Finally, a Flat Tire! (Cindy says this one is for bike geeks)

When Cindy and I rode across country ten years ago on a tandem, we had flat tires almost daily. We replaced both tires several times and got very good at patching tubes and pumping up tires along the way. But it was not fun.

This trip has been the opposite. (Yes, hear the loud knocking on wood once again), Joe and I have not, until today, had a flat tire.That means we have ridden a total of almost 3800 miles and have had one flat tire. That seems almost impossible to me, and I have yet to have a flat. For those of you who have an interest in things bicycle, I have been riding on Schwalbe Marathon tires.The rear tire is getting pretty worn at this point so I've ordered a new set of them and had them sent to a post office down the road aways so I install them on my bike.

You may have read a few days ago on my blog that I am riding the oldest Trek 520 made from the year 1983. My riding buddy, Joe Ossmann, is riding a brand new Trek 520. While almost everything has changed about the 520's between 1983 and 2010, the 520 is still the bike to buy if you want to do cross-country touring. His bike is as steady as any bike I've ever seen. It is built to carry heavy loads and deliver them safely at the other end of the country. The bike comes with the Bontrager touring tires that have seemed not to wear at all over these first 1800 miles, until today.

Despite the flat, we are now in a beautiful little town called Watford City, North Dakota. We are in the Central time zone, but because of a really zig-zag time zone line, we will be back in Mountain Time tomorrow night. Joe and I will leave extra early tomorrow morning because we have an 85 mile day and they are predicting heavy head-winds in the afternoon. We'll try to get in as many miles as we can before the big winds start.

Hope you all are doing well. We miss you and look forward to our return to the Sacramento/Stockton community.

Cindy's View of the Ride Against Hunger

The ride from a different view.
Sidney, Montana
Sunday, June 27, 2010

Rich asked me to add a few words to his blog about what it’s like to be part of the support team for the Ride Against Hunger. One word. BUSY!

Kathy and I somehow imagined that the trip would be 10 weeks of simple time. Send the riders off in the early AM, meet them in the afternoon at the new campsite and have all the time we wanted in between to explore, do side trips, hike and whatever else occurred to us. Wrong.

I won’t bore you with the details of our set up and take down routine, gas stops, groceries, cooking enough calories for these guys, etc. Just take my word for it, we don’t sit much.

The best thing is that this ride is teaching me more about living in the moment than I ever knew was possible. Not a day at a time, but a mile at at time. And at about 11:30 am, to spot those two small bright green dots on the road ahead and know that we’ve found our riders and they are okay, that’s real joy.

So herding a 25 ft motor home down the road may not be glamorous, but we’re having a blast. Tomorrow North Dakota and the half-way point of this trek. How did it happen so fast?!

Flat Lands are a Coming

It is early Sunday morning, June 26, and we are in Sidney, MT. It is the last town in Montana, and for us, the end of the West and the beginning of the Midwest. Either today or tomorrow (we haven't quite decided yet), we will ride across the Yellowstone River and be in North Dakota. We have travelled almost 1800 miles and are nearing the half-way mark of our ride across the U.S.

The big transition for us has been a changing terrain. Coming over the Sierra, through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and then early Montana, we were constantly in mountains. Even since we left Red Lodge, and travelled across Eastern Montana, we have been going up and down almost all the time. Yesterday we noticed longer flat areas...like we were finally entering the Great Plains. So, now we deal with a new reality...and not always an easy one. When one is riding up and down hills, you ride real hard for a mile or two to get to the top, then you rest while you speed down the other side.

In flat lands, there are no such breaks.The big challenge is non-stop pedaling, sometimes against heavy winds. When Cindy and I came across Kansas on our first cross-country ride, a farmer came up to us and asked if we had gotten acquainted with hills of Kansas. At first we had no idea what he was talking about...and then we realized that he was talking about the wind. Wind frankly is much worse than hills. Hills you can get over. When I am riding into the wind, it absolutely kills my spirit. I am working very hard and making very little progress. We have been extremely blessed with favorable winds across Montana. We pray that those trends continue.

