Wrap up- thank you everyone!

The last 2 weeks flew by. I made it back safely to Indianapolis where I am sorting through the hundreds of pics of the the ride that I gathered from fellow riders. This morning I went in to speak to 2nd and 3rd graders at the local elementary school. It was a great ego boost to hear the kids shout "It's Dr. Ben!", but then several gave me a harder time about the appearance of my beard than Lori did, which I didn't think was possible. I had to barter with them and came to an agreement that I would shave if they had a healthy summer and wore their bike helmets. One teacher went to great lengths to set up a bulletin board in the hallway with a map, pictures, and excerpts from my ride. The kids were a great audience and hopefully learned something from the powerpoint today and while following the trip.

I owe everyone an update status on WV to Bethany Beach since I have not added a blog submission in quite sometime. The same excuses apply: too few hours in the day, usual lack of wi-fi, and wanting to spend any free time enjoying the last few days with fellow riders instead of in front of my computer. With the now being over, I feel like I just returned from a 2 month long summer camp for adults. It was a tremendous experience. The top pic is me tossing up my cycling gloves while on the steps of the Lincoln memorial.

The breakdown by state:

WV- included some pretty long days of riding, rolling in and out of the Appalachian Mountains. There was a sense of duty as we marched through West Virginia in our groups, passing many homes in shambles with derelict cars scattered through their yard. Given the nature of the state, we were all hypervigilant for IUDs (intercepting unchained dogs that kamikaze themselves between your wheels). Thankfully there were as many as expected, yet there were frequent howls from the several that were chained to their doghouses as we rolled by. My support day fell to allow me to ride the entire state of WV, nearly 400 miles in 4 days. My legs were throbbing, but got me through.

Virginia- was beautiful, came and went fast though. I'll remember:
1) attempting to bike through deep gravel roads
2) beautiful Colonial homesteads- The majority of which we couldn't see the homes from the street, only the immaculate yards and old world style stone fences.
3) The Bachelor- Andy Baldwin (center of pic), star of the second season of the TV show, "The Bachelor" joined us for a morning. He is a Navy medical doctor, experienced cyclist, ironman, public health promoter, one of America's 100 most desirable bachelors (according to some magazine), a great guy, and some other stuff, but other than that hasn't done anything. For his joining our group, I think most of the guys wanted to prove that we could out ride him and his $10,000 sponsored bike, while most of the ladies just wanted him to pose for a picture with them. I think both groups fulfilled their wish. He was a very good sport and we were glad that was interested in riding with us (Which came about because he lives in DC and heard about the ride while speaking at Ohio State last year).
4) Alexandria- We stayed in a church in old Colonial Alexandria, a suburb of DC. It felt like a step back in time to the 1900s with large brick homes lining the brick streets, no showers, etc...(ya, no showers for 2 days after riding 90miles in 85 degrees. Thankfully, several riders had families visiting and therefore hotels with showers that we could use). We had some free time in Alexandria and walked around the boardwalk area, amongst the hundreds of other tourists who were visiting for the holiday weekend.

DC- The highlight of our trip. DC had a great "Rails to Trails" bike path that we were on for most of the day. Surprisingly, we road all the way to right up to the Lincoln monument on this path which was nicely wooded and took us through many parks by the riverside. I was quite impressed by the trail system and in shock at the sight of the Washington Monument from 7 miles out. I think that was the point for most people when we had realized what we had accomplished and what a surreal experience this had all been. Upon rolling in to the Lincoln Monument, there was a large group of family members/long lost loved ones all decked out in orange, with signs, cheering like crazy at everyone's arrival. There were at least 100 other random people standing around on the steps that joined in both before and after hearing about our accomplishment. It was an unforgettable moment.

Bethany Beach- talk about getting spoiled in the name of World Health. The last night after riding into Bethany Beach, Delaware, we were awarded 5 complementary beach front condos. The last couple of miles we dumped out the water in our bottles and filled it with some Champagne for a Tour de France-style finish. The beach was packed with Memorial day travelers who again gave us great applause after hearing our accomplishment. When carrying our bikes onto the beach, one security guard told us that we were not allowed to take bikes onto the beach. He could have been shooting at us at point blank range and we still would have all tried running by him with our bikes. The water felt so cold and so good. Later that night, we had a cookout, hung out, and had one last hurray prior to shoving off back for Columbus early the next morning (only to sit in gridlocked traffic for 6 hours prior to crossing back over the Bay Bridge).THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR SUPPORT, INTEREST, AND DONATIONS

