6/10/22

6/7/22

A rest day in Blacksburg where early on I was informed my services as a route leader were no longer needed.

It will take a few days for the White Rabbit to be reborn.

6/6/22

Time serves humble pie over and over again.

Today we rise early for a short ride to Blacksburg, just 47 miles with a climb at the end. A welcome rest day awaits us on the morrow.

Cool temperatures help with an easy exit from a main road into the valleyed countryside. Everything is so green and lush, the winter hay in harvest time. Life smells fresh here.

Deeper into the foothills of the Appalachians we go, not called mountains here but mountains to me from back home. Undulating roads bordered by thick forests, some riders see bear today.

How welcome we are here by locals is not clear. We are not only surrounded by taller peaks but going back in time by at least a hundred years. On one occasion we hear gunshot close by…” Are they shooting at us

?” from a rider in front…”No, they’re not “ but deep down I’m not so sure.

Ahead a rider falls , an uphill stall. I get off my bike to help, she is ok and we move on. She is afraid to take the next few hills and walks but I coax her back on the bike “ you can’t walk to San Francisco” and finally she is brave enough to ride again.

I stop by the side of the road to let her get ahead and notice a most beautiful tree…where I get off my bike…to think a while.

We have with us a young man I met several years ago on a ride out West. At the time we mixed like oil and water and were miles apart. I thought never to see him again…no great loss.

Last Fall I did in fact meet him again on another ride and was impressed by how he had matured and grown. A self assurance beyond reality was replaced by a quiet genuine gentle humbleness.

This time he is with us for just the first week of the ride and I am amazed by his maturity and growth. He has become one of the finest young men I have ever met and I am proud to be part of a team with him.

I look to the thin new trees nearby, and to the solid oak in front and think about mistakes to be made by judging one before their time.

How many times each day am I humbled on this ride, by the beauty of my surroundings, by the tenacity of riders who fall and get up again, by young men and women who grow up to be gems, by the workings of a diverse team that safely moves a small vulnerable group 4000 miles across such varied terrain.

Pass me another serving of humble pie…it will help me grow wiser still…

6/5/22

I have not been able to post over the past two nights, the first I was too exhausted, and the second we were in a beautiful hidden valley with no phone service. I will try to summarize the three days now.

We enter the beautiful foothills of the Appalachians and begin to climb into the Blue Ridge Mountains.

On day one we head towards Charlottesville the famous city of Jefferson.
For 60 miles and gradual climbs I help a rider in the back of the pack one with a lifelong ambition to make this trip. Living in the flatlands close to the Chesapeake Bay with minimal hill training it is very difficult for her to climb the 3500 feet.

Nonetheless after eight hours of pedaling she is able to complete the task.

We are hosted at a local Unitarian church and treated to breakfast by alumni the next day and then head higher and higher into the Blue Ridge Mountains to the top of the Parkway. At 20 miles sweeping I come across a rider who cannot make it to the top. We stop, I make sure she is safe, and I continue on. The rescue van will come back later to pick her up. Higher and higher I go up to the mountain tops and after 6 hours and 6500 feet I reach the peak of the Vesuvius.

its almost a straight shot down to the valley below and I know that without brakes I could easily reach 60 or 70 mph. Suddenly Angel and Flossia appear to my great relief. Purched on my shoulder and on top of my head one looks forward one looks back. Rocketing down the mountain side I watch closely for gravel and debris and use my brakes sparingly so they do not overheat. I do not look at the speedometer on the way down hill trip but rather concentrate on the 50 feet in front of me with each hairpin turn. Within 12-15 minutes I have sped down what took me six hours to climb on the other side. At the bottom of the hill is our campsite. We are hosted by a local grocery store who allows us to camp outback next to a flowing creek. Under the stars I sleep soundly my tummy full of food cooked by locals to celebrate our safe arrival.

Today we have a 60 mile ride to Roanoke one of the easiest of the trip. It is 90% downhill along streams , creeks and rivers .I am so tempted at times to get off and wade into the waist deep cool waters. Instead I ride on. As I listen to the gurgling water I think to the flow of life.

How gently the water flows around rocks ,boulders, and downed trees little impediment to motion towards the sea.

Today the person I help does not get lost for the first time, climbs all the hills and reaches the end in the middle of the pack. yes it took me 3 hours more than usual… but so what?

I think of some riders who have doubts, uncertainties, and fears, how they look ahead to see boulders rocks and downed trees. It is not easy when one has not done this before to let the water flow ,to glide past to the sea.

Yes it is very exhausting and more work than usual to help others in need but who am I to protest if I can help them reach a lifelong dream.

Angel and Flossie wink at me… “Just go with the flow”.

There is more to us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less.” — Kurt Hahn, Founder if Outward Bound

PS . i am taking care of myself… here i am rolling out cramps…

6/2/22

97 degrees, 81 miles . Trial by fire.

I start at 6:10 AM. Cooler temperatures. As sweeper my duty is to help those who fall to the rear. I help when they get lost, frustrated, anxious. I assure them not to panic… this is America, they speak English and they have cash. Whatever happens they can’t really get “ lost”.

At 35 miles a second sweeper takes over and I can ride on.

It is hot, really hot, I am going through two liters an hour. 50 miles approaches, I have been in the sun 6 1/2 hours.

I am out of water and see ahead a church. It looks as if a funeral will be held in a few hours. More importantly a spout from the ground, fresh well water!

i pull up and whisper a prayer of thanks, open the spout and stuck my head under the near frozen stream. I sit on the church steps and drink my fill.

