Our days are spent assembling and fine tuning
our bikes, that we will be shortly riding from ocean to ocean.
We are also training as much as we can. The mountains of California
and Colorado await our arrival, and we intend to be prepared.
Check back for more updates.
The Journey Begins -June 12th 2005
We meet at my house at 4:30 am, which is about five hours from now. From here we fly to San Francisco to kick the trip off. Our group consists of me, Greg Mu, and six high school students from the Chapel Hill area. At 7:00 am on June 13th we start at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and bike east to Norfolk Virginia.
The excitement level here in Chapel Hill is through the roof. Everyone is packing, cramming, finishing school, and trying to get everything together for this crazy adventure.
Over the next 9 weeks, we will bike over the Cali mountains, through the desert of nevada, the rockies of colorado, into the great plains of kansas, then into the steep appalachian mountains, and will hopefully reach our goal of Norfolk VA by around August 13th.
It has been humid and in the 90s here in Chapel Hill. On our third day out, we climb a 10,000 foot pass and enter the Nevada desert. Temps can reach 115 during the day, and on the lonliest road in america, resupplies are up to 100 miles apart. So I guess we won't really get much of a reprieve from the NC heat in ole NV.
But, we probably won't sleep much tonight, and have a crazy busy day in SF tomorrow. So we'll get back to you from somewhere in Nevada.
We're bikin it - We're likin it
Brian
Ahhh...Bike Trips - June 20 2005
Nothing really reminds how great a long distance bike trip is like.....another long distance bike trip.
After all the preparation and planning, we finally found ourselves alone, in the airport, and getting on a plane. Having a one way ticket with bike in tote made it feel really real.
We kicked the trip off properly in San Francisco with a trip to the In and Out burger. After that, we hit the bay at the golden gate and headed east. The first few days were as tough as expected. After we got off the water, the cali heat really weighed heavily upon us, and we would cook in the 95 degree heat if we didn't make camp before 3 in the afternoon.
But we pressed on through, and before we knew it we were in the midst of a 8000 ft climb, and were getting snowed on in the high sierras. Again, we pressed on, and we dropped all the elevation and rode right into the desert.
We've had all the classic bike trip experiences so far. Towns people go out of their way to help us out. They drive us to grocery stores when we're huddled under pavilions in the rain. Fire stations open the yards for tenting. Fallon NV let us swim for free, and the town had a huge picnic where we gorged for hours.
Its amazing that the bikes are still rolling. We've had countless flats, racks have broken, flats abound, and things need to be tweaked constantly. But we carry enough spare parts to build another bike, and everyone is quickly becoming master mechanics, and its a good thing, because we just rolled into a new world.
We rolled out of town today with 2+ gallons of water each, and no supply opportunities until we reached our evening destination. The desert is so vast, bleached and hot, that it feels like another planet. Its an amazing experience to be riding a bike across the lonliest road in America.
Since there are no trees, we all huddled in the shade of a random phone booth for lunch. We pulled into a actual oasis early and are spending the afternoon here. There is a tree for shade, and the one building town has diner, market, motel, bathroom, camping, picnic tables, horseshoes etc. It is a biker paradise. As the afternoon pushes on, the temperature climbs near 100 and the wind blasts at 40 miles per hour. To stay out of the heat, we'll be on the road by 5am tomorrow, and hopefully at our next destination before noon.
The crew is doing great. They started very strong, and I was only able to keep up by relying on some residual cross country biking experience. Everyone seemed to push pretty hard, and I wondered if they would too quickly burn themselves out, or bike me into the earth. The latter happened. With youth on their side, a few thousand calories for dinner, and a couple hours on the ground leaves everyone feeling fully refreshed and ready to roll, and leaves me feeling tired, sore and worn out.
This has been the most amazing trip so far, and we can't wait to see the remainder of the country. Pictures will help fill in all that I have left out.
Max, I expect to see you in a couple weeks, shoulder injury or not. Lucas, July 4th bring it on. Leon and Bri, the desert is cool, but pack the bikes for Kansas.
We're bikin it, we're likin it.
B
Challenges - June 23rd 2005
As far as adventures go, it's nice to have one challenge at a time, maybe two. Not the case in the Nevada desert. Looking at the maps, we could see that we would be climbing 1000+ foot passes multiple times a day. We could also see that it was 65-85 miles between water sources, which we could plan for.
