More Bike Geek Stuff: Brooks Saddles!

When Cindy and I rode across the U.S. in 2001, the thing that hurt the most all the time--every day, was my rear end. I mean it felt like a very deep bruise and every bump in the road made it hurt even worse. I was riding a Terry saddle with a hole in it to protect parts that need to be protected. The seat was a little bit soft, and it had come with very high recommendations for long-distance riding. Needless to say, it didn't work. About 20 times a day, I would say, "Stand up break!" and the two of us would stand on the pedals as long as possible to give "it" a bit of relief.

This time across, I am riding an old fashioned Brooks leather saddle...with springs. What a difference a saddle makes. I have not had one day of discomfort with this seat. If you will take a good look at it, you will note that the saddle has now formed to fit my particular rear end parts/bones, etc. I could be sitting in a lawn chair...it really is that comfortable.

The Brooks saddles were originally made in England. Back in the late 1800's John Brooks had purchased a bicycle that came with a very uncomfortable wooden seat. His father was a leather worker and made saddles for horses. John decided to make a more comfortable bike saddle. He accomplished his goal to the point that in the 1950's Brooks was selling 55,000 leather saddles per week. Then, like lots of things, they fell out of favor with the racing crowd. They were too heavy, etc. But about 15 years ago, with the help of a company called Rivendell Bicycles, they started to come back. Recently, the company was taken over by another saddle company, Selle Italia, but they continue to produce really excellent, old fashion Brooks saddles.

And tonight that Brooks saddle is sitting in the state of Wisconsin. We finished up Minnesota about noon and are safely in our campsite. It is good to be "home", and no black flies tonight! Tomorrow we will turn south and ride down to Teal Lake, where Joe Ossmann's family owns a cabin. We will meet his brother and cousin, take a day off on Saturday, and enjoy a place that is very special in Joe's boyhood memories. We look forward to this experience.

Camping in Black Fly, Minnesota

Tonight we are in the Hay Lake State Park campsite close to a little tiny town called Jacobson, MN. It is absolutely the most remote place in which we have camped. There is one more family camping here and it looks like they've been here for about a year. I'm not exactly sure how they do it because the mosquitos and black flies are voracious. This is one of those places that we will spend most of our time inside the motor home and not be too upset about leaving tomorrow. Frankly, the setting is beautiful and if it weren't for the insects, could be a very nice place to stay. However...

You will see in the picture attached that Ginger has gotten a promotion. Usually she is tied to the table in the middle of the motor home. If she is not tied she absolutely drives the support team crazy with her panic breathing, drooling, and need to be as close as possible to the windshield. But now look at her! She's in the front seat, still doing her panic breathing and drooling, but much happier being able to see the sites of Minnesota. As I mentioned in my blog a couple days ago, Kathy Ossmann has taken a few days to return to her family home of Paw Paw, Michigan, to help her father move into an assisted care facility. So Cindy has been the sole support person, except, of course for Ginger in her new role as navigator.

Today we rode 72 miles from Walker Bay over to Jacobson, Minnesota. We started the ride in rain, but it soon stopped and we were able to finish under threatening skies. The cloud cover was actually a relief from riding in the direct sun. Just as we arrived in Jacobson, we once again crossed the Mississippi River, now grown into more than a bubbling creek into a real river. I have attached a picture of the now adolescent river.

Tomorrow night we will be in Wisconsin. After about 80 miles down through Duluth, MN, we will cross into our ninth state and be officially moving toward Michigan and then Canada. We will ride in Canada for 11 days, and then move into our finish in New England.

But tonight its stay away from the black flies!

Magnificent Minnesota

I told Cindy and Joe that Minnesota may turn out to be my favorite state. Today was simply an over the top perfect day. At one point Joe said to me, "OK...smooth roads, wind at our back, astounding beauty, light traffic, what do we have to complain about?" And of course there was not one thing that I could come up with that wasn't just perfect. Sorta makes up for some of the days we had last week with the head-winds in North Dakota.

