A Jewel Found in the Head Winds

We have been incredibly blessed by the prevailing winds on this trip. Day after day, we've had the winds to our back, and have taken credit for very fast finishes, as if our legs of steal were carrying us along. Yesterday and today, mother nature humbled us with winds moving in the opposite direction...and not just little winds...heavy winds right in our faces. Yesterday for me was the hardest day of the trip...63 miles of heavy (oil rig trucks) traffic, bad roads and wind blowing right at us. By the end of the day we were both so fatigued and actually ended the ride 20 miles earlier than we had planned. We simply could not go any further.

But during our ride yesterday morning, I found a jewell in the wind. Her name is Ayako Ishizuka, a 72 year old cyclist from New York, New York. She was part of a group of maybe 15 riders who had started in St. Louis and were following the Lewis and Clark Trail to Oregon. They were with an organization called Historical Trails. I tracked down Ayako after the organizer of the ride told us about her. I stopped her in the middle of the road and ask if I could take her picture. I also asked her why she was doing the ride, and she said, "Because if gives meaning to my life."

I thought a lot about what she said as we pounded on against the wind. I wasn't sure if this was adding meaning to my life or taking away years. But bicycle travel is certainly a different and wonderful way to see the country. Today we rode by some of the most beautiful yellow fields--maybe safflower--(actually not sure), but what I am sure of is that they were incredibly beautiful. And then after fighting with very difficult cross-winds most of the day, we finally ride into Stanton, North Dakota and find a camping ground next to the Knife River. Joe and I got here before the RV and so we took off our shirts and shoes and jumped in the river, swam to the other side and back, and said something like, "It doesn't get any better than this!"

Ginger's View of the Ride Against Hunger

Cindy wrote a blog about her view of the ride the other day. Now she's crafted one for our Golden Retriever, Ginger. I think she
captured it pretty close. Enjoy:

Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Watford to Kill Deer, North Dakota
64 miles

Ginger says...

Life is pretty confusing for me right now. I’m living in this big white box that roars, wobbles and rattles when it moves and scares me to death. My humans are with me, but Rich, the tall one, gets up early and disappears on a bicycle every morning. My Cindy drives after him and catches him about noon. Then we eat. (I like this part because they always give me their apple cores.) When the food is gone, so is the tall guy. I try to keep my Cindy from getting back in the truck, but she always wins.

I have two other humans to take care of. They do the same crazy things. They pet me sometimes and don’t yell when I sit on the soft chairs in the front of the box. They also share their apples with me, so I keep them.

At night we pull into big grassy fields with lots of other white boxes and sleep. I’ve been sampling the grass at each stop. So far the Montana grass is the best. Every day new people give me a pat and tell me I’m a great dog. I hope my humans are getting the message.

I don’t know where we’re going or why, but I’m kinda liking this life. My Rich talks a lot about how some people are hungry and what other humans can do to help. Maybe he’s looking for a solution when he rides off every morning. Hope he finds it.

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!)