As we set out on these long days, it all starts well, and then around 9:30 the winds pick up. With nothing to stop them in the desert, they seem to gain momentum before they slam into our bikes, equiped to act like sails. When we climbed into the town of Austin, they had recently recorded winds at 60mph. On the plains it was a steady 30-40mph, many times right in our faces. They are so strong that many times we would stop biking, just stand there, and let the wind blast us.
The one joy in going up hill, is knowing that you have a really big and fast downhill awaiting you. However, with the winds the way they are, the downhills consist of staying in your low year and cranking hard to go 5 mph down a 6% grade. Oh, and its really hot with no shade.
On a more positive and less wind related note, evey town has had a swimming pool, where we can wash away the struggles of the day, as well as a bunch of sand and road grit.
We're taking the day off tomorrow, so for the first time in a few days, we won't be getting up at 4:15am, although I might wake everyone up then just to torment them. Its also probably been a while since these guys consistently went to bed at 8pm, while the sun was still in the sky. But battling winds and hills for hours on end seems to get everyone all tuckered out.
Well, off to sleep in the town park, and hopefully not get drenched by the sprinklers.
b
Great Plains - July 14th 2005
So, the big misconception is that the 'great plains' were named by pioneers and explorers. When actually, they were named by the first east bound cross country cyclists. They were originally dubbed the 'thank-god-we're-out-of-the-!@$%ing-mountains' plains, but for childrens text books, we're in the great plains. Its a nice change to not have a multi thousand foot climb everday, even though we did finish up with a huge push to 11,200 feet on the continental divide.
Uh-oh, the library is about to close.
The vast flatness is nice.
The person who has the speed record has not re-broken it, nor will he/she? for a while.
The police still hassle us every once in a while, I guess we look sketchy.
More later when I get to an open library.
B
Got Roy? - July 18th 2005
We were warned by countless people that kansas would be infinitely boring. Not so. Its hard to describe how good the state can be.
Just a week ago, we were in Colorado, with so many RV's you could barely see the horizon. While stopped at a gas station, two plump RVers would plop themselves out on the asphalt. One of them would dislodge one of our pannier bags from his wheel well. He got it there when he buzzed one of us too closely. The horn would be stuck in the on position, from being pressed firmly most of the day in wont of more road space. The RVers companion would then empty the sewage tank on Will (its the only explanation for how he is so dirty). But the days of RV's are over, and we're into the plains.
The towns and farms and roads are so perfect, I can picture James Earl Jones stepping out of his narration in Field of Dreams to describe the first days in Kansas. He would talk about small towns of no more than 500 people, they've seen bikers before, so they know what to expect. There are quant town parks to stay in free of hassle. Each one has a pool that gladly welcomes bikers to wash of the day's road grime. High school gyms open their doors, and Kansas ballers stack their skills against the chapel hill boys. It hasn't gone well for them yet. (They're angry about us having Roy also.) Other nights see us sitting in the grand stands as the sun sets behind the grain silo, enjoying a funnel cake, and watching the rodeo. Diners are good and cheap, laundry is easy to find, and the people are so nice its almost scary. Rather than being stuck in tourist towns, these locals live real lives, in real towns, everyone says hello, and will sit down and talk to you where ever you are. Bikers will come.
The other morning was one of the better mornings out. It does get extremely hot, and the cross wind gusts at 25mph. So to beat that we get us before dawn. We roll out of bed with the stars still in the sky, and as the sky is turning pink we get cruising out of town. Navigation is easy. You can go to where you came from, or ride to where you're going, not many other choices. The morning is cool enough to where you may want to wear sleeves, but not quite. Music on the iPod is great, and listening to a some Big Pretty and the Red Rockets or Jack Johnson puts you in a great state of mind for the day. The road stretches due east, and the sun rises at the tip of the road, and you feel you could almost get to it if you rode fast enough. Before the winds kick up, you can ride at 18-20 mph, which is much better than trudging along at 8 mph in the winds. It allows us to get to towns before 1pm and still cover 70 miles.
Yesterday did put the hurting on us though. We did 94 miles, and got stuck biking in the heat of 100 degrees for a few hours. But we made alot of progress towards the Atlantic so it was worth it.
Now that we're on the trans american bike path, we see alot more bikers. Many of them are just out of college. (I wish they would stop wasting their education and get a real job.) They look at the age of our crew and remark what a great idea it is to come out here at 16 or 17. They wonder aloud how their college careers or paths would have been different if they had seen the country in this fashion before going off to school. We run into a number of scout troops out here as well. It takes them a minute to believe that we are actually troop 39 out all the way from Chapel Hill NC. Most of their trips are small weekend excursions. They had not even considered doing anything like this, or even imagined that it was possible. All they need though is a summer time, a desire to travel, and a few screws loose upstairs doesn't hurt. I imagine we've planted the seed with a number of people, and hopefully they will realize the possiblity, and follow in our footsteps.