Columbus, Athens, now WV

Busy couple of days- I haven't exactly been up to blog speed. I've spent more hours per day on a bike recently than I have sleeping. So after arriving in Columbus, I shortly headed out unexpectedly to attend a funeral on my fiancee's side. This involved borrowing a nice outfit and a car, then driving to Pittsburgh on Friday to pick Lori up, then down to Morgantown, WV, for Friday night/Saturday, then back to Columbus Saturday night for the great cookout hosted by Clare's parents. In the whole fiasco, I think I left my digital cam in Clare's car, so my remaining blog entries may be pictureless- my apologies. Hopefully my writing can sustain you.

Our ride out of Columbus to Athens was a hilly 92 miler. We pushed it pretty good. I figure this is the best biking shape that I'll ever be in so I might as well enjoy sustaining a fast pace while I can. We still can't outrun dogs though. Jesson had a close encounter with a dog and actually kicked it by happenstance with his pedal just before it ran between his tires. This may be our biggest worry heading into WV, with the second being an obscene number of tick sightings. Athens, Ohio is home of Ohio University. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the town and the university. They had a brand new, ritzy union where we gave a lecture. Several of the D.O. (doctor of osteopathic medicine) students there were nice enough to put us up for the night. Westin and Bridgette, a first year, had us over to their log cabin for a cookout and bonfire. There cabin was amazing- reminded me so much of Boulder, Utah and Ace's place. (I drug this low resolution pic off another rider's facebook just to have some visual.) Both were OU grads. Westin is working on developing their farm with dreams of consuming only what he produces in crop, goat milk, honey from his bees, and whatever else he can put together for a 1 year period. I also had a conversation with Justin, a Ball State grad who circumstantially currently lives in the barn of Westin and Bridgette. The barn had a poster of the Appalachian Trial and I saw several similarities to my experience on the AT as Justin described how he has to coax his cat into catching the mice that scurry across his bed each night. All were very nice and interesting people.

Today we reached West Virginia! I was on support and it was a nightmare- gravel roads and a road that literally disappeared underwater. It was definitely our biggest hiccup so far logistically at least, but could not have been foreseen. The other roads we had the riders on today were under construction or had them on a busy highway with no shoulder and trucks at 60mph. It was not ideal riding at any point, but we made it. We are staying at a 4h campground in Harrisville tonight- pretty nice accommodation's actually: bunk beds, nice kitchen, and wifi, but no cell reception.

Stormy Ohio- Cincinatti to Columbus

This post is a little outdated at this point, but is up nonetheless

We woke up from Vince's in Cincinnati at 5 am to get geared up, only to realize that it was thunder storming outside. We drove out to Monica's parents house where 1/2 the riders had stayed (Monica's parents were great hosts for the team and had a cookout for us and always plenty of food out). The day was slated to be 120-130 miles, so we needed to get going as early as possible. It was a downpour as we were trying to load the vans. Thankfully, the lightening stopped long enough for us to hop on top the vans to rack the bikes (Yes, the roofs are quite dented at this point, as are some of the sides of the vans. A windshield is cracked. One van still has alternating "check tire pressure"/ "change oil"/ "service engine" lights and all have a continual wet dog/BO aroma- We love you though Toby- Clare's little poodle). We had to drive out about 40 miles until it stopped storming, only raining, and unloaded everyone.

The majority of our day was on a nice bike trail that was riddled with branches from recent storms. We were soaked from the get-go, but thankfully it wasn't too cold, nor too windy. There was quite a bit of wildlife on the trail. I saw 2 opossum and had to swerve to not hit one. When I told Chris, that I had an opossum close encounter, he said it look like the opossum was still attached to my face. I corrected him by saying, "no, that's just my beard, but thank you for the compliment."

In Columbus, we road into a pretty nice restaurant/bar where several family/friends of the Ohio Staters were waiting for us. Everyone else had on their work attire. I, in my spandex, felt like I was trapped in one of those dreams where you go to school without any pants on. None of us are too shy at this point however, but do find it inconvenient when we actually have to go inside to use the restroom.

Breaking away- from Bloomington to Cincinnati

I met back up with the crew late Monday night in Bloomington where we packed in the dorms to sleep. After a frequently interrupted 5 hours of sleep, we awoke early and I began reacquainting myself with the glorious feeling of my bike saddle (Ahhh, fond thoughts). Before we left, our host in Bloomington let us ride around the Little 500 track on a couple of the race bikes and told us a little about the history of biking in Bloomington. Everyone agreed it was a cool experience although few others knew anything about the magnitude of Little 5. Many riders have added "Breaking Away" to their list of movies to see.

