Day 4: People Ski Here?

Course: Jackson, CA to Lake Tahoe
Distance: 95 miles
Max Elevation: 8,000 ft.
Total Climbing Distance: 12,000 ft.
Terrain: Hills, some more hills, and then some more hills.

Max Speed: 43 mph

This post is late as well since I was way too tired to write last night. I'm currently sitting at a laundromat so that I can get wifi.

We woke up in Jackson at about 5:30am and went back to Mel's diner to have a sponsored breakfast with a TON of food to get us enough calories for the day. After breakfast we headed out to Kirkwood, our immanent doom. It was flat for about 5-7 miles, and then the first hill came. I was riding with Jack and Doug again since we had done so well the day before. Again, we planned to just keep it steady the whole day. I found myself going a lot faster than them this time around, so I knew that I wanted to move up a pace line at the next crew stop if we ran into anyone. One of the other cyclists was in the same situation as me, so we decided to form a pace line of two. As the hills kept coming, I still found myself ahead of his pace. We were averaging about 4mph uphill, which was actually hard for me to do since it was rather slow. The hills kept coming, and my partner started falling further and further back, so I knew that I was going to have to switch it up again.

We managed to make it to lunch together, which was 38 miles in to the ride and 6,000 feet up. After lunch, since my partner was hurting so badly, he decided to rack himself, so I switched again and joined up with Kevin, who will be a senior next year at the University of Iowa. Kevin hasn't been riding the past couple of days due to a formerly broken pelvis hurting, and having once had part of his lung taken out. Both of those in mind, the fact that Kevin made it to lunch was extremely admirable. Kevin and I took off together and were finally at a pace that was fast enough for the both of us. It was great to finally be on the move. However, I didn't really realize that the hardest part was ahead of me.

As Kevin and I continued through the mountain passes (we were to scale 3 total), we found hardship after hardship in not only making it up the hills but keeping cool from the heat and exhaustion beginning to set in. It had taken us 6 hours to get to lunch, and we had no idea how long it would take to keep going. The hardest part of the ride was immediately after lunch. It was about a 10 mile uphill. At the top of the hill, crew was waiting for us. One crew member told me that people ski here. That was about the last thing I wanted to hear. We then had about a 6 mile downhill. There was a lot of wind and the roads weren't that great, so it was hard to control the bike and my speed at the same time. That's when I started flying though. I hit about 43 mph and decided that it was terrifying, so I slowed down to a comfortable speed.

After the downhill was a lot of flat land, but I noticed Kevin beginning to fall behind. We stopped at the next crew member's turn signal, and Kevin was coughing a lot. He also mentioned that his pelvis was hurting him pretty badly. The wind had blown him into a pot hole and it bumped him enough to hit something in the wrong place. The crew member and I both thought that Kevin should stop, since we were at 75 miles and still had 20 to go. There was also another mountain pass coming up that would be pretty hard on him. I decided that I would wait with Kevin and either rack with the next van since I couldn't continue by myself, or wait for the next pace line and join with them. Luckily, the next pace line came before the next van. The pace line had 3 people in it, so we split up to two pace lines of two.

Kevin told me to finish the ride for him, so I pushed as hard as I could with my partner, and at about 7:45pm, we finished. We spent 12 hours on the bike, and I was more than sore. My legs were burning, my head was aching, and my bottom was just a culmination of pains.

We reached the finish at the shoreline of Lake Tahoe and headed to lodging to shower. It was great knowing that I had finished one of the hardest days of the trip. Scratch the first day - I have never pushed myself harder than this day.

Day 3: The Underdogs

Sorry that this post is late, I didn't have access to wifi at the last gymnasium that we stayed in.

Course: Sacramento to Jackson

Distance: 43 miles

Elevation: 2,959 ft.

Weather: Hot

Terrain: Flat at first, bumpy roads and sustaining hills after

Today was a bright and early wakeup. Since we weren’t ready on time the day before, we were required to wake up 30 minutes early at 5am. We had a sponsored breakfast by the same husband and wife that provided our lunch the day before. After eating we took off for Jackson. I rode with Doug and Jack. Doug is a 29-year-old Pi Kappa Phi alumnus from Northern Illinois University and Jack will be a senior next year at the University of Tennessee. Our goal was just to take it slow, since we are by no means the fastest or most experienced riders.

We knew that the mileage was shorter so we started off as the last pace line to leave before the sweeps. For about 25 miles we stayed behind, but after that we noticed that we had caught up to a couple of pace lines. Before we knew it, we were blazing by other guys on the hills. Our pace line was the third to finish, which is great considering that everyone that finished in front of us seems to be in Lance Armstrong’s bloodline.

