Colorful Colorado

Colorado! I have been looking forward to making it back to what I now consider my home state and I am finally here. After Park City, we rode 90 miles into Duchesne, Utah. I was still sore even after my day off and I woke up in a bad mood, dreading the fact I had to get back on the saddle. But, from the get go, everywhere you looked along the ride brought beautiful mountain views. The ride was so scenic my mood immediately lifted as we headed out of Park City and started to climb. I was riding with my friend Jack Johnson (no, not THAT Jack Johnson) from the University of Tennessee and he began to struggle with the elevation change. By the time we made it to the top of the pass, we had ridden 35 miles and were just a hair under 10,000 ft, the highest elevation Jack had ever experienced. The remaining 55 miles were literally ALL downhill. One of the easiest and most scenic rides of the trip so far. Definitely one of my favorites. The only bad part to the day happened about 20 miles from the end of the ride. I was riding along and a bug hit my forehead and somehow dropped behind my glasses. Before I could even react I felt a sharp pain on my cheek, ripped my glasses off and hopped off my bike. That bug happened to be a bee, and it stung me just below my eye. It hurt for about 10 minutes, but then the pain subsided and we were in our way again.

When we pulled into the school we were staying in that night and the message for the day said to get our swimming gear on. So, we changed quickly and piled into the vans and they took us to a lake. After a game of touch football, a couple of locals offered to take us out on their boat, so we all took turns tubing on the lake. The driver of our boat,Guy, took us on a tour if the lake after we were done tubing. We then came back to the school and changed for dinner, which was being provided by the local Lions Club. They made us some awesome barbecue and these delicious, but terribly unhealthy fried dough desert with honey butter. Needless to say, only one was enough. Finally, the day was all said and done, and it was easily one of my favorite days of the trips. It’s funny how poor my attitude was that morning, and how quickly the day changed for the better. I cannot say enough how many surprises you encounter on JOH, both good and bad. It really helps you learn to make the best of every situation, and to enjoy life’s pleasant surprises when you receive them.

The following day, it was time to enter the wonderful state of Colorado. When I woke up, the bee sting had started to swell. However, it was not too bad at this point, so I was still able to ride. The ride was 95 miles to Dinosaur, Colorado and from the start it was a hot day. Almost the entire day we rode on the shoulder of a major trucking road, so it was covered in gravel and debris. On top of all of this, we were had the added obstacle of dodging roadkill all day. Needless to say it was a tense day.

We had made it three quarters of the day, and I had just about had it with Utah and this damn road. Determined to get to my state, I got in the front of the paceline and pulled the last 20 miles until I finally saw the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign. We stopped and took pictures, and then continued the last 3 miles to lodging, finishing first on the day. Aside from its awesome name, there is not much to Dinosaur, Colorado. There was, however, an old school ice cream parlor, so we all went and got milkshakes after our showers.

Over the course of the day, my eye began to swell more and more, and when I woke up the next morning it was swollen to the point where my vision was severely compromised. My Project Manager (PM for short) Nick told me that I could not ride that day so I racked my bike on a crew member’s van and hopped in. It was a bummer not to ride, since I had a goal of riding very mile through Denver and missed it by a matter of a few days. Still, I tried to make the best of the situation and did what i could to help out around the crew stop; refilling water bottles and giving motivation to riders struggling through the hot and buggy 80 mile ride to Craig.

When we arrived in Craig, we came to our lodging at the local Boys and Girls club. We played with the kids for a few hours and then showered up and went off to dinner. Our dinner was cookout at a local park with a group that helped grown individuals with serious developmental issues. The dinner was amazing and afterwards, they broke out water balloons. Needless to say, things got out of hand quickly. I managed to stay fairly dry, but not all of my teammates were quite as lucky. One guy even got held down by other team members while a couple of kids dumped a cooler of water on him. He was a much better sport about it than I would have been. When all the water balloons had been popped, we headed back to lodging for a quick team meeting and then some rest.

Today, I was finally able to get the prescription I need to reduce the swelling in my eye and I was able to get back on the bike. We had a short 40 mile ride into Steamboat, CO, and it was a beautiful one. My family has been coming to Steamboat to ski for the last few Christmas breaks, so it felt awesome to be back on the bike and roll through town. We were done plenty early, so we hopped back on our bikes to go get lunch and stop by a local bike shop to get any minor issues fixed for the upcoming days.