Tim, our host, also helped us to reroute some of our ride to avoid gravel roads which we were able to do, for the most part. The ride was hilly and beautiful- as expected. We had our first rest stop in Nashville, IN which was a neat little town that I had heard of, but never been to. We road past a few lakes (Lake Lemon I think), through Columbus, Indiana, and by several farms and cornfields of course. We road until we got bored, then tired, then more soar, but then at about mile 95 the lactic acid either got to our brains or we hit an endorphin high from our rupturing thigh muscles and had a great time the last 20 or so miles. I pulled out the several pound box of cookies that my mom spent hours upon hours baking at our 75 mile stop for a new and much appreciated treat. There were actually enough cookies there for 26 exhausted people to eat their fill and still have leftovers- she went all out. Our total distance for the day: 117 miles, avg mph was like 16.5 which was great considering the hills.

When we got to Cincinnati, one of our riders who goes to University of Cincinnati College of Medicine arranged home stays for us with some of her fellow medical students. Christian and I stayed with Vince who had a way-to-nice-to-be-a-medical-student bachelor pad to himself. Vince was a great guy, destined to become a general surgeon- and a good resident he will be. Vince was energetic and on-the-ball. He had thought of everything as a host, from insisting that he will sleep on the couch and we take the beds (which we refused) to having his girlfriend bake us fresh cinnamon rolls for the morning. We were at Vince's 2 nights actually. The second day in Cincinatti we had an event day at the medical school, journal club, and some coffee shop time to catch up on email, blogs, residency paperwork, and etc.

It's official...Dr. Meyer

Yes, believe it or not that is me (and Dr. Nelson sister)just 4 years ago during my first day as a medical student. The other pic was taken this weekend during my graduation awards banquet (Lori (fiancee), me, Laura, Dad, Mom). I guess this time would be appropriate to thank my family for their continued support and the countless favors that they have graciously bestowed upon me during these 4 years that I have spent burrowed away in stress-filled cave of social hibernation (aka medical school). The years have been kind as you can tell. I hardly aged at all (sarcasm noted).

Most people were surprised at my appearance upon my return- and it wasn't just the beard. Despite riding my bike for 6+ hours a day the preceding month, I packed on 10 lbs! That certainly came from clear out in left field. For those of you playing at home, lets take a vote as to the culprit.
Was it from:
a) my beard (not likely)
b) push up/sit up club (doubtful)
c) the whole stack of Oreos that I seem to eat at rest stops daily, followed by handfuls of gummy bears, peanuts, and Poweraid to wash it all down (likely theory)
d) Ellen has been secretly sneaking her Maxxx Weight Gainer supplement into my water bottles each day (940 Calories per serving) (conspiracy theory)

If there are any math classes in Plainfield following the blog that want to calculate my estimated caloric intake per day for an average 80 mile/day ride to gain 10 lbs in 35 days, I'd be interested in hearing how much I've actually been consuming. I will attempt to address the rest of the classrooms' questions soon and hopefully be home in time to make rounds/give a lecture to interested Plainfield classes upon my return (circa May 25) prior to school letting out for the summer.

Graduation weekend

Taking the weekend off from the ride to graduate. I will be meeting back up with the team in Bloomington, Indiana on Monday. Only a few short weeks to go after that!

Kansas: telephone pole, cow, telephone, cow...

My the days have flown by, the miles have not. I'll try and catch up from the week with highlights. I'm not even sure exactly where we have been each night (other than on the gym floor of a different small town's high school), but can say for sure that the wind in Kansas does not blow in our favor.

Highlights:
1) We are over half-way! Tomorrow we reach Kansas City, Missouri! Kansas has been more scenic than expected, yet the weather has not completely befriended us. Most days we have been riding in 50 degree weather into a fierce headwind/crosswind which have caused our 100 mile days to be painfully long (averaging 10-12mph with unfavorable winds vs. 18-20mph with no wind). In the past 3 days, I have ridden 293 miles. Thankfully today, there was minimal wind and I was perched on my new saddle (which comfortably feels like a block of wood), otherwise I would not have made it. The scenery today turned greener and was surprisingly Irish-esque, with overcast skies, bare rock interspersed among the rolling hills, and various livestock to exchange glances with throughout the miles. Don't look for anything specific in this landscape pic- just typical Kansas, mile after mile. One of the T-shirts at a lunch stop town we saw said "On my drive through Kansas, I saw a cow, then a telephone pole, then a cow, then a telephone pole..." Truly stated, only slowed down 10x on bike.