Its raining right now, so I am delaying the inevitable. Only a few more days of Kansas, and then we'll be in the Ozarks. 2000 miles down, a few more to go.
"Free your mind, see what you can find, when you leave it all behind, just free your mind"
B
Keep On Keepin On - July 22 2005
I think if you missed where we ate lunch today, you would miss the experience of the Trans American Bike Way. A little diner called Cooky's that comes with recommendatation from hundreds of mile around, and is the only real place to eat in a small town of 800. When you walk in, there are 40 pies sitting on the counter in front of you. I couldn't even name 40 pies, but she makes them. I ordered a small lunch, and our table of 3 had 9 pieces. You just have to sample as many as you can so that you don't miss out. Need I say they were the best tasting items of the trip.
The beautiful majestic days of Kansas have faded away into 110 degree scorchers. There has been a heat advisory for 5 straight days. The temp is 100 straight up with an index of over 110. Getting up and on the road at 5 am works pretty well, but its hard to get enough sleep since you sweat uncontrolably in your tent for the first hour of the night.
It happened today for the first time in trip memory. We had a tail wind. We've had an everything-else wind on the trip, but no tail winds in 40 days. What are the odds. But we rolled along rolling Missouri roads at 20+ mph. A very welcome change. And I have 30 miles in the same direction this afternoon. What a treat.
Lucas McLawhorn, a teacher at McDougle Middle School, and an old friend from the 2003 ride is along with us now. That means that since today is my birthday, I've of course been hit with a bucket of water, and more to come. He also bought me a piece of pie, so thats good. For all of those who know lucas, this trip is now more out of control than before.
Everyone is in amazing shape now, its ridiculous. When we are in a draft line, I can no longer keep up. I see the younger group in my mirror, and they ride me down, and off onto the horizon in moments. When I do manage to catch up, we approach a little rolling hill, younger fingers click down a few gears, the pace quickens to 20 or so, and I fall behind. The people behind me pass, making old-person comments, asking about my trick knee. I look back to see if I'm dragging a concrete block or something, and my worst fears are confirmed. I'm old, and they're in better shape. Oh well, I'll probably still make it.
We have looked at dates and maps a bit more, and have decided that we will be arriving in
Damascus on August 7th in the afternoon, and will be taking a day off there on August 8th. Hope to see some people there.
We're in Golden City, Missouri. 2250 miles in. The Ozarks start in a day or two, and will be pretty tough
B
The Big Inning - July 25th 2005
Through a number of years in middle school baseball now, I've learned quite a few things. But one of the top keys to winning is: avoid the big inning. If the other team scores 8 runs in one inning, and 2 over the remainder of the game, you're probably going to lose. There's no way around it. Change pitchers, pick off, shuffle fielders, but don't let them score alot. That seems to apply out here as well.
I hate to think of it as us versus the country, but sometimes that's just the way it is. So if we can keep the country from scoring too much, we should win. We'll let them score with a big hill, or a hard rain, or a hot day; but the other day, they definitely batted through the order a number of times on us.
We pulled onto a road during a day that was 107 degrees before the heat index was added in, and they had just put down some fresh oil and loose gravel on our route, 'Missouri Country Road A.' At first it was just really hot and smelled bad. But about three miles in, the oil and gravel was starting to cake onto the tires, chains and deraileurs. We whined about it for a minute, but kept onward. Then the flats started. The oil would hold the gravel on our tire until it forced its way through, and popped the tube. Five people got flats on the spot. We pulled off the road onto a gravel road and started to clean our bikes. An hour later, we were on the road again. Then my tire exploded.
We stopped in the shade of a front yard, not knowing who lived there. Greg verbally hoped they were nice, and wanted to make us lemonade, but I wanted to fix my tire. As I was finishing the patch, and sweet white haired lady walked out, wondering why we were riding on a gravel road. She then remarked that; 'its awefully hot out here. I bet you guys would love some nice cold lemonade.' And sure enough, it was unanimous, we all wanted lemonade. We were on the road again, happy and refreshed....then my tire exploded again, and greg got two flats, and chris allen got 2 also. I had to wrap my tire in balance bar wrappers and med tape so that I could make it to town that night.