So, today we cross into our seventh state and we will soon be in the Central time zone. More importantly, we are on the long flat highways across North Dakota. We will celebrate the fourth of July in Cooperstown on the other end of North Dakota, and then be ready for still another transition into "Minnesota and Lake Country."

Hope you are all having a great weekend.

Some Hunger Realities

My friend Jerry learned of my Ride Against Hunger and brought me a book that he had helped publish back in the 80s. The title and subject of the whole book is ENDING HUNGER. The theme is that we have enough food and know-how to end hunger today...and the book the outlines exactly how it could be done.

Of course it is now 25 years later, and we know that hunger has not ended...and in fact may be worse than it was in the 80's.

I know the statistics in the book may be dated, but read these words very carefully:

"Imagine our concern--and the attention of the world's media--were an earthquake to strike San Francisco, killing 35,000 people in a single day. Imagine our concern were a virus to descend on London, killing 18 children a minute without stop, week after week. Imagine our concern were nuclear weapons to explode in the capitals of the world's major industrial countries, killing 13 million people and maiming and injuring a billion more in the surrounding countryside."

"These are precisely the figures of human devastation resulting from hunger: 1 billion of us chronically undernourished; 13-18 million of us dead a year; 35,000 of us a day; 24 of us (18 of whom are children) a minute. Yet because we view hunger in the background of life, this terrible toll does not enter our headlines, nor, for the most of us, our concerns."

The bicycle ride that I am doing from San Francisco to Portland, Maine is about ending hunger--in Stockton, In Sacramento, in California, in the United States, and in the world. Don't just read this blog and think about us out on the bikes. Read this blog and consider what you can do to help stop hunger at home and abroad. What is missing in this Ending Hunger idea is the will to do so. You and I can help with that.

Had a lot of time to think today. Lots and lots of open roads with very little traffic. I'm absolutely loving this trip. The riding is magnificent and fun and exhilarating. But unless it raises substantial funds for hunger alleviation, it will be a real disappointment. Do what you can...give what you can...to the program feeding the hungry closest to you.

Support from home

Today we arrived in Jordan, MT. The ride over from Winnett was pretty uneventful...one little tiny community Sand Springs, that consisted of a post office and a general store that was none to general.The woman who ran the place was even older than me and said she had been there since 1956. She had us register in her guest book as bikers across Montana. The picture at the top of the blog shows some cattle moving away from the weird riders...And that was sort of the high point...until we arrived in Jordan. I would imagine the population of this town is 150, but we saw three riders from Ireland on their way to Rhode Island. Hope we run into them again.

But the really big deal is that when I turned on my computer, there were messages from a whole bunch of you saying something like "keep going old man, you're doing great!" These messages mean a lot. Sometimes we are out here and are wondering if anyone is "with us". Your messages show us that you are...so thank you.

There was one message I will share in its entirety. It absolutely captured the essence of the day and ride. A friend of ours, Dena McKitrick, composes a poem each day to send with her husband to work. He sends them on to me and others. Today, her "daily napkin" was written about our ride. Here it is:

Cycling across the country
the breezes brush my face

My feet and the pedals are one
man and machine melding with countryside

Diligence and dedication
strengthen up the hill

Freedom and exhilaration
melt resolves tension
gliding down the other side

Ah! I could go miles and miles

(Special note: today's napkin is in honor of Rich Fowler, who is pedaling across the country to raise
money and awareness for a good cause. Ride on Rich!)

The Ossmanns--Our Riding Companions

Ride Against Hunger
Riding Day 24...from Roundup to Winnett, MT

Today we rode about 50 miles into eastern Montana. We were in Winnett before 10:30 a.m. and had the rest of the day to let Joe's knee completely heal. He was much better today and we're thinking that he is as good as new (almost).