2) Rachael ran over a dog!- The puppy lived, so did Rachael. We have had quite a few pups eager to speed us away from their property in the last couple of days. The majority back off with just yelling at them. Second line attempt is squirting water at them. Third line is throwing the water bottle. Rachael said this puppy was overly excited about running with her, tried lapping up the water being squirted at it, then darted in front of her front tire. She did an acrobatic flip over her handle bars, hit her head, and got a little scrapped, but not too bad. The dog ran off just fine, hopefully a little wiser.

3) Civilization- Kansas does have more readily accessible convenience food stores so we have been taking advantages of non-Powerbar food sources at our rest stops. Here is a pic of the world health beard-off contestants outside a Dairy Queen (Steven, Jeff, and myself) half way through our journey.


Lowlights

1) Ulnar Parathesias- I realized today after I got done riding that I had lost sensation of my fourth and fifth fingers on my left hand- a condition called ulnar parathesia that has affected a couple of us during the trip. It is much like carpal tunnel syndrome and is caused by compression of the nerve in palm from pressure on the handlebars. Hopefully, and likely, it is temporary (just as long as the other parts of my nervous system remain functional. Note to self: don't ever bike this much again).

2) Swine flu- By happenstance, the van who went into Herrington early for the lecture walked around town a bit and ran into the local physician. He joined us for dinner at his old high school (built in 1960) where we were staying and was telling us a little about rural medicine. His county was the one where two people were diagnosed with the swine flu after traveling from Mexico. He was not the treating physician, but quickly had his staff recheck their hazardous exposure safety mask status. On a separate note (hopefully), one of our vans has pretty much become a traveling infirmary as several of our riders have been battling (swine) flu like symptoms.

Smelliest town ever award: Ordeway, Kansas. Good God. As soon as we road into town, it was like someone had dumped every latrine in the country on this poor, small town. I'm not sure of the high school's mascot, but it should be the Crowly County Cowpiles. It was real bad, the kind of smell that we could actually taste as a gritty substance between your teeth while we dry heaved our way into the somewhat protected walls of the wrestling room. The stench was courtesy of the huge cattle ranch just a few miles upwind. We passed it the next day and there were hundreds if not thousands of cattle just standing shoulder to shoulder in their small holding troughs (expelling methane constantly presumably). Before we headed out the next day, I delivered the lecture to the high school. The best question from the students was "Why tha heck are y'all comin' through Crowly County?" as they all stared at us like we were crazy (not sure if it was because of our bike trip, the fact that I was wearing spandex tights, or our actual stop in Crowly County).

THANKS EVERYONE FOR FOLLOWING MY BLOG AND FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARD THE RIDE. I'll continue to make my best efforts to keep you updated and entertained.

amateur road footage

So Telluride is known for their annual film festival that produced such movies as Slum Dog Millionaire. Any chances this silent short film I shot while riding will be nominated? Starring: a close-up of my world-health beard. Additional drama provided for your viewing pleasure.

Man vs. Mountian, The Great Divide, & Denver wrap-up

On Thursday (4/23/09), we got up extra early (5:30am I think it was) to get everything ready for our big ride across the Continental Divide. It was a little chilly to start off. This huge moth was chilling out by our vans, unable to take off due to the frost as we were leaving. The day was slated for a huge 113 miles with our ascent to 11,200 ft. It started with 25 miles of rolling hills during which time we seemed to draw an usually large number of direct stares from the hundreds of livestock that we passed. It took a solid couple of hours of climbing in low gear to finally reach the level of the tree line. The altitude was definitely noticeable based on my breath rate, but surprisingly not a huge factor in climbing. I think nearly everyone on the team made it to the top. At the summit, the wind picked up quite a bit. To get to the sign in above pic, I had to climb up a 6ft wall of snow. We had a chilly lunch at the top, bundled up, and began descending. 7 minutes into the descent, both my hands were severely cramping from keeping so much break pressure in order to keep my speeds in the comfortable sub-40mph range. The cool arctic breeze from the summit palpably heated up with each minute on the way down. This next pic was taken less than an hour from lunch as we stood stripping our winter gear, looking back at how huge the mountains were that we just passed.