We are coming up on Denver in a few days, which is arguably the most important and busiest time for our team. All of our sponsors meet us in Denver and so we have a lot of ride-a-longs and people to meet. I will update my blog once I have my day off in Denver after all the excitement is over. Wish me luck as I ride 110 miles into Breckenridge tomorrow, it is definitely one of the hardest rides of the trip.

PS-
I can add pictures to the blogs, but is too difficult and time consuming to do every time I post. You can check out my Facebook, which I am periodically adding pictures to. Once the trip is over, I will be creating a Flickr account with all my pictures from the trip so that everyone can view them, so you can wait for that. Sorry for the inconvenience, but free time is hard to come by on this trip and I believe it will be more efficient and less of hassle that way. Thanks for understanding!

SLC and Park City

Hey everyone, this is going to be a quick entry as I am sitting in my hotel bed getting ready for a 90 mile ride tomorrow. After Delta, Utah we rode 80 miles into Payson. In Payson, we had our weekly meeting where we went over everything pertinent to our trip: leadership, safety, and upcoming events. At the end of the meeting, we always do something we call “Pass the Polar” where we pass around a Polar water bottle and talk about something significant that happened to us that week, give a shout out to a fellow team member, or just address the group as a whole. During this part of the meeting, one of our crew members who has done the Journey of Hope before talked about how special this trip is and to remember how lucky we are to be on it. While he was giving his two cents to the group, a portion of his speech stuck with me. He said “Don’t count the days, but make every day count”. I have never really had a mantra or quote that I live by but I think I may have found mine. This is not only a great way to look at my summer on the Journey of Hope, but to life in general.

After Payson, we headed into Salt Lake City. During that 80 mile ride, I got the privilege of riding with a 5 time Pi Alpha (a Pi Alpha is someone who has completed a Journey of Hope) named Jeff Pearlman, who was doing a ride-a-long that day. During the ride that day I got to listen to all of his stories and tales about his trips, which was pretty cool. He echoed the same sentiment as the crew member during Pass the Polar, in that we must take every day on its own and really realize how special this event is.

The following day we trekked up Immigration Pass into Park City. Today, we finally had our day off, but it was far from a day of rest. In the morning we rode in double paceline formation with a police escort to a big breakfast at the local Whole Foods. Following that, we headed to Olympic Park here in Park City where we got to ride the alpine coaster and zip line. Later that afternoon, we had a friendship visit at the National Abilities Center, where we went on bike rides with kids of various ages and disabilities. It was nice to finally have a friendship visit again, since it has been over a week since the last one.

So that is all for now. Sorry for the lack of creativity and pictures but I am exhausted and need to get some sleep. I will update as soon as I can get Internet when I enter my home state of Colorado in two days!

SUPERBLOG! – Nevada Edition

How’s it going everybody? Sorry for all the lack of posts but I have been without cellphone service and wifi for almost the entirety of our time in Nevada. It took about a week to get through the state, starting in Lake Tahoe on June 14th and riding out of Baker, Nevada to Delta, Utah yesterday on June 20th. After we left Tahoe, we rode 35 miles to the state capital of Carson City. While there, we were treated to an awesome barbecue dinner at the house of a local Lions club member. One of the things that amazes me about this trip is the hospitality we receive from people with no connection whatsoever to people with disabilities. I guess our cause inspires a wider group of people than I first believed. Somewhat of a humbling thought to know you are a part of such a moving cause.

After Carson City, we started our way East across highway 50 and rode to Fallon, Nevada the following day. For those of you who are unaware, Hwy 50 is nicknamed The Loneliest Highway in America, and for good reason. Things already began to seem lonelier as we headed to Fallon, as the landscape changed from wooded mountains to desert.

While the town of Fallon was nothing too impressive, we had my favorite friendship visit so far there. We went to banquet held for us by an organization called the Humboldt Shredders, a group that helped people with Downs Syndrome make extra money by shredding documents for local businesses. We had an awesome potluck dinner followed by a giant karaoke and dance session with all of the participants. Everyone was had a great time and plenty of laughs were had, but soon it was time for us to leave. Sadly, this was our only friendship visit in all of Nevada. All of the towns along Highway 50 were so small, Fallon was the only one with a group that served people with disabilities.

