For me, one of the most amazing things has been the way these eleven cyclists who rode the whole distance simply turned up at the start in Anacortes, Washington on June 17th, rode 4100+ miles across 15 states (14 in USA and Ontario in Canada), dipped their front wheels in the Atlantic at Bar Harbor, Maine on August 15th and went home - job done, no big drama. According to Tom Phillips, one of the riders, who had a sophisticated bike computer, they also climbed 133,231 feet, or an average climb of 2612' per day. For those of you in Northern Ireland, that's only 300' less than Slieve Donard, every day. What makes it all the more amazing is that, before the trip, only three of the riders had been serious cyclists.
Several things made the Ride as undramatic as it was. One undoubtedly was Bryan Blomker's tremendous organisational skills. As we arrived in Anacortes we were given a small, five-page handout detailing all the overnight stops - the name of the town, the name of the host church or YFC centre and its phone number - and that's how it happened throughout the whole 60 days. It all looked simple, but getting that list of hosts was an incredibly hard job, involving all manner of phonecalls, research, calling on contacts. It was an immense task, especially in some of the very sparsely-populated areas that we went through in states like Montana and North Dakota, but it all worked like clockwork.
The second thing that helped enormously was the presence on the Ride of a great bike mechanic in the person of Paul Luedtke. Paul, one of our staff from Switzerland, had done this kind of work whilst at college, and his knowledge and skill were invaluable. All kinds of things went wrong with the bikes, and had it not been for Paul, we would have suffered endless delays, trips to bike shops, huge expenditures, people having to get driven across parts of the route to avoid delaying the whole Ride, and so on.
The third essential element was the excellent back-up team driving the two vehicles, one containing all the riders' personal clothing and spares, the other keeping them supplied with food, water and information. With the first vehicle we had first of all Lee & Elaine, then David & Darlene, then Les, and finally Lloyd & Marie, and in the second vehicle, the SAG wagon, Emma for the whole time,
plus Becky for most of it, and Melissa. Together they did a tremendous job in linking the riders on the road and liaising with the hosts at each stop. They worked extremely hard, yet didn't have the joy of all that riding and climbing as their reward!!?The first photo shows the heroic eleven riders who did the whole distance posing on the beach in Bar Harbor, Maine at the end of the Ride. They are, from left to right, Bryan Blomker, Tom Phillips, Dan Chapin, Zack Chapin, Paul Bayfield, Arek Karagoezian, Stuart Rowell, Paul Luedtke, Mike Scott, Jonny Young, Fiona Young.
The second photo shows all the gang at the end, including Becky, Emma, Lloyd & Marie and me. One other rider who should get an honourable mention is my nephew Tim O'Hare from Charlotte, North Carolina, who rode the first week with us and was greatly missed thereafter.
Finally, we give all thanks and glory to God for preserving the lives of everyone involved. Our number 1 concern from the start was to return everyone safely to their families, and that's what happened, in spite of a few incidents of thoughtless bad driving, a couple of deliberate near-misses and a few minor fallings-off. Many people were praying for us, for which we are grateful, and many people all over the world sponsored us, which was brilliant. We will publish the financial results as soon as we have worked out the final costs.
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