I wanted to tell you just a bit about the Ossmanns. Joe is my riding buddy. He is retired from the California State Department of Corrections, but has has a long commitment to making corrections about healing rather than punishment. From my point of view, he's just a kid...around age 62 or so. What I so appreciate about Joe is that he is a walking encyclopedia about everything wildlife. He knows flowers, trees, birds and animals. I tend to become oblivious to what is around me but Joe helps me me be aware of what we are seeing. Today we saw a huge hawk sitting on top of an electric pole. When he took off flying, he was carrying a four foot long snake with him. You don't see that very often in Sacramento. Joe and I are pretty evenly matched on our bikes. Some days he's stronger than me and carries me up the hills...other days I am the stronger rider. But the truth is, we enjoy riding together. We don't talk a lot (I like that), but we say what is necessary to keep ourselves going.

Joe has a blog of his own that you might want to check out. It is at www.joesbikeblog.blogspot.com.You will get another view of what we are doing each day.

Kathy Ossmann has played a crucial role on this trip. She is our camp-site selector and organizer. She has figured out where we will camp or lodge every night of our trip, and will continue to do that until we hit Portland, Maine. Finding RV sites in towns with populations of 150 is not always easy. Last night we were across the river from the fair grounds in Roundup. I am extremely grateful to Kathy for her efforts to find places to stay.

Kathy is also on a quest to find, buy and fix locally produced foods for us as we move across the nation. She has a blog on which she shares what she has found each day. I can attest to the fact that it is good food. Her blog site is:
www.kathystravelfeast.blogspot.com. I hope you will check it out.

Joe and Kathy are both excellent musicians. They have been participating in the Sacramento Master Singers for 18 years. In fact the director of the Master Singers met them for lunch near Jackson, Wyoming. It was an emotional meeting because Joe and Kathy are in the process of moving from Sacramento to Paw Paw, Michigan soon after their return to California and they will no longer be a part of the choir. They are also very active in the Sacramento Friends Community and it is there that Cindy met these fine people.

The motor home in which we now live for the ten weeks belongs to them. They have shared it graciously with us and we are learning to live together quite well in this 25 foot, two bedroom, one bath, home on wheels. Joe and Kathy have been acquaintances for some time, but this trip will either cement or destroy a great friendship. I am truly grateful for this opportunity to get to know them better.

Dog Gone!!!

Last night at our campsite we saw more than the average number of dogs. We were camping at the KOA in Billings, Montana, (the very first KOA in the country and still the corporate headquarters) and the place was just swarming with dogs. Not muts...dogs! Pretty dogs. Yappy dogs. Huge, Marmaduke type dogs, Golden Retreivers like Ginger. The most glaring hint was the huge motor home nearby with a license place reading, PETSHOP.

It finally occurred to someone in our group that there must be a dog show nearby. We talked to some of the dog owners and learned that there WAS to be a dog show, but that the Sunday evening tornado had totally obliterated the venue. So here were all these dog owners, with their dogs, waiting to find out whether event organizers could come up with a new location and if the "show would go on." I took some pictures of some of the dogs next door to add to the blog for the day.

As we rode out of Billings today, we saw first hand the devastation left by the storm. It was much worse than we had imagined. Numbers of stores and facilities were just torn apart. And it was much closer than we thought. Sunday afternoon when the storm came through the women sat in the women's bathroom, and we in the men's at the KOA for nearly an hour while winds and rain came by. Little did we know that a really devastating storm was so nearby. The headline in the Billings, Gazette on Monday morning was, "Total Disaster". I think they were referring to their arena (where the dog show was to be).

Today we rode from Billings to Roundup, Montana. As you might imagine, Roundup got its name from being the place where all the cowboys brought their cattle before they were driven down to Billings. Driven as in Cattle Drive...not driven as in big trucks. I read a little history, and the invention of barbwire and some possessive land-owners killed the Roundup aspect of the town about 150 years ago, but it is still a real western town. Bars names? The Tumbleweed and The Branding Iron.

Tomorrow we continue our trek across Montana and head up to another western town called Winnett. We were going to ride there today, but decided to stop in Roundup for a bit of a rest. Joe was having some painful twinges above one of his knees and we figured that rest was more important than miles for today.

Cindy has agreed to write a blog soon about what it is like to be the support staff for our ride. So stay tuned. She is a much better writer than I am.