After Fallon, we embarked on our longest ride of the trip, a 112 mile trek to the little town of Austin, Nevada. From the time we left Fallon to the time we got to Austin the only life we saw was an occasional antelope or a beat up old trailer. Many of you are probably thinking, “Well, even though it was over 100 miles of riding it was probably pretty flat and easy, right Jeff?” Wrong. Even though we were in the desert, we were still in the Sierras, so there were multiple mountain passes to climb every day. On top of that, you had to deal with the heat. But, we all knew there would be tough days when we signed up for this trip, so we all put our big boy pants on and completed the ride. Once in town, we were greeted by the wonderful ladies of Austin, who made us an awesome Thanksgiving dinner.

After the Austin century it didn’t get any easier. The following day we had a 70 mile ride into the town of Eureka. This would have been easy given the feat we completed the day before, but starting that morning we met a BRUTAL headwind, which sadly wouldn’t leave us until we got in to Utah. The following days of a 80 mile ride to Ely, Nevada and a 60 mile ride to Baker, Nevada I could only classify as windy and frustrating. By the time we reached Baker, I was just about fed up with Nevada, convinced that the state itself was trying to make me dislike it.

However, I actually came to like Baker, a town where the population essentially doubled when we rode in. It was quiet, quaint, and the people were friendly. We got to tour a cave in Nevada’s only national park, and the people of Baker made us the best dinner we have had on the trip so far. If you have never tried a dish called funeral potatoes, I highly suggest you do.

Finally, the time came for us to leave the state of Nevada. It was our second century day in a week and after going slower than my liking the last few days, I teamed up with one of the more experienced cyclists in the trip so that we could power through the 100 mile day. The Utah-Nevada border was only 11 miles from where we were staying, but Nevada wouldn’t let us leave without her presence being felt, sending a stiff crosswind our way. When we got to the border, we crossed it and never looked back.

Confirming my hunch, within 10 miles of getting into Utah the wind stopped suddenly. Spirits high, my teammate Alex and I motored through the first 75 miles, arriving at lunch 45 minutes before any of the other pacelines. By the end of the day, we averaged 18 mph, quite a feat in my book.

Today we rode into Payson, Utah, another 80 mile ride. Tomorrow we will head into Salt Lake City, and then ride to Park City the following day, which will end one of the the longest and most taxing stretches of the trip when we get our second day off in Park City. I’ll post another entry when I get there, so goodbye for now!

PS-

Sorry for the total lack of pictures, but I am having issues with getting my pictures from my camera onto my iPad and I haven’t had the time to figure it out. Hopefully, I will be able to fix the problem in Park City, and I will add pictures to go along with the past entries. Thanks for your patience!

Kirkwood 6/12

90 miles. 12,000 ft of elevation to climb. Two mountain passes. The Kirkwood ride. It is the ride that has cemented our route’s nickname as “the Varsity Route” and it is the most difficult and certainly the most infamous ride of the entire summer.

I had been mentally preparing for this ride since the day I signed up for North Route. I knew it would be one of the toughest physical and mental challenges I have ever experienced in my life. Needless to say, I was nervous of what was to come. We started the day out at Mel’s diner, a local restaurant in Jackson, CA where the town’s Lions Club provided us with a incredible breakfast to get ready for the long day ahead.

After breakfast, we set off. Once we got outside of town, we started to climb. By the time we hit lunch at 11:30, we had climbed around 5,000 ft and still had so much more to go. When you are climbing uphill for virtually an entire day, I found the part of my body that got the most tired was my mind. You start to lose hope when you round another turn and all you see is more uphill. When I hit those moments, I would try to think of things that would motivate me to keep pushing through the pain. I would often close my eyes and imagine I was at the end if the ride, swimming in Lake Tahoe.

Eventually, we made it over the two mountain passes and came down an exhilarating 10 mile downhill into the town of Lake Tahoe with only 10 miles to go. I have never biked so hard in my life than on those last 10 miles, pulling around 30 mph on flat ground all the way to the finish. The finish line was at the lake itself and the first thing I did was take off all of my gear and jump in the lake. It was cold, but so worth it.

Today, we had our first day off, and I say we deserved it. We hung out in the beach and ran any errands we needed. Tomorrow we are riding again, an easy 30 mile ride into Carson City, Nevada. I am still in disbelief I finished this day, and feel a stronger person because of it. I am beginning to see why so many people tell me this is the best summer of their life.