Our trip tick wound up being a little off though cause it only ended up being a 90 mile day. Some of the riders were disappointed, so decided to ride an extra 10 miles to make it a century (I was not one of these ambitious few).

Friday 4/24 (Cotoplaxi to Pueblo) was a short day of riding for me as I racked up my bike after 25 miles in order to travel with the van for our lecture that day, which was 3 hours away at a Rotary Club meeting in Denver. The country club hosting the event was quite swanky, with multimillion dollar homes lining each fairway. The Rotary Club members were a great audience in that they are educated on world health issues (and are eager to tell you about their role in eradicating the polio virus), provided us a nice meal, and had a little more dispensable income than the primary school audiences that we frequently entertain. After our lecture, we set off to our host for the weekend, the Adult Day Care Center in Denver. The facility here was very top-of-the-line and was vacant for the weekend, except for us riders. They provided us with catered meals and cots to sleep on, so pretty nice by our standards.

This weekend we had a fair amount of free time around the city so many people went out site seeing (Rockies game, art museum, zoo, etc.). I took advantage of the wifi and quite time around the facility to wrap up my radiology research project and work on an article for the Delt Alumni Magazine. I also met up with Lori's (my fiancee) sister, Ali, who was one of the 75 or so people dressed up in blue Snuggies (the [ridiculous looking] blanket with sleeves) out in the happening district of Denver. I think everyone is ready to get back on the bikes after our few light days. Although, I don't think we greet Kansas with the same level of enthusiasm as we have had for the scenery in Utah and Colorado.

Telluride and Montrose

Hi Everyone! We just finished up a great couple of days in Telluride, Colorado. The ride into Telluride included a climb to 10,200 ft, but at this point in our journey didn't feel too bad. Our accommodation hook-up in Telluride was unbelievable. Scott Elkins, a real-estate developer in Telluride and cycling enthusiast, opened three vacant condos for us. We were incredibly thankful for his generosity and for the fact that it is off season in Telluride. The pic is of the condo that I stayed in. Don't let the small size fool you though. This 1100 sq ft. is on the market for a cool $1.2 million. Scott did then tell us that the rich people don't live down here in the valley anyway as he pointed to the mansions up in the mountains along the ski resort. While it did feel like luxury to sleep in a pillow top mattress for a night opposed to my sleeping bag on a gym floor, I kept thinking about the living conditions of the people benefited by our fundraising. Nearly half the world lives in poverty (less than $2 a day).

Today (4/21), we road off to Montros, CO. The ride, again, included some great scenery as we descended along with the melting snow down through some beautiful Colorado ranches, including those of Ralph Lauren, Jack Nicholas, the founder of ebay, etc... Too bad they couldn't spend some more money on the roads though because my head was too fixed on dodging potholes and the buzzes of passing cars to fully acknowledge everything that I was seeing. Colorado certainly will not be receiving an award for bicycle friendly driving (and thanks to the old Betty driving the Cadillac who stopped to cuss more than 1 of us out while cruising down hill, the semi driver with a horn louder than a train that he would honk while passing, and a few more). I thought that returning the gesture with a sign of passivism was more in line with our mission rather than the standard return. All and all though, another great day on our trip.

Once we got into Montros, we rejoiced over the stoplights and signs for Walmart and fast food- signs of civilization that we haven't seen for several days. Many of us are at that stage that protein powder in water as a supplement for dinner sounds pretty good (opposed to Ryan's famous sandwiches at lunch, which include a combination of bread, lettuce, pickles, cookies, peanut butter, cheese, mayonnaise, humus, jelly all on one sandwich).

I spent some time tonight to catch up on some bicycle maintenance and learned a few tips from the gurus on how to de-"Fred" my bike ("Fred" is the nickname of a novice rider who gets grease all over his/her leg from the chain (done), falls over while standing still on the bike (done) and has extraneous accessories on his/her bike (now removed). I am on support team tomorrow so my legs should be better rested for Friday's 113 mile ride across the Continental Divide.

Goodbye Utah, Hello Colorado!

