Well, as surreal as it is the trip is finally over. We can no longer eat 6000 calories a day and entire pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream without a second thought any more. We don’t have to go through the ritual of breaking down camp, heading off into the unknown and sweating for 7 hours a day every day. We have reached the last bike-able mile of land on the West Coast. The trip is done and with a great sense of pride, joy, and excitement accomplished what we set out to do. It is tough to put into words my own personal experiences and takeaways of the trip but will try my best to summarize what the trip meant to me, some of the lessons I learned, and just my perspective on some of the experiences from the trip.
First off, I wanted to thank EVERYONE for their support that we received over the course of the trip. Whether the support was a financial donation to our fundraiser, words of encouragement, providing a roof over our head for the night, a home-cooked meal, keeping us in your thoughts, a car-honk of encouragement, assistance from our sponsors, a deep muscle massage, aiding with the bikes, or any other help we got along the way; we are extremely grateful for all of it.
I know one of the reasons that we continually gave people why we were biking across the country when they realized what we were doing and tried to comprehend what would make a person do such a thing was simply: because it was on our lifelist. That quick one-liner was an easy way to explain it and did not really get into much more detail than that since there were so many other personal and professional reasons that we did not get into unless people questioned us further. On a professional level, biking across the country provided an excellent opportunity for us to raise money for a very worthwhile organization, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which we truly appreciate everyone’s donation thus far. On a more personal level, the idea was hatched and put on my lifelist a while back for many reasons. One of the main aspects of the trip that drew me in was the personal challenge of biking that many miles over such a diverse and challenging terrain. The challenge was not only physical but mental as well. The concentration and persistence needed to consistently wake up everyday knowing the trials ahead of you for the day and weeks ahead really caused you to challenge your mental fortitude. We knew that once we started, there was no turning back and you have to manage and drive yourself to accomplish such a long term goal. Besides the mental and physical challenge of riding across the country, the scale of what we were doing was another appeal for me. Knowing how epic in scale of a trip this would be with all of the unknown adventures, unseen places, unknown people we would meet along the way and simply how few people actually do and complete a trip like this constantly made me itch to do it even more. One thing that I think Lee and I both loved was the crazy look and astonished responses of people who learned what we were doing and thought we were both off of our rockers because of it. That response seemed to be another daily motivation that a trip like this to many people was just so impossible in their eyes, which we loved to prove wrong. I had spoken with and met too many people who have gone through their lives living with regrets for not doing either a trip like this or anything else that they really wanted to do at some point in their life but never went through with it made me realize that their was no time like the present to actually make it happen.
One aspect of the trip that we knew before biking one mile was the beauty and amazing landscape that we were going to see along the way. After finishing and seeing the landscape gradually change(we weren’t going light speed) little by little, I have got to say the country is extremely blessed to have such a diverse, resourceful, and beautiful country. I don’t think most people really appreciate how much this country has to offer and how that has made it into the place that it is today. We not only saw it first hand but could see it in the eyes and voices of the international folk that were doing the trip when they referenced and compared it back to their own countries. As strange as it is, every state really did have it’s own personality, not just with the people but the type of terrain that we would bike through. It was not like there was one or two things that set states apart, but within about 50 miles of entering each state you could notice the colors, hills, mountains, animals, and farms all changing as well.
Going into the trip we knew that it was going to be difficult and would be very naïve to think otherwise. But we really didn’t know what the daily challenges would be that we encountered. We could’ve planned prior for the trip for months but we still wouldn’t have known what we were truly getting ourselves into until we actually got out there. The best thing we could have done was plan as best we could and deal with each thing as it came. Facing these new challenges and overcoming them was one of the most rewarding aspects of the trip for me. So what exactly were some of these challenges and how did we manage to deal with them? One of the biggest challenges for me was to comprehend the scale of the trip and how far we had to go(3800 miles) and staying motivated to bike 75 miles everyday. What I learned early on was to not think about how far away San Francisco was but to try to break the trip into smaller segments that I could wrap my head around. Instead of thinking that far ahead, I would think about the state that we were in, the day ahead of us, even just the climb that we were doing at that moment. Breaking down the trip into smaller goals allowed me to not only enjoy the moment we were in but to see things in a much more realistic and manageable scale. Other issues we knew we were going to face but didn’t REALLY know how these things would pan out until actually having to deal with them such as bike break downs, the heat and humidity, traffic, wrong turns, flooding, desolation in the desert, 12% grade inclines, dogs hell bent on chasing you off of THEIR stretch of the highway, splinters in legs, freak storms, 20 mph headwinds, or runaway house dogs. In almost every case of a challenge being thrown at us my attitude towards dealing with it was that this was what was dealt to us and we will have to face it head on. Whether that meant to just put your head down and muscle and grunt your way to the top of the hill, prepare ourselves the morning of to face the whole day without access to water, stop and fix the bike immediately to prevent any further damage, or start pedaling like your hair was on fire when Fido thought your legs looked like giant rawhide bones. In almost every case there was nothing we could do to avoid it so there was no point in complaining or feeling sorry for ourselves, rather just face whatever it was and deal with it.
Another aspect of the trip that I truly enjoyed was the people that we met along the way and the small towns we went through. Going into a trip like this you know you are going to meet a ton of people all with their own stories, but I was really surprised at how friendly everyone was. Whether the people were just curious to know what we were doing after seeing the trailers, fellow cyclists doing their own trip, gas station attendants, waitresses, farmers, campers, whoever, I can’t remember one encounter where the person was not very nice to us. It was very surprising at how many of our conversations with these people ended with them telling us to ‘be safe out there’. Most of the people we did meet we met because we were trying to avoid the major highways which basically led us from small town to small town. This was the rural side of America that I had never really experienced before since I have always pretty much grown up in larger cities and on road trips you don’t really go off the beaten paths off of the highways. I think I realized that small town America is definitely not for me but everyone town was filled with friendly people a tight knit community that is tough to find in the larger cities.
One last part of the trip that I truly enjoyed was being able to experience the whole thing with Lee. It is pretty tough to know somebody that you would want to do such a trip with and convince them it would be a great idea to do it with YOU. After over two months of being on the road we didn’t kill each other, which is a pretty amazing feat for any two people spending that much time together. We were pretty much with each other every waking hour(about 16) of the day, every day for two months straight and can honestly say that there aren’t too many people in the world that I could have done the trip with and am very fortunate to have a friend like Lee. Of course we had arguments and a couple of bad days but we got through it and got to spend an awful lot of quality time together and strengthened our friendship because of it.
There were so many aspects of the trip that I really enjoyed that really made it a once in a lifetime trip. People always say that it is the journey not the destination and that was most definitely the case here. Though the sense of accomplishment and achievement that surfaced as we rolled under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco after all that we had gone through was really overwhelming and such a tremendous feeling. I don’t think I have ever had a goal that has taken so much energy, time and focus to achieve in my life and to finally reach it through all of our hard work was something I will always be proud of.
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