Ride for Water Follow Up

Ride for Water Follow Up

It has been a couple weeks since we coasted down the boat ramp in Bar Harbor, dipped our front wheels and finished our coast-to-coast ride.  We spent a day in the Acadia National Park area, had our lobster, and drove back to Savoy stopping in Albany and Buffalo to visit friends on the way.  The drive from Buffalo home took 10 hours, on bicycles it would have taken around 10 days.  I figured up our daily mileage and it turns out we averaged 67.2 miles per day.

Our recumbents performed well on this journey.  We had our issues with Joe’s bike at the start (trailer vs. panniers) and at the end with wear related mechanical issues.  The first weeks our climbing ability lagged but this was primarily due to lack of training on hills and my recovery from malaria less than two weeks prior to the start.  Our region of Illinois is flat and there are no significant hills on which to train.  By the time we reached Idaho we were able to take the hills as they came.  The Appalachians while a challenge were taken in stride.  The real advantage of the recumbents came with the persistent headwinds.  Following conventional wisdom, our west to east travel should have provided prevailing tailwinds.  That was not to be the case as the expected tailwinds on the Great Plains and across the Midwest turned into consistent headwinds.  Many of the locals even commented on the unusual aspect of the persistent easterlies this summer.  Were they a result of, or cause of, or even related to the severe drought?  The recumbents also provide for comfort on the longest of days, one of 139 miles and a few more of 100, as well as those in the 80s and 90s.  While we took advantage of tailwinds, several of our longer days were into headwinds, on these days, the recumbents were a definite advantage.

I weighed my loaded panniers along with a full Camelback water bladder and discovered the total weight including tent and sleeping bag to be 66 lbs.  More than I had anticipated.  I cannot think of anything that was not used or that I could have left behind to save any significant amount of weight.  I used and needed everything I carried save for a Frisbee I found along the highway in Montana and carried with us the rest of the trip.  We enjoyed it once while swimming in a campground pond near Defiance, OH.  I used my fleece once, east of the Rockies, on a cool morning in the Adirondacks, they otherwise served as a pillow in a stuff-sack while camping.

Our journey was as much about people as about anything else.  Everyone has an agenda.  For some it is selfish for others it is selfless.  I can think of particular events, but at times it is hard to put them in the context of a particular time and place without a deliberate effort to remember the details.  Other events stand as significant on their own.  Those events are without exception tied to the gracious acts of generosity from the people we met and encountered along the way.   The blog comments and contributions through Razoo always seemed to come at just the right time.  The support and contributions made by the youth and children at church were particularly inspiring.  There were also the friendly honks, waives, and “thumbs-up” by passing motorists that came at the most surprising times, sometimes randomly, and other times seemingly on cue, just when needed most. We shared our ride with several other riders.  Two riders in particular stand out with us as great riding companions, David O’Neil from Christchurch, New Zealand and Dylan Atkinson from San Francisco, CA. We shared the road, campsites, hotel rooms and meals. We meshed well with their pace as well as attitude.  Their presence was welcome and they endeared themselves to us.

Probably the most stressful aspect of the trip was in dealing with traffic.  While 99.9% of drivers gave us plenty of space, the constant vigilance needed, especially on busy, two lane highways, with no shoulders, took its toll on the enjoyment factor.  In many parts the infrastructure for cycling is abysmal.  The best roads and riding conditions in my opinion were in Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.  The routing in these states took us on well surfaced, less traveled roads as well as on some rail trail segments.

The geography of our journey flows together.  The changes were sometimes subtle other times abrupt.  At times we could see the changes coming for many miles, other times they were right next to us, shrouded by rain or fog.  Turning around, looking to where we had been would put everything into a new perspective.  The terrain and typography, wind and weather all contributed to characterize one day from another.  The tailwinds we expected to give us a west to east advantage were rare.  We encountered headwinds at least three times as much as tailwinds.   We expected heat and humidity through the Midwest and we got it.  The country was suffering through a drought, we had significant rain only two days.

Connecting the start of the trip to the finish, as one big event, has been a difficult mental task.  I can compare it to starting and finishing of college.  You come in wide-eyed, anxious with some trepidation and fear of the unknown.  You graduate with barely any sense of the emotions with which you started.  You are just glad to be done.  Putting that graduation in context with those feelings and emotions of the start is something that is hard to wrap one’s mind around.  They just don’t fit into the same package mentally.  So it is with this journey, events are connected by time and distance in weekly, daily, hourly and minute-by-minute increments.

The aspect of sharing this journey with Joe was special. While we are close anyway and share many interests and activities, this prolonged exposure to each other could have laid the foundation for discontent.  It didn’t.  We each had our times of irritability and frustration, anger and fatigue.  We got through those times, growing in respect for each other, learning each other’s shortcomings and valuing each other’s gifts.  Personally, there is no one else with whom I would have wanted more to have made this journey than Joe.

Ride for Water raised over $6,700 through the Razoo.com on-line site and direct donations.  The next step is to start coordinating  and planning the logistics and training that will join the Jeanes CCAP Church in Domasi, Malawi with the Lisanjala CCAP in Mulanje.  The success of the pilot project will depend upon a number of factors.  Through God’s grace we pray that it will be successful.