We wrapped up Utah today. We are currently in Colorado and surprised how fast the ride is going. The entire state of Utah was filled with nonstop scenery. We spent the whole time climbing up this mountain, then riding down through that basin or that canyon in numerous national parks. We were constantly amazed at our scenery. Verizon Wireless officially wins the best cell phone coverage when out in the boonies. We stayed in some pretty small and remote areas. We were unable to ride out from Boulder, Utah because Boulder Mountain was whited out, but picked the ride back up on the other side to then be greeted by a sandstorm in Hanksville. We were supposed to camp, but Hanksville Elementary School allowed us to shelter in their gym for the evening. The next night we did camp at National Bridges National Park, which reportedly is one of the best star gazing locations in the US. We beared it out through 2 snow storms that day with temps down in the 20s. My sleeping bag is only rated for 40 degrees so I was literally wearing every article of clothing that I brought. The sky did clear up though for a midnight star gazing session. We also pretty much ran out of food so ate mac and cheese with hotdogs for breakfast, but didn't really care because it was warm (unlike my fingers and toes).

We road into Dolores, CO today, had a lunch lecture and a dinner lecture at different locations. We ride up and up into Telluride tomorrow. Apparently conditions are more favorable for skiing in Colorado opposed to biking currently as a huge storm system is predicted throughout next week.

Boulder, Utah and Chotochrome Basin

We have been WiFi deprived for the past couple days- so I will try and catch up but we have a weak signal currently so pics may have to come later.


From our Bryce Canyon campsite, we packed up and road out toward Boulder, Utah. Boulder is an earthly town of 180 tucked away in an outdoorsman’s paradise. Several people in town live in yorts- 10-16ft cylindrical homes tucked away in the woods. We climbed enough elevation in the morning to spend the second 20 miles just coasting through a beautiful valley. We then climbed again and twisted cautiously through the bends and turns down Chotochrome Basin- so named because of the many colors of soil and rocks native to Utah.

The residents of Boulder were excellent hosts and put us up in homestays for the night. Jesson and I stayed in a minimalistic ranch home overlooking 2 million acres of preserved land. Ace, who currently lives on the property, cooked us a nice meal and made us feel at home. The ranch home was like a rustic ski cabin that made sure you felt detached from reality while staying there, but had enough amenities to not feel like you were roughing it. Ace has lived in town for a couple years, but spends several months per year internationally in Somalia, Tibet, etc. where he works as a photographer of medical mission trips. He also does some adventure shooting for brands such as the North Face and Marmot. Ace’s place didn’t have a television and he spent most of his time worrying about international affairs, his next backwoods backpacking adventure, and making sure Gingus Khan (his dog) was happy. During dinner, we watched the horses prance by and deer jump his fence to graze 15 ft outside the window.

In the morning, we woke up to the slightest snowfall. We headed to the town lodge which hosted us for breakfast. The local expert outdoorsmen/cyclists informed us that there was zero chance of us riding over Boulder Mountain today as heavy snow is expected until Friday. So after breakfast, we delivered a lecture to Boulder Elementary School (12 kids) and packed everyone and everything up into the vans as the ground became snow covered. Disappointingly, this was supposed to again be an incredibly scenic day of riding.

Backwoods Utah

Another 98 miles in the books today. We did not have a lecture today, just stacked on the mileage, but did stop and talk with tourists who were intrigued by the many orange jerseys that they passed on the road. It's official: bike seats are not the most comfortable thing to sit on for 7.5 hours day after day. After readjusting my seat pitch angle this morning, I think I am finally getting close to minimizing my total body discomfort (to a bearable 6/10 in severity)! Utah has the most amazing scenery though. We started the day with our huge climb, grinding the gears for 2.5 hours up to the peak of 10,000. We spent most of the day cycling in snow covered terrain, sometimes with snow banks towering over our head. The temperature was warm enough though and each turn of the road revealed a different colored soil or different beautiful mountain range to keep our mind off our aching legs.

It was a day of near misses. I nearly got hit by a bowling ball sized rock as it tumbled down from the embankment above. Luckily the snow bank 3 ft way between the cliff and the road absorbed the impact instead of my leg and my bike. Then on our way into camp, we had to slam on our breaks to allow a heard of cattle to finish crossing the road (there seems to be a correlation between our century ride and encountering angered livestock on our 90+ mile). The heard was a little distraught at us interrupting them, but after some coaxing, they all shuffled off the road. Except, that is, for the alpha bull who stood firmly in the middle of the road with his horns staring at us. It was quite a stale mate for a long 30 seconds until an approaching car won the chicken battle against the bull and I promptly used the car as a shield to speed past the beefy foe. Some people are into running with the bulls. I guess I am into riding with them.