Loose thoughts enter my head and I wonder what in the world am I doing out here? My brain is too fried to carry on the thoughts.

Refreshed I ride on .

At 62 miles i pull into the rest stop where Dear Cassie is with us ( for a few hours more still).

She smiles and approaches me ” How is it going Nick?”

I tell her I had one of those ” what the hell am I doing here” moments back at that church with the funeral in hand.

Her smile droops but I quickly add. ” Cassie I am where I most want too be. “ The smile returns and I get a welcome hug.

Angel smiles at me ” Yes you are where you belong”

6/1/22

Dawn comes to Yorktown , the sun casting warm rays into the cave where Cornwallis hunkered down avoiding Washington’s canon balls.

Local folk has less protective holes in the wall.

Meanwhile down on the beach riders assemble for an East Coast tire dip, the next 4000 miles away.

So the journey begins…

5/31/22

Mists rise from the muddy fields soaked from weeks of rain. The dawn sun peeks through the distant salmon colored clouds over the ocean’s plain… her golden rays carry a promise of warmth.

Am I ready to begin, another trek from East to West across this Great Land?

Pondering the scope of the path I look left but hear behind me…a fife and drums? This early in the morn with no one else around? I turn to see emerging from the mists three groups of soldiers, rain soaked, gaunt, unshaven, weary to the bone. Some clad in faded blue waistcoats, fabric so thin as to show patches of old white cotton next to their wasted skin…some in redcoats nearly as badly worn… some in pale beige linen mud stained in brown. They approach and join standing as one before me…silent…deep hollow eyes wondering at the spectacle before them… a ghost?… bright orange from head to toe, blue reflective lenses covering the eyes, some odd machine at his side…two wheels with bars of metal between. Their muskets hang loosely, some in hand, some strapped over shoulders slumped from years of war. I notice the wood of each stock, worn smooth with time, glistening in the early morning sun. How many times has each aimed and fired a musket ball into the approaching lines?

The grain of the wood is beautiful…I am reminded of a slick, worn bannister in a group home for the young blind…each sliding down backwards… caught in the arms of a loving headmistress … Squeals of laughter… ” Let’s do it again !!! “

Why that thought now on this muddy plain? Who truly understands the Mind?

The soldiers dare one step closer…” Are you one of us? Êtes-vous des nôtres?” “Yes and No… Oui et Non.”. I remove my sunglasses and we connect deeply eye to eye. They look again at the bike but find they are too tired and at a loss of words to ask what, who, when, or why? Instead from the depths of their souls: ” Will this soon be over? Will we be able to go home?” Blue, Red, White is of no concern, only “home”. I hesitate… “ Yes and No…but in the End…Someone will catch you in loving arms…” Silence… eye to eye they measure my response, nod a grateful thanks and turn to fade into the clearing mist, different flags fluttering behind long lines…

I do not have the heart to tell the Blues that in just a few short years their grandsons with musket in hand will be at war again…this time against each other. “ Will this be over soon? Will we be able to go home?” “ Yes and No”.

The sun’s warming rays now point due West and it is time for me to begin. I say a silent prayer for safety and give thanks. I look to see my Guardian Angel smiling…waiting…always ready to catch me… as I slide backwards down the slippery bannister of Life…

5/30/22

I suspect the most comfortable place each of us has been was long ago in our mother’s womb.

Two great novels come to mind as I start this ride in these troubled times.

Tolstoy brought to the forefront in War and Peace the struggles of the common man in the face of advancing history. Over and over again over the past 10,000 years we have seen “leaders” come to power to bring armies of people to slaughter and death. It’s happening now in Ukraine, same place, same forces, same leaders, same common folk dying. The leaders get the credit for forming history while the rest of us prop them up.

Pearl Buck’s Pulitzer winning Good Earth looked past the leaders to the common folk and told stories we have all lived. I have never forgotten the scene of a small frail Chinese woman delivering her baby in the fields and returning to work.

As we read these two stories what comes to the forefront are not the Napoleons of the world but all the rest of us, peanuts by comparison.

We can identify with them through the inherent belief in the Golden Rule.

Kindness is a large component of this identification with our companion souls.

All throughout the ride we will encounter kindness from strangers we have never met before or nor will likely ever see again.

Such kindness has already started on this trip. There is a small store on the railroad tracks just north of the NC border. It has been there for years, the past 20 or so my source for wonderful Virginia peanuts. Each year at Christmas I receive a 25 lb box of their goods from a greatful family I helped take care of a long time ago. Two or three times a year I stop by to refill my pantry .

When the owners found out about the ride the first thing they asked was “ How can we help?” The result …12 lbs of peanuts for the riders about to start.

As we leave Yorktown, the birthplace of America, we will head inland deeper into the womb of the United States. Each day we will find ourselves buried in the kindness of the common man so far away from the history making news. Each day we will be bathed in the warm natural springs of communal humanity and gradually feel that comfort of returning to our beginnings.

We may all be small individual inconsequential peanuts in this world, even those who call themselves “leaders” , but together we are a Family of One.

5/29/22

Each year hummingbirds migrate thousands of miles, some actually crossing the Gulf of Mexico. I have often wondered about this feat. 

On a ride once in San Diego I was swarmed by a group who mistook me for a large orange blossom. I asked them how they managed such a trip and to my surprise they said “ Easy, we follow our beaks”…and off they flew…

Two night ago I awoke in a panic about the ride