The sun set way before Greg and I made it in, so we had to ride for an hour in the complete dark. It was not fun. Everything was closed when we got to town, and we feltthat we were at the low point in the trip. We met a guy shooting hoops at the court at the city park who remarked that we looked pretty tired and hungry. He was right. Then he offered us a pizza, and said he owned the shop next door, and would open it up and give us some food. When we went in, he asked if being from NC we liked sweet tea, again a unanimous yes, so he put on a kettle, and made a fresh batch.
We had completely destroyed seven tires, and popped a total of 15 tubes in the day's excitement, so we were forced into a day off. We were trying to figure a way to a bike shop 40 miles off route in Springfield, and the pizza guy just suggested that we take his car. So at least the most epically bad day ended well, and after a day of bike maintanence we are back on the road.
So MO racked up a big score on us in one day, but we are whiddling away.
Yesterday was over 100 with the index at 115, so we got up at 5 am and rode to an early lunch, where we chilled at a subway until 5pm. I bet they were pretty tired of us at that point. Afterewards we finished up the remainder of our day at sunset. We're repeating that strategy again today, except we tossed a rope swing into a huge river in there earlier this morning.
There is a crazy opposite of people here in Missouri. 95% of the people that we meet are so amazingly nice that its shocking. They go way out of there way, and are always asking if we need help, offering water, AC, and everything else that we could imagine. Then there are the 5% that are such hard core rednecks I can't believe it. The trailer is so delapadated it should be condemned, but there pick up is jacked up and loud. Racism abounds, as do gun racks, the NRA, confederate flags and rampant GW support, and scare us to keep biking to the salvation of Kentucky....wait.....I mean rural VA.....wait, it may be Chapel Hill before I'm back in the bubble of a univeristy town.
Supposed to be a high of 79 on Wednesday. I hope I don't freeze to death.
We're bikin it, and we're cookin in it.
B
The Curve Ball - August 5th 2005
Life can definitely throw some nice fast balls at you, but after a while you can catch up to them, and get pretty good at hitting them. Life also has a pretty dirty curve ball.
Missouri didn't get much better from the last time I wrote. It pretty much kept with everything that cyclists hate. It was 107 degrees on alot of days with no shade. The roads were the steepest we've had, the turns were blind, there was no shoulder, and the drivers were plentiful, impatient, and overall jerks. That doesn't even get started on the redneck towns that we had to stay in, where people would hoot and holler at us in camp, and be obnoxious just for the sake of waking us up. The best part about Missouri was the road out.
As we approached Kentucky we feared the worst. You wouldn't think that simply crossing a state border would make that much difference, but it really does. We crossed into kentucky, and everything got great again. Traffic tapered off, the temperature cooled off, and the hills became gently rolling. We were back to biking through nice farm land again. Rolling green pastures, and a nice morning mist to stay cool with. Life was good.
The towns remained very small, and I have to say, they were still very redneck. But the rednecks were incredibly nice. After 20 years in the south, I still had some trouble with accents, but people bought us drinks, gave us homemade BBQ sauce, let us stay anywhere, and were always very welcoming, and concerned that Kentucky was treating us well.
I had a friend from back in the college days stop by and see me in the town of Utica. Town had a gas station and a fire station. My friend Alejandro is more of a bigger city kind of guy, having grown up in Seville, so we pursued other options. He wisked me away to civilization in his Beamer to a nice dinner. I almost felt guilty leaving everyone at a fire station to dine on gas station pizza, but some where in the first round of beers and appitizers that feeling faded, and I was able to thoroughly enjoy a 2+ hour dinner.
The hills of the Appalachians have now officially started, so we're back in the mentality of put it in low gear, and go about climbing for a while. Damascus is very close on the radar.
On another note. My ride has been put on hold in Hazard Kentucky, and I have parted with the group. These strong young men and powerful cyclists are continuing on with 2 other leaders, and should finish this epic journey of a lifetime in about a week. My father was taken from me suddenly on Thursday morning, and I am here with my family in Charlotte for a while. I'll be sure to finish up the remaining 400 or so miles shortly. He taught me to not leave things like this unfinished, and I'm sure he'd want me to complete what I started. He was always proud of my adventures, and how I live my life; and I'll continue to pursue everything in life with a passion. Love and explore the world around you, appreciate your family and friends, and take advantage of every opportunity life grants you. He always did, and I always will.
I'll just sit back and wait on this little curve ball, and know that life does go on.
Live your dreams.