Our campsite was inside a sheltered embankment formed by a three sided plateau in Bryce Canyon. There are several impressive sized smokestack-shaped rocks jutting out in the skyline and smells from the Ponderosa pines. Hopefully it remains dry for us tonight and our ride tomorrow- although storms are predicted.

Welcome to Utah!

****I attempted to change the setting so that viewers can comment on my posts and these will also be visible on the website.****

Happy Easter!

My blog quality has deteriorated in the last two posts, but we tend to bog any free wifi service that we get down with 26 laptops all trying to connect at the same time so I have been unable to upload my pics- but will update when I can.

Yesterday was my support day and the first "bad weather day" of the ride. Our riders were gritting it out through a climb in 45 degree rain. Then as we got higher, the temp continued to drop and the rain turned to snow so we packed everyone up after 50 miles and thawed them out on our way to the fire station in Panaca, Nevada. We also noted how ironic it seemed to look out at a snow covered grown with cacti as the only foliage. Our host at Panaca was extremely generous to cook us a nice spaghetti meal and told us of some of the town history.

Today, we crossed into Utah and are currently staying at a church in Cedar Springs. Half of our crew drove ahead to host a world health day at the church. The other half, including myself, road 85 miles uphill into a relentless headwind. We stared the whole time at the snow covered mountains in the horizon that we will attempt to conquer tomorrow. We are currently at over 6,000 ft. Tomorrow we climb to 10,000 ft and have a 95 mile ride, but it is supposed to be extremely scenic (and extremely cold...and we are camping). I will certainly be without any internet/phone coverage tomorrow, but will attempt to catch up on the pics in a few days. Thanks everybody for the continued support.

Nowhere Nevada

We had a pretty routine day on the road yesterday (75 miles, fast paced, no mountains) from Vegas to Alamo, Nevada- a one stoplight town where we are overnighting at the high school. I didn't take my camera with me because there were threats of rain, otherwise I would have included a picture of a street sign saying "Warning- low flying aircraft". I guess I should also mention then that our fun fact for the day is that Alamo, Nevada is the closest town to Area 51. We will be getting into Utah shortly!

Surviving the desert

Viva Las Vegas!- and hello again civilization, cell phone service, and wifi. We biked over 250 miles the last 3 days through the Mojave Desert/Death Valley region, including a segment on the historic Route 66. It's been hot, hard, dusty, but very scenic. Several people are taking advantage of being in Las Vegas today by making some bike repairs and to shop for a hopefully more comfortable bicycle seat. The roads have been bumpy and chocked full of potholes, but that hasn't deterred some of our riders to cruise at 50+ mph during our descents (crazy- wear your helmets kids). We camped the last couple of nights in the desert with temps dropping into the 30s. One of the nights was an all-out dust storm so we corralled the vans into a semicircle to stave off the winds. These wild cattle on the other hand were not corralled- nor is this photo zoomed in. They were staring at me at mile 102 as I rolled into our campsite. They did not look pleased to have visitors and had quite large horns.

3/8/09- We had an 80 mile ride into Las Vegas which included going through Red Rock Canyon. The views of the mountains and stone formations here, as you can see, were just spectacular. It was hard to stay focused on the road, but also helped to distract from the lactic acid burn we were all experiencing after several days of tough riding. We have given several lectures to primary schools, churches, and medical schools which have all been very well received. Tomorrow we have an early rise and then more desert riding for a couple of days into Utah. More updates as wifi permits!

4/4/09: Up a Cali mountain- scary fun

Getting a feel for our day riding today would require a video camera as it was quite the test of one’s will. From past year’s experiences, this day was touted as one of the most difficult rides that we will encounter- 95 miles, 60 of them being up hill. We hit the road at sunrise (well, more like an hour after sunrise by the time we got everything loaded and said goodbye to our host families) and started climbing…..and climbing….and climbing…slowing to an altitude of 1 mile above sea level. We unanimously agreed that it was the hardest day of riding that anyone of us had experienced...yet. To put it in perspective Brad, our food zar extraordinaire and support team driver for the day, said that he was flooring our cargo van to make it up the mountain pass and was only going 15 miles per hour. We were all standing and cranking our lowest gears at times and barely moving. About the time our team’s morale was at its lowest, we would crest a peak and rejoice at the downhill approaching. Descending down a mountain is not exactly a time to relax though as we were approaching speeds of 40 mph on centimeters wide tire weaving in and out of potholes, dodging gravel, and keeping steady through the winds as we slingshot past eachother. Being a skier, I compare it to tucking down a black diamond for the whole run without turning- not exactly safe, but sure is a lot of fun!

