July 17
Abilene, Texas
Another day on the bike, another long ride. Today's ride was a tough one, but I rode with some of my favorite guys out here and we somehow made it to the finish. Todd Stacy is one of my favorite guys to ride with because he's relentlessly positive on the bike and always seems to have a good time on the road. We pushed it really hard because we had a rack point and making it was no certainty.
About two thirds of the way into the ride, we were told that rack point had been moved up and we had to do something along the lines of thirty miles in less than an hour and a half. Personally, I felt like throwing in the towel and grabbing some Sonic and just enjoying ourselves on the road while we waited to get racked but the other guys were determined to ride until we got racked. In the end, that ended up being the right decision because we ended up not making rack point, but the crew deemed our effort worthy of an extension and we ended up being one of the last groups to make it in. It's a really good feeling when you finish a day like this when a lot of people don't. Tough days are tough, but those days when half the team drops off are special to finish. It seems like these days are always toughest at the end. One of the things that keeps my mind off how tired I am on the road is doing math. I'm constantly calculating how much longer we have to go based on our current speed and distance left to travel, but nearly every day those numbers get skewed by the last little bit of the ride, whether by fatigue or other circumstances. Today, we rode on a farm access road so we could stay off the highway. The access road ran parallel to the highway, which was much nicer and didn't have all the stop signs the access road did, so it was hard to have to be constantly reminded that things could be better. The stop signs messed with our ability to get any momentum but we started floating them before too long because the only through traffic would be coming out of driveways. It's been funny to see which rules we have deemed unnecessary and which ones we still adhere to as we've grown more proficient on the bikes.
Lunch was a friendship visit at Disability Resources Inc., which employs people with disabilities to do a variety of tasks, including making a special barbeque sauce that we got to eat along with our brisket lunch. It was a fun friendship visit because I got to talk to a lot of the workers and managers of the business. I think the participants there were some of the most interesting I've met yet.
The ride was tough but we've been justly rewarded tonight. We were treated to catfish at Perinis Steakhouse, which is ranked as one of the top five steakhouses in the country. The chef, Tom Perini, had just won a contest on The Today Show in which his hamburgers were declared the best in America last week. We weren't served ha,burgers, but we've had so many recently that catfish was a welcome change and delicious to boot. In addition, we were served a banana pudding that was one of the best desserts I've ever had. The Texas heat was definitely a factor though. We ate outside and it's been stifling here, in some ways more uncomfortable than the 117 degree days in Arizona. It's been a good day, but I'm worn out. I've never slept better in conditions like this than I have while on this Journey, that's certain.
July 18
Stephenville, Texas
I'll let most of today's post be a guest entry by one of my closest friends on this trip, Jeff Lehman of the University of Washington, who I rode with:
"Today was definitely a test of endurance, and it proved itself to be a lot harder than I thought it would. It was day three of the so talked about Triple Crown, our three consecutive century days to move us into east Texas; the first two days didn’t prove themselves to be much at all, with day one turning out to be 80 miles instead of 95 because of some bad roads causing the whole team to rack, and day two turning out to be only 60, as I chose to be a sweep with my chapter brother Greg Brandt, eventually ending up with the two of us getting racked for time purposes. Unlike the first two days, however, this was to be a no-racking day, and the team was expected to ride all 110 miles that stood in front of us and lodging. It was also because of the first two days that Greg and I decided to push ourselves hard and make it to lodging as quickly as we could; we were joined by Josh Starr (University of Houston), Matt Proctor (Texas A&M), and Dalton Goodier (Texas Christian University). To be fitting for the grueling day we had ahead of us, we named our pace-line “Team Deathfire” and named each other Blade, Scorpio, Grim Reaper, Falco, and Thunderbolt, respectively.
The day started off well, and after about 15 miles of riding we decided to take 30 mile intervals for crew stops instead of stopping at each one (the crew stops are set up in ten mile intervals). As far as we knew, every pace-line was getting through the day fine, and I was confident that this would be a day that everyone would finish.
At mile 60 we were treated to a sponsored roadside lunch by some of the brothers at the TCU chapter. Brots, chips, watermelon, baked beans, potato salad, and ice-cold Gatorade awaited us as we were invited to relax from our bikes for a while and gorge on some good food. It was fun talking to the guys who sponsored us, as they had all been on the Journey of Hope in previous years. It was about 45 minutes later that our pace-line got back on the road to finish out the last 50 miles, something that I felt at the time wouldn’t be a problem. But the temperature suddenly increased during that time and the rolling hills we had been riding through pretty much all day began to get steeper and more frequent. Needless to say, by about mile 80 I was starting to feel the effects of dehydration. I decided to fight it and keep going, but by mile 107 I was suffering from body chills, shakiness, and an overall lack of energy. At that point, if lodging was to be any more than one mile away, I would have probably had to rack myself for dehydration; fortunately it wasn’t.
We arrived to Stephenville and went to lodging. We had to get ready for our dinner at the Scroggin’s home. They had Texas BBQ for us and some good tea while listening to a man play his acoustic guitar. The day was very good for the most part and I can not wait to roll into Fort Worth and meet some of the TCU Pi Kappa Phi brothers."
Today was an interesting day, to be sure. The ride was great early on. We were one of the first groups to get to lunch, which was a huge source of pride for me because I really wanted to show my chapter brothers that I was representing them well. The Journey, as we've been told many times, isn't about the bike, but when you're on the road, sometimes it is. Partway through the first half of the ride, a couple of my chapter brothers drove by, shouting out of the window that lunch was thirty miles up the rode. After seeing them, I was motivated to stay strong until lunch, where seeing friends from TCU was an amazing experience.
After lunch, things got rough. Everyone has those days where being on the bike feels like hell. I guess it's just impossible to have a good day every day. Anyways, today was that day for my paceline buddy Josh Starr. After lunch, he started having a tough time keeping up and so our team split up and Proctor and I rode with Josh and kept pushing him. He felt really weak and dehydrated, and the hills and heat made the going tough for us. Our reduced pace did, however, give us the opportunity to relax and talk for awhile instead of pushing the pace like we had been all day. Proctor and I have been in the same van all summer, so we can laugh and joke around with each other, but this was our chance to actually talk about ourselves and our lives. Earlier in the day, Matt made a joke about how he'd never fallen off the bike and I had. It didn't take long for karma to come back with a vengeance. As we were riding, Proctor got a little careless and his front tire rubbed my back one, causing him to lose balance. He tried to steady himself and wobbled for a second or two before he turned his bike off the road, down a three foot drop into a clump of grass. The fall was harmless and pretty comical to watch, so it was all good in the end.
About ten miles from lodging, Josh was done. He racked himself and Proctor and I reunited with Jeff and Greg and we pushed it hard over the final stretch to finish the day. Tomorrow is TCU. It's one of the things I've looked forward to all summer.
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