After everyone finished, we staged up in arrival formation and paraded into our largest friendship visit yet. We even had police escorts so it was pretty official. When we got there, there were at least a hundred people cheering us on. Most of the people there had a disability. We lined up after arriving and they all went through and shook our hands as we introduced ourselves. Afterwards we all ate lunch together and a lot of the people with disabilities came up to us with maps of our route that they wanted us to sign. It was awesome to see how much they looked up to us. Sometimes we really don’t stop to think that those people are the reason we even brought a bike.

After having a great time at the friendship visit we headed to lodging, showered up, and then went to dinner at Mel’s Diner – a place that has been serving JOH food since ’87 when it started. We met with the Jackson Lion’s Club. A men’s club that raises a lot of money and helps out local organizations with fundraising. They do everything from collecting pull-tabs to selling kegs of beer for charity. It was great to talk to the guys of the Lion’s Club and see what someone else does for the good of others.

I came back to lodging and had Dean (the professional cyclist who has been biking for 35+ years and riding with us since the beginning, sorry if I failed to mention him earlier) look at my bike since I had been having trouble with one of the shifters. He found that a piece of my drive train had broken, so I’ll need to get a new piece soon. I’ll still be able to ride tomorrow, though.

Tomorrow we ride to Lake Tahoe via Kirkwood, a huge mountain. It’s 95 miles with 8,000 feet of elevation. Wahoo…..Hopefully I live to write again.

Day 2: Sweeps

Course: Napa to Sacramento

Distance: 65 miles

Elevation: 3,528 ft

Weather: Partly cloudy

Total moving time: 4.5 hours.

Yesterday evening a bunch of us guys were sitting in the hotel hot tub when fellow rider Luke and I agreed to volunteer to be the sweeps for today. Each day, two guys are chosen to be the "sweeps" for the ride. That means that they ride behind the last pace line and do not pass them. Their job is to make sure that everyone makes it to the destination without getting left behind. We began the day at an early 6am. Luke and I took off last and stayed behind the group in front of us with ease. Generally, the sweeps are stronger riders, but since we volunteered that wasn't the case for the both of us. I was drafting behind Luke for over half of the day. 

Within the first twenty miles, we hit a hill that reached a whopping 1,500 ft. Not fun, but it was like riding through a Bob Ross painting. Luckily, the group in front of us was struggling a lot so I could pass off my fatigue as waiting for the guys in front of me. We stopped a lot going up the first climb, but it was all downhill from there. Literally though, it was a blast to ride down that thing. We hit about 35 kmh. 

After the big downhills, it was all flat. We had a nice and smooth ride to Sacramento. When we finally arrived, we had a sponsored lunch by a mother and father of two Pi Alphas from '09 and '11. We ate sandwiches from Mr. Pickle's that had "Dutch Crunch" bread. I've never been so impressed by bread in my life. It was so delicious I was eating the morsels of everyone else's bread. 

After lunch we got in our arrival positioning. Our van escorted us and we rode in a side-by-side double pace line. Since Luke and I were sweeps for the day, we got to be first in line for the arrival. Our arrival distance was about 1 mile in the double pace line, and we managed to mess it up. There was some miscommunication and we all took a wrong turn and wound up on the wrong side of the Sacramento Capitol Building. When we pulled up (and were still thinking that we had gone the right way) we only noticed one guy clapping. I didn't really know what to think so I just waved and went to stop my bike in the lawn. I suppose he could have been someone really important that we were arriving for?

We finally got word that we made a wrong turn and headed around the block back in arrival formation and made it to the right side. We arrived to a few families as well as a handful of people with disabilities. It was heartwarming to see those people cheering us on as we pulled up. I can't imagine what D.C. is going to feel like.

After arrival we headed to the Southside Art Center for a friendship visit. It's a place for people with disabilities to go and indulge in music and arts. The people there are so creative, too! They had painted things I can only dream of being able to make. After a tour of the place we all ate dinner and then the clients of the Art Center put on a concert for us. They were a full fledged band! All of them were amazingly talented and they played some classic songs like Move it, Move it and Roller Coaster. One client that played the xylophone and tambourine was a 51-year-old with down syndrome. He would take breaks from playing his instrument and come dance with us out in the crowd. He was a machine on the dance floor. 

Overall the experience was great. Tomorrow we ride 50 miles and have a friendship visit in the morning. It's a little bit of a recovery day before our 95 mile and 8,000 foot climb in Kirkwood. I never thought I'd call 50 miles a recovery day.

Picture 1: Closer to Napa - early in the morning.