The mountain claimed nearly half our riders, but for the other half, surrender was not an option. We made someone else throw in the white towel for us at the top of the mountain and called the day short (if 65 miles is short) due to time constraints as we had to press onward for our lecture to a Hispanic church community in Hesperia, California. I'm not sure what Hesperia means in Spanish, if anything, but "desperate desert town" would be appropriate.

I now have to be up in about 5 hours to ride 100 miles, but wanted to update my blog because we are camping out in the desert the next couple of nights until we get to Vegas. For the classrooms following along- Please see the attached video for a climate lesson. I worked quite hard as an amateur filmmaker to edit this film to include a classic desert element with the snowy mountains in the background. I hope it was worth it!

3/2/09: “Day 1 of riding- awesome”

Day 1 of riding was an truly a great day. We were on the road at 6:45am to officially start our ride across country. We had a brief ride down to the La Jolla beach for a photo op with the team dipping our wheels in the ocean. A group of dolphins decided that they wanted to be in the background. From there, we all mushed onward from San Diego to Laguna Beach, about 65 miles according to our bike computers. I wound up riding with the overly ambitious front group of 4 other riders. I say overly ambitious because we completely missed the street chalk saying “R4WH rest stop, turn left” and kept on trucking through the Camp Pendelton marine bass. Thankfully with cell phones, it’s difficult to be lost even in the middle of nowhere. The pic is of our exasperated group, out of food and water, waiting for the cargo vehicle to refuel us.

The terrain was so peaceful all day, rolling up and down hills, in and out of small beach towns. When we got to Laguna Beach, the Rotary Club there had lunch waiting for us on the beach. We then packed up and drove to Pasadena (outside of L.A.) where the families of this real nice, quaint street called “Bungalo Village” met us with all-out neighborhood pitch-in. Each family then took in two riders and gave us a soft surface to sleep on after our long day.

San Diego Retreat

We spent the first couple of days of our trip as a work retreat in San Diego. We learned what to expect in a typical day on the road. When riding, we learned how to communicate (via volleyball-like hand signals to point out hazards, slowing, etc...) and how to ride as a group. We went on a couple of scenic rides around La Jolla and the Torey Pines Golf Course area as a trust building exercise. When riding as a group and drafting (i.e. within 2 ft of the wheel in front of you) you can save 1/3 of your energy expenditure. The trade off is that if the person in front of you taps his/her breaks without telling you, you and the rest of the line goes crashing. We also learned how to manage our 3 support vehicles which we will be leap-frogging along the course making sure that all riders are doing okay and equipped with food/water. As you can imagine, this trip is a logistical nightmare and our leadership team has put in countless hours of prep. For the educational side, we spent a good deal of time creating and practicing the Powerpoint lectures that we will be delivering in our coast-to-coast lecture series.

The Jewish Community Center that hosted us was a museum/resort-like facility and was very gracious to put us up and feed us dinner during our stay. The group is meshing well. Many seem to be the "outdoorsy" type, although only a few of us have any significant road bike experience so our local "biking gurus" have handled several questions.

Arrived in La Jolla

45 hours being picked up in Plainfield, we finally arrived at our destination, the Jewish Community Center in beautiful La Jolla. I spent the majority of the ride falling in and out of a uncomfortable state of unconsciousness, broken periodically by nearly escaped tragedies on the road. All sense of time/day were lost. I think I drove for like 7 hours straight at one point, but that may have been a dream or be exaggerated. I just now we all made it safely, somehow. We traversed through a brutal winter storm in Oklahoma, which several other vehicles fell tragedy to, thankfully not us. We road out in 3 vans, 2 full of people and 1 full of stuff. One of the other vans had a “service engine” light come on less than half way through. Apparently it wasn’t an emergency because the van made it, all the time beeping an audible warning every 5 minutes. What didn’t make it? A bird turned mangled ornament that caught the front edge of our bike racks on top of the van and numerous bugs that kamikazed themselves to our bikes throughout the trip. We settle into La Jolla for a few days to get to know each other, the details of the ride, and to work on the lectures that we will be giving. I am not an experienced blogger, but will do my best to routinely update with pics and entries. Thank you all for your support and I hope you enjoy reading about my R4WH experiences. Hello to all the classrooms that will be following "Dr. Ben's ride"- I will try to separate these entries when appropriate. Please also follow along with our official blog at www.rideforworldhealth.org which is updated daily. Wish us all luck!