a four lane divided highway that runs the length of California. While the speed limit is 70, drivers must never have had calculus. If they had they would know that a limit is something that can be approached but never exceeded. Riding on the shoulder of 101 is not all that bad it is wide, at least 10 ft, so you really have your own lane and are never in any real danger of being hit, provided you stay on the shoulder. The problem is the road surface. You can find yourself going 20 mph on a good section and working just as hard to go 10 mph on a bad section, without any change in wind or grade. The other problem with highway shoulders is have they have more debris than the road way. This requires one’s constant attention. Riding in traffic requires a lot of attention but unlike other moving vehicles rocks, wood, broken glass, dead animals and truck tires do not have any reason to avoid being hit. Granted they tend to stay in one place and are not subject to the erratic and unpredictable movements of some automobiles, but at speed collisions can be just as damaging to a cyclist. I avoided all road hazards with the exception of one stone on a downhill that punctured my front tire. Fortunately, I had a safe place to fix it. I made 120 miles before we decided to bag the rest of today’s ride and avoid 101 during rush hour. I’m glad I did, judging by what I saw from the car the higher volumes of traffic would have made the ride very unpleasant.

For all concerned about my crash/fall, I am going to be fine. I have a nice road rash on my knee that will heal soon. The knee works fine for cycling but not for kneeling. I guess that I will not be going to mass tomorrow. Should not be a problem as Karen would kill me if I were to become Catholic.

We stayed in Buellton CA. Buellton is a small town next to Solvang CA a fake Danish/Dutch tourist town. The Dutch influence seems to be spreading to the older town since the Days Inn we stayed in had a windmill. The design was several centuries old and it didn’t seem to work. In a state that has been so energy starved at times, it seems odd for a town to embrace windmills without embracing wind power. However I guess tourists are more attracted to old rather than new. Most museums market the old rather than the new. And maybe I am too, after all the basic design of my steel bicycle is over 100 years old.

April 18 - The Ride Begins

2007-04-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

Well today is the day when my ride across America begins. I will be riding to the start of the America by Bicycle ride in Hermosa Beach California. Hermosa Beach is south of Los Angeles, almost 500 miles from Berkeley. My plan is to ride to the meeting place in 4 days. Today the goal is to get to King City, about 160 miles from Berkeley. The ride stated out very well. It was cold, but clear and with a wind from the north, always a good thing. The first goal heading south is Grizzly Peak, 5 miles from my house and the highest point on my ride to Hermosa Beach. While there will be a few harder climbs none will be as high. The view San Francisco, the bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge was as good as ever and it was sad to think that I may not have any better view on the rest of my trip.

The first 25 miles were in some great park land, then 65 miles of city riding through San Jose and the environs, before 70 rural miles to King City. Everything was going great; my wife Karen was following me in a sag car. I was 65 miles into the ride. Then I hit a log in a bike lane and crashed. No broken bones, or severe injuries, but road rash and a very sore knee. Karen was several miles ahead. So the only thing for me to do was see if I could ride and then ride so that I didn’t become so stiff and sore that I would be unable to continue. I was very lucky and I know it.

After getting through the urban sprawl, I was able to ride through a California valley that almost no one knows even exists; there is a stretch of state hwy with no services for 75 miles. Just rolling farm and ranch land. It was truly awe inspiring. I’m sure that I could not live 20 miles from the nearest gas station, 30 miles from the nearest grocery store and 80 miles from the nearest cultural center. But if I had to pick one road to ride a bike on this would be high on my list and I would have no regrets if this were the only road I could ride.

Unfortunately, after 130 miles prudence forced me to get in the car and ride the last 30 miles to King City. I hope to feel better tomorrow.

Bill

Getting Ready II

2007-04-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

After deciding to do a transcontinental ride it is necessary to get into shape before starting the ride. Almost anyone can, if they want to, ride across America. It requires some physical fitness and a lot of determination. Crossing the continent at 50 miles a day and taking 3 months is feasible for most people! So many that the most impressive aspect of accomplishing such a journey is often not physical but the mental realization that you did something you never thought you would be able to do. And hopefully the ability to apply that lesson to the rest of your life. It is for that reason that many people think of a cross country ride as being a life changing experience.

I am not one of those people. I can ride 50 miles loops and be done by noon. I can and at times have done that for months at a time. No I am looking for something more challenging. To that end I have decided to cross the country in 35 days of riding. I am not absolutely sure that I can achieve that goal, but I have greater than 95% confidence. I chose a 35 day goal in part because I have a 35^th year reunion from MIT this June; one day on the bike for every year since I graduated. I also found a tour that is going from Los Angeles to Boston in 31 days. That gives me 4 days to get from Berkeley CA to Los Angeles. This confluence of these events seemed, like something I should take advantage of, so I will be off on Wednesday for Los Angeles and then on Monday for Boston, well 77 Mass Ave. Cambridge, MA.