Picture 2: Yeah, we rode through those mountains. No big deal.

Picture 3: Luke and I with a couple of members from the band.

Song of the blog:

Day 1: Kickoff

All of the training, fundraising, and orientation led to this day. We woke up at 5:15 and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge for kickoff. It was cold, wet, rainy, and windy. Basically everything that made cold weather colder than usual was happening. After meeting with our families and saying goodbye, we rode across the bridge in one big pace line. After the bridge ride, we split up into pace lines of three. Derek Dedeker, Michael Walton and I decided to ride together for the kickoff ride. It was awesome to be together with my chapter brothers for the first ride.

We first rode through a small town called Sausalito, and it took us a while to get through it because of bumpy roads and traffic light stops. From Sausalito we headed to Napa, which was no cakewalk. We covered more than 6,000 feet of elevation the whole ride. For a while I was hurting pretty badly on the hills. Typically, you try to stay within 6 inches of the man in front of you in your pace line so that you can draft off of him and it makes it easier to pedal. Well, Michael Walton is a machine, ladies and gentlemen. A machine. He goes up hills about as fast as I go down them. It was pretty hard to keep up on some hills, but he was always kind enough to look back and slow down for me. Derek helped me out a lot with motivation as well. If it wasn't for those guys, I would have stepped off of the bike a few times. 

About 3/4 of the way through the trip we were going up a pretty sustaining hill. I looked down for about 5 seconds and when I looked up my tire was extremely close to the grass. Having learned from my first big crash I went ahead and took my tire into the grass and tried to clip out. Unfortunately, I was going too slowly to clip out and land, and I fell over. Luckily, since I was going so slowly, it didn't hurt. However, there was a pretty minimal shoulder on the road and I fell into the lane of the road. A car was behind me, but luckily I got up in time for it to pass me. It was a little freaky, but I survived. I caught up to Derek and Michael and we finished the ride together. It was tough, but so worth the trouble. Every mile we had an amazing view, and riding through vineyards was awesome. I have never pushed myself harder than I did today. 

After the ride we had a friendship visit at a banquet at a local park. Each year, a few families get together and hold an awards banquet for a few area sports teams for people with disabilities. Awards are given out, and people get really excited about it. The Journey of Hope has been attending this friendship visit for 14 years now, so some of the athletes know who we are. At the banquet, I made a lot of new friends. We played volleyball, danced, and just chatted it up with the athletes. I met a guy named Ian that had Down syndrome. He was extremely kind and loved talking to me. We talked about sports and movies for a long time, and he was extremely excited about the trophy that he got for playing baseball. 

When it came time to leave it was sad, but great to know that today was such a success. I couldn't be prouder of myself and the guys around me. It's not easy, but it sure is rewarding. 

Song of the blog:

Post 7: Full Schedule

Sorry about the delayed post! Wifi is pretty spotty here at the hotel. It only works when it wants to.

Yesterday was a lot of fun! We woke up at the usual 6:30 and headed to a shipyard for skills assessment. The view was pretty awesome...until security came. Apparently the day before crew had gotten the OK to practice there, but asked the wrong guy. We were told that we needed a permit to use the property, which we didn't have. We had to leave which was unfortunate because that was the site that the Mythbusters do a lot of filming at. It was cool to be at the place that I had seen on TV so many times.

We transferred to a parking lot at Alameda College, and ran through some basic skills and calls for the bike ride. Aferwards, we went to take this year's North route team picture near the Golden Gate Bridge. The view from the pier was awesome, but sub-zero temperatures seemed to be an understatement. The wind was furious and it only made the cold temperatures worse. After manning up and taking a few pictures, we headed over to Fisherman's Wharf to go to In & Out Burger and shop around.

At Fisherman's Wharf a few of my friends and I bought some socks with the San Francisco cityscape on them. They're pretty much the coolest socks I've ever bought - definitely an upgrade from Hanes.

My favorite part of the day came after that when we headed to the Clif headquarters. We got a tour from a Pi Alpha (someone who has completed Journey of Hope or Gear Up Florida) that rode the Journey of Hope in '99. The headquarters was awesome. Their building was lit almost completely by natural light, had ample ping pong tables, a cafe for workers, a gym for working out, a rock wall, and pets were even allowed to come to work with their owners. It was cool to see where 80% of my diet for the next 6 weeks is coming from. I had my first Clif bar today. It was pretty good, but that will probably change in a week or so.

At the end of the day a bunch of us guys went to a fair down the street and found a dock on the bay to sit and talk at. It was great to laugh with the guys and get to know them better.