The high-point of the day was a quick ride through Itasca State Park. Joe planned the route for today and noticed that this park is the home to the headwaters of the Mississippi River, so we took an extra hour to take it in. The pictures you see include Lake Itasca which overflows into a bubbling little stream that will eventually become a mighty river. We couldn't help wonder how long it would take for this beautiful, clear water to be fouled by the BP Oil Spill at the other end of our nation. Will they ever get it stopped?

Received a care package today from my younger brother, Ron. Two new tires and a pair of water-proof shoes...maybe just in time. The rear tire on my bike was getting pretty smooth, but it has been replaced with a brand new one. Still no flats (wood knocking sound)!

Tonight we are in a wonderful campground on the south edge of Leach Lake. The town nearby is called Walker. Temps are mild, we had a wonderful dinner, and we are celebrating a beautiful 77 mile ride and the astounding scenery our Creator has somehow put together for us to enjoy, learn from and love.

Tomorrow promises new challenges. Rain predicted for much of the day, and the pesky head winds may be back. Will make the 70 miles over to Jacobson, MN a bit more difficult, but tonight the word is GRATITUDE!

Transitions

Today we were welcomed into Minnesota and tonight we are camped at a Casino in the White Earth Indian Reservation. The Casino is huge and we are in the RV Camp that is very well equipped and located right behind the hotel. We were almost carried away by the mosquitos, but now we are safely seated inside the motor home for the evening. Every time we enter a new state, we we feel like some major transition has taken place. So the picture you see tonight is proof that we are now in our eighth state. First impressions of Minnesota are that it is "neat" and "tidy". Everything is mowed, painted, and clean. It frankly is a welcome change from some of the very poor towns we visited in Montana and North Dakota.

But today there is a bigger transition going on that has taken our numbers from four to three. Kathy Ossmann left us this morning to fly over to Michigan to be of service to her family. Her father is simply not able to live on his own any more, so the decision has been made to move him into an assisted care facility. These are very hard decisions for any family. Are we rushing into something? Will dad or mom be able to care for themselves for another few months? What if he falls and can't get to the phone? Are there other options that we should be exploring before moving him to a residential facility? These are all the questions that Kathy and her siblings have been struggling with, but now the decision has been made and Kathy knew that she needed to be in Paw Paw, Michigan to help with the transition. Our prayers are with Kathy and her family this evening.

Kathy and Cindy are our ground crew. They drive and manage the motor home. They search for and cook much of the food (and it has been outstanding). Now Cindy is on her own (except for our Golden Retriever, Ginger. So for the next week the ride that started with 8 is down to 3. But the Ride Against Hunger continues. Cindy did a new flyer that we've sent to both Stockton and Sacramento that reminds people that we are still on the road and that it is not too late to make a contribution. If you haven't yet contributed, please give as much as you can to either Catholic Charities in Stockton or the South Sacramento Interfaith Partnership in Sacramento.

I just received a message from Elvira Ramirez, the Director of Catholic Charities, that St. Anthony of Padua elementary school donated $500 to the Ride Against Hunger. Wow...that is terrific. Can other parishes or schools match that?

New Technology...Map My Ride!!!

Today we are in Hillsboro, North Dakota where we have a day off to celebrate the Fourth of July. We send Independence Day Greetings to family and friends and say with honesty that we are missing you and missing the traditions of picnics, bike races, swimming, and fireworks in the park. Instead we are washing clothes, cleaning "house", and getting ready for another week of riding. None of that is unpleasant, it just isn't home.

Yesterday we rode 85 miles from Glenfield here to Hillsboro. The last 15 miles we ended up riding on a fairly rough gravel road that our ride selector gave us as a "short cut". It may have been shorter in distance, but it was not easier, I can assure you. But the point that I want to make today is that we are using, day after day, a wonderful new website called MAPMYRIDE.COM, that has enabled us to create a route across the nation. It is an incredible site that is free if you want to put up with constant pop-ups, or about 100 dollars per year if you want it to really work well for you. Of course, we are learning that we need to be careful of the "short cuts"!