This ride, as most of you might have figured, out will require a little more than 100 miles each day. A hundred miles if more than twice as hard as 50 miles and while I have ridden 100 miles and longer too many times to remember, the real problem is riding 100 miles on the second and third and fourth and … days. What you need to achieve is a level of fitness where riding 100 miles at a reasonable pace is no longer a training ride. Most people who train seriously came to realize that if they work out to near exhaustion for several days in a row their bodies can’t recover. A better regimen is to work out hard on alternate days and let the body recover and build both strength and endurance during the day off. It is remarkable how many people fail to recognize the need for recovery when training. That being said since I will be riding every day my body can’t think of a 100 mile ride as a training ride and I can’t push myself as if it were.

How do you get to the point where your body can consider 100 miles on a bike to be little more effort than most people would consider a quick run or a long walk? The answer is simple ride your bike a lot before you start the ride. My goal was to have done more miles in 2007 when I started my ride than it would take me to finish my ride. I had a few training setbacks and didn’t make that goal but I will have done about 2500 miles when I start. Do I have any other recommendations? I would do specific exercises the strengthen the abdominals and lower back, I would recommend work to strengthen your legs, and exercises to increase flexibility in the upper back and shoulders, one of my problems, and cardiovascular workouts on a bicycle or an exercise bike. There are lots of ways to do cardiovascular exercise, but I see no point doing exercises that don’t specifically work the muscles that you need to develop for cycling. How long has it taken me? While I have had several other cycling related goals over that past year, I would say that I have been working toward this ride since the winter of 2006. Is that enough? I don’t yet know, but I intend to find out very soon.

Mental Preparation

2007-04-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

There are so many things to do to get ready for a cross-country bike ride like I am planning. The first is to imagine that it is even possible to do such a thing, because everyone who is not a very serious cyclist will think that you are crazy. They will not necessarily tell you this, but they will think it. While from their perspective it would be nuts to try and travel across America by bicycle, much less in little over a month, this does not help you. Friends who are not cyclists will be supportive even if they can’t give you good advice. In general cycling friends in general will not want to offend you if they think you may be biting off more than you can chew. In fact getting realistic advice about whether such an adventure is reasonable is very hard.

If you can find a friend who can and will give you realistic opinions about a transcontinental ride and can evaluate you ability to complete it hold on to that friend no matter what. Personally I have not had such a friend to give me advice. I am sure that some of my cycling friends think I am going to be in over my head and I may be, but I plan to give it a good a try as I can.

Why would one do something like this? It is not as if there aren’t some far easier ways of getting from one coast to the other. The classic response, because it’s there, also doesn’t cut it. Thousands of people have ridden across America, your doing it represents nothing more than a personal achievement. I heard today of a man who swam the length of the Amazon River. That’s an achievement where one can say that he did it because; it was there, and wanted to see if anyone could do it. Riding across America has to be about personal goals or reaffirmation. It could be that you have survived a disease or injury or tragedy and this is your way of demonstrating to your self that you are past that event. It could also be that you have recently celebrated an important birthday, usually they have years that end in a zero, and you wish to prove to yourself that you are not old yet. Unfortunately there will always be someone older and faster than you who has ridden across America.

My motivation is a combination of the above. I have a 35^th reunion from college coming up in a few months and riding back to my reunion would surely be something that no one else in my class ’72 from MIT, will do. So if I limit my Universe sufficiently, I can be unique. I would also like to think that I am not so old and this be a way to reaffirm that to myself. In doing it I may also confirm the opinions of my friends who secretly think I am crazy, but I will take that risk.

The ride is also about the cruel turns that life takes. While I am planning a bicycle ride across America, in large part because I can, my best friend from college, someone who I lived with for 8 years has been contemplating under going chemotherapy for renal cancer. While I am riding across America, the best man at my wedding will be fighting for his life in a hospital in Boston. I know we will both get to our reunion, but the differences in our lives today don’t seem fair. Dave you fight your fight and see you in Boston this June.

Hello

2007-03-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

My name is Bill Reenstra and I have set up this blog to record my upcoming cross country bike trip. I plan to ride from my home in Berkeley, California to Cambridge, Massachusetts. My route will take me first to Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles. I plan to take 4 days for this leg of the journey. In Newport Beach I will meet up will a cross country bicycle tour run by America By Bicycle. Their tour will take me from Newport Beach to Boston in 32 days, with one rest day in Topeka, Kansas. I can think of several places I would prefer to send my rest day, but I must admit that Kansas is in the middle of the country and therefore might be a good place for a rest day. All told I should ride from my home to the East coast in 35 days of riding.

Why do I want to do this? Well, first I have ridden bicycles for many years, pretty much since I was in college, and I have done a lot of very long/hard rides, but I have never done a ride as far as I plan to in this ride. Riding across America has always been one of my cycling goals. Secondly, as I have recently retired I, for the first time in many years, have the time to go on an adventure like this. I have also started to see that many of my friends for a number of health related reasons can no longer even think about undertaking such a trip. As that will ultimately be my fate, I guess I should do it now while I can; at least while I think I can. The third reason is that my 35^th reunion from MIT will be in June and it seems like a fun idea to ride a bike to my reunion. Of course it would be far easier if I lived in say Boston or Newton MA, but as I don’t my ride will just have to be a little harder and take a little longer. There also is a certain symmetry of doing the ride to my 35^th reunion in 35 days.

I plan to make daily posts on this blog during my final preparation for the ride, during the ride, and after the ride during my reunion. I will welcome comments and try to respond in a timely manner.

Bill Reenstra