Brian
Success - August 16th 2005
Back in May, I was walking with some friends down a dirt road in the country. Classic NC heat was starting, it was really muggy, so we were shirtless and were wearing sandals. We were sweating even though the sun was setting, and the crickets were just starting to chirp. It reminded me of carefree summer days of youth, where mom serves mac-n-cheese and applesauce for dinner at 6pm, and you rush out to get 2 more hours of playing in before it gets dark. I would always wonder if those magical days still existed and if so, how to get to them. I found out. The answer: A bike trip.
Biking through the desert and the dirty south definitely takes care of the heat. We spent almost every night outside, so you experience the sunset for 9 consecutive weeks. In the evenings we would sit shirtless at the picnic table, drinking Gatorade, playing cards, and writing in journals. If we had the energy, we would swim in the city pool, shoot some hoops on the court, or play Frisbee in the mosquito filled fields. It was just us, thousands of miles from anyone that we knew, and countless days of traveling and adventuring awaiting us. Our only concerns were of the coming terrain, bike maintenance, and how far it was between cold drinks the next day. The evenings were perfectly relaxed, with nowhere to go, and no one asking us to do anything. Those little Kansas and Kentucky towns will always be there, just waiting for us or anyone else to pass through on bikes sometime in the not-to-far-future.
After I left the crew in Hazard, they slowed down a bit, and took a couple of days off. This left me some time to catch up with them. They were well rested with an unprecedented two consecutive days off in Damascus, Virginia. Everyone was also well fed, some people ate at the Baja Café 7 times in two days. That’s more than 3 times a day, not even considering the other restaurants in town.
I found out that they had the nerve to try and ride a century without me. And who could pass up the chance to bike 100+ miles in the middle of a Virgina August scorcher, so I met up with them in the middle of VA and we cranked a century towards the ever-approaching beach. I wish I could rant about the drivers and the locals, but the Virginia folks were great. The drivers were patient, and would even talk to you out their windows asking about our trip. Restaurant owners gave us half price meals when they heard of our journey, and finding places to stay was easy.
As we approached the Atlantic, we got scared about the trip ending. So 5 short miles out we stopped at a Hardee’s for one last hurrah. We chilled in the air-conditioning, had milk shakes, played cards, basked in each other’s company, and delayed the eminent end of our journey.
We rode hwy 58 so that we couldn’t ride east in America anymore. All the parents were waiting with banners at a nice public park right on the beach. We pushed our bikes across the scorching sand, and rolled them into the Atlantic Ocean. Mission accomplished. I don’t know if it is late in the season, so the water is warm, or that we just biked 3,650 miles, but swimming in the ocean never felt so good.
We ate a great lunch on the beach. While we ate, we told countless stories to eager ears. We spoke of the hot sandy desert of Nevada, the national parks and epic climbs of Utah, we got snowed on and hailed on, winds blasted us from every direction, 50+ flats were changed, 100+ games of spades were played, 1,000+ jumps were taken of city diving boards, we began many days around 5am before the sun came up to avoid the sun/wind, we all ate dinner together every night, and were really obnoxious every night, Josh got a mullet, Will asked if every single little hill was the continental divide, Chris threatened to stab someone, a guy made racecar noises while riding his bike in circles around us, Greg snorted ice out of his nose, we met some of the nicest and most interesting people, we met the absolute scum of America, our surroundings included 5 foot snow drifts, endless acres of corn/tobacco/beans, green deciduous tree tunnels, desert sage, sharp drop-offs, ice capped 14,000 peaks, the Colorado/Mississippi/Ohio river, and finally Virginia Beach. This was all in two short months. The summer blinked by so quickly, after a year of planning. But at the same time, the flight over seems like forever ago, simply because there are so many memories and experiences crammed in between then and now.
We now return temporarily to the ‘real world.’ For so long the sun, the wind, the rain, and the road governed our days. Now they are governed by clocks, alarms, class bells, cell phones, and other people’s requests. If I want to have a slice of pizza for lunch with someone, I can’t just bike 8 more miles to the next town, and meet up at the diner. We have to set a meeting time, get people out of class/school, and can only enjoy each other’s company for 30 minutes rather than the standard 2+ hour bike trip lunch. The real world is so inconvenient.
It’s hard to say what’s next for these guys. To experience something of this magnitude in high school really sets the bar pretty high. But, they’ll move on. They’ll pause for a moment to laugh at the people who doubted and opposed them, but just for a moment, and then they’ll move on to what others cannot consider and to what only they can dream up. I just hope they include me in the upcoming adventures, and that I can keep up.
Well, ‘I gotta get-to-bikin-it’
Brian