The way it works is that we type in the name of the town that we are starting in and then simply click on the roads we want to go on until we find a place to stop that has a camping area. We can then print that out and it creates a map, a description of the elevations we will be experiencing and a ride sheet indicating where to turn left, right, etc. So each day we leave with a fresh map of where we are going for the day. We know how far up and how far down we will go, and where to turn so that we arrive at the right place that evening.

There is a company called Adventure Cycling out of Missoula, MT that has created maps to help cyclists travel across the U.S. Cindy and used their maps in 2001 and were deeply grateful for the hard work they had done to help us make our trek. But now with these newer technology tools, those maps are almost not needed. If you have a laptop computer, a printer, and wi-fi service, you can pretty much figure out your own route across the country.

The picture that I've included today shows us lined up in a rest stop in Yellowstone National Park (The day that the road was closed due to snow and ice). We found a place we could get on line, so we all got out out computers to respond to e-mails, read the news, and yes...figure out our routes for the next few days. The new technology available to help people like us is simply incredible...and we can stay pretty connected to all of you through new fangled blogs, I-phones, Black Berries, Droids, and the rest. We are glad. We like being connected to you...especially on the Fourth of July!

Wind and Poverty

Ride Against Hunger
Friday, July 2, 2010
Goodrich to Glenfield, ND…77 miles

Today was another day of fierce winds. We rode directly into the wind for the first few miles, then turned east and fought very stiff crosswinds the rest of the day. Both Joe and I feel beat up tonight after riding for the past several days struggling with the wind.

Most every rider I know would rather climb hills than ride into a wind. For some reason wind kills the spirit. It seems we are working as hard as we can, and still making very little progress. And in the meantime, we are becoming more and more tired.

As I rode today, I though about how riding into wind must be like living in poverty. I’ve known families that work so hard, and still can’t keep up. They may lose a job, or can’t pay the rent, or get cut off of a government program that paid for medicine for grandma. The car breaks down and needs a new generator that cannot be afforded so getting to work becomes an even more difficult chore. And then on top of it all, the baby gets sick and has no insurance. And now there is no money left for food, the most basic need of all.

Riding into a wind is nothing compared to this scenario. It is play vs. real life. But today I was tired and wanted to quit. After lunch I wanted to throw my bike on the motor home and say, “Take me to Glenfield; this is just too hard. Let me rest for a while.” But because we made this commitment to ride, we got back on and kept going.

And about ten miles from our stopping point, the beautiful Lutheran Church in the picture appears on the horizon. The sign says, Lutheran Community Center, and I could imagine this building being a sign of hope and help for families over the years in this North Dakota community.

And I thought about how Catholic Charities and the South Sacramento Interfaith Partnership have become signs of hope for families riding against the economic winds of our times.

Send what ever you can to one of these organizations and put a not on the check that says, “to help a family riding against the wind.”

Surprises in North Dakota

I was not looking forward to riding in North Dakota. I somehow had the view that North Dakota would look a bit like a moon scape with long, endless miles of nothingness. (My apologies to those of you from this state). There have been two major surprises about our ride here. One is that it in the northwest part of the state, drilling for oil has become what one person called a "Gold Rush". I had no idea that oil was such a hot commodity here. And it is doing wonders for the economy of North Dakota. We had heard that the state had not been much affected by the down economy in other parts of the nation. Now we know why. Frankly, the same was true in far eastern Montana. When we pull into a RV Park, it is full of workers who have come from West Texas and other parts of the nation to work on the oil rigs. Who knew?

The other surprise has been the astounding beauty of the state. I'm not sure if it is a product of much spring rain, or if it is always like this, but North Dakota has just been astonishingly beautiful. Today we rode by lake after lake, saw a flock of Pelicans soaring over us, and have seen golden, yellow canola (not safflower as I indicated yesterday), and blue flax fields. By the way, for you flax lovers, we are in the flax capitol of the United States right now. I'm learning a lot about flax that I will pass along in a later blog.

I will try to download two pictures. One of an oil rig with cattle in the background...a picture of the old and new in North Dakota. The other is of the Canola fields taken today.

By the way we had a wonderful 80 mile ride from Stanton to Goodrich, ND. The wind was our friend today and we were "in camp' by 2 p.m. Pretty fast for a couple old dudes...even with the wind.