Day 1- San Francisco to Napa 6/9

After signing up over a year ago, it is surreal that I have finally embarked on my “journey of a lifetime”. We woke at the pleasant hour of 5:15, packed our Thule bags, racked our bikes on the vans and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a typical morning by the bridge; cold, windy, and rainy. It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so damn cold, fog enclosing the iconic red pillars. My mom and my dad were in town to see me off, and it was awesome to have them there. Naturally, I was nervous thinking about the massive task ahead of me, so it was comforting to have their encouragement.

After we ate breakfast and had our morning circle up, we got ready to go. I said goodbye to Mom and Dad and we pushed off. Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge was pretty treacherous, the wind howling and the roads slick. Thankfully we made it across safely. It was a 75 mile ride in total, climbing the coastal hills of California into the town of Napa. I fell into a two man pace line of myself and a fellow PAC-12 student, Colin Schwartz, who attends the University of Washington. He has been riding for a while and was consequentially a stronger rider than me, and helped push me through the tough parts of the ride. Together, we were by far the fastest pace line and held our spot at the front of the pack all day.

To call our ride scenic would be an understatement. With the rolling golden hills as the backdrop for most of the day, there was never a bad view. At one point, we were flying down a steep hill after a long climb upward, and we dipped into a big redwood forest. Flying along at 30+ miles an hour, winding through a redwood tunnel is an unbelievable experience to say the least. I wanted to stop to take a picture, but we were moving too fast to ruin the pace. Eventually, we made it to lodging after 7 and a half hours, the first pace line to arrive. The entire route finished that day, which was a major deal considering north route had not successfully completed this leg in six years.

After we finished, we had half an hour to shower and get dressed before we went off to our friendship visit. It was a trophy ceremony at a local park for a softball league for people of all ages with disabilities. There were burgers on the grill, tons of fruit, and all kinds of homemade food. Prior to this, I have never been treated like such a celebrity in my whole life. Kids were asking us to sign papers and t shirts. Parents of participants were coming up and asking us all kinds if questions about what we were dong this summer and what we were about. The whole group was just overjoyed to have us there. I had no idea what kind of presence our group could have on people.

After we presented the players with their trophies, we helped clean up and then headed back to the hotel to rest up. We have another 70 mile ride tomorrow into the state capital of Sacramento, where we will be riding in formation into the capital building. Good night and I’ll check in soon!

Checking in from Orientation

This is going to be a short post because I only have 15 minutes before I have to go downstairs to learn about my bike and any maintenance I would need to preform on the road.  It is crazy here in San Francisco, running from one event to the next, always staying busy.  Yesterday we had a friendship visit Janet Pomeroy Recreation and Rehabilitation Center, where we played in a basketball game against the members of the camp.  They ended up beating us something like 60-5, so needless to say we need to work on our defense. And our offense.  But there were people of all ages there, including 86 year old Benny who got out on the floor for a while himself and it was easy to tell they thoroughly enjoyed having us there.  It was amazing to see what a simple basketball game could do to make the day of an entire gym full of people.

Today we had our skills assessment, took team photos by the Golden Gate Bridge, and toured Clif Bar headquarters.  Tomorrow we have a practice ride before we cross the Golden Gate Bridge for our first official ride on Sunday.  I cannot wait to embark on my first ride of the trip!  I have to sign off now, but I will update you all before I leave on Sunday.

Waiting…..

Only four more days until I leave my home here in San Diego for the start of Orientation in San Francisco.  After four days of Orientation, our ride will commence on June 9th and we will cross the Golden Gate bridge into Marin County and on to Napa Valley.  I cannot believe that after signing up for the Journey of Hope over a year ago, I am so close to casting off on an adventure of a lifetime.  

From the start in San Francisco to the end in Washington DC on August 10th, we will cover 3,710 miles through 13 states over 62 days.  Sitting here on my comfortable living room couch, this seems like a daunting task.  With the Sierra Mountain Range quickly on tap after we exit Sacramento, there will be anything but a slow and easy transition from my couch to the saddle.  I have been training daily here in San Diego, but riding an average of 75 miles a day will certainly require an adjustment period.  For now, all I can do is continue to train and enjoy the time around my family before I leave them for the summer.  

I am going to sign off here — going out to purchase foul weather gear!

My dad lent me his favorite bike for the summer, so I will be riding in style