Song of the blog:

Post 6: The First Friendship Visit

Today we woke up at about 6:30am to be at breakfast in the parking garage by 7. We packed our Thules (our luggage bag) and "practiced" loading them in the car. After that we gathered in the conference room and went over rules of the road and risk management. We practiced some basic maneuvers of biking in pace lines (on our feet). After a good couple hours of practice, we broke for lunch.

After lunch, we loaded up in our vans for the first friendship visit of the summer. We went to Pomeroy Recreation & Rehabilitation Center. It's a center for people with disabilities to come during the day and do anything from art class to swimming to music class. We arrived at the center to find some friendly faces waving at us and smiling. On the window of the front door of the PRRC were two signs. One sign read, "Welcome Push America and thank you!" It was great to know that we were so welcome already. Next to that sign was a flyer that read, "Tonight: Basketball Game - Push America vs. Pomeroy Wildcats." Well, basketball is really the only sport I never played, so I knew I'd be breaking barriers on a couple levels today.

We went into the gym and began talking it up and shooting around with the clients there. Clients included everyone from young girls to an 86 year old man. You wouldn't believe it, but that 86 year old man scored more baskets than me in warmup. Actually, you might not believe it, but I definitely do. That just puts my basketball skill into perspective for everyone.

Warmup ended and we began the game by lining the gym on two sides. Push America on one side, and the Pomeroy Clients on the other. First, we walked in a line around the gym high giving all of the clients, and then the clients of Pomeroy did the same to us. Some of the people there were beyond excited to get a high five, and it was very humbling.

One of the staff members at Pomeroy grabbed a microphone and commentated the entire game. Pomeroy started with the ball, and scored immediately. Almost all of the clients were able to make shots in the 10-foot goal, and if they weren't then a staff member set out a smaller goal for them to slam the ball into. Essentially, Pomeroy just took off on the scoreboard. They told us ahead of time that they were undefeated, and we now see why. It was ridiculous how well these people could play basketball. One guy was brave enough to shoot a few three pointers...he drained all of them. One man made a buzzer beater shot at the end of the game and ran to half court and laid down on his back pumping his fists because he was so proud.

Final score: Push America - 8, Pomeroy Wildcats - 68.

After the game we all shook hands and high fived and the clients went on their way. We took a tour of the facility, and saw that Push America and Pi Kappa Phi really had a history with this facility. All of the way back in 1991, Push America and Pi Kappa Phi built a playground for the PRRC (picture below). It was really cool to see a piece of Push America history with this particular facility.

Seeing the sheer joy on the faces of the clients today really got me excited for the summer. From high fives to scoring baskets, these people showed their abilities way more than their disabilities. It's amazing how much one can take just from an hour with these people. It got my psyched for the summer and now I can't wait to see what the rest has in store for me. Basketball might not be our game, but we have the whole summer to experience this joy.

Post 5: Always Bored

I woke up this morning at 5am to catch a 7am flight. Just like every other airport visit, I was extremely tired and irritable. After two long flights I finally landed in Oakland. I don't know why I feel inclined to share this but for some reason I do. I was standing about three feet from the baggage claim waiting for my bag to come out and a woman came and stood literally about an inch in front of me. This baffled me not only because of her complete disregard for personal space, but also because there were probably 200 other places she could have stood nearby with better access to the bags...but I digress.

After fetching my bike, the crew members for Push America picked two other cyclists and me up at the airport and drove us to the hotel. Upon arrival, we were given a list of what to do. The first item on the list was "Sign the thank you cards." Well, the thank you cards were in number - about 200 to be exact. A lot of signatures and a healthy serving of carpal tunnel later, I proceeded to the next item on the list, "Put your bike together."

"Hah. Yeah let me just put my bike together like it's a set of legos," I thought to myself. Luckily a fellow cyclist who knew what he was doing was there to help me get it together in about 40 minutes or so. After completing that, I picked up my biking gear (which is very cool, by the way) and checked into my room. There are two double beds in the room, and four guys per room. I guess this is their way of letting us get to know each other quickly. We all fit our bikes in the room, and it's quite the maze at the moment.

Once everyone showed up and completed their assigned tasks, our project manager talked to us about leadership, and gave us a small overview of what we'll be doing. After a dinner break, we regathered in the room and everyone had an opportunity to introduce themselves and explain why they were there. When it came to be my turn, I introduced myself as "the guy that always looks bored," which got a good laugh out of everyone. Hopefully I can change that pretty quickly here - I don't want that to actually be what everyone thinks about me.

Overall, everyone seems very cool. I know I'm going to get along with these guys and have a great summer. Tomorrow we have our first friendship visit and a very early morning, so I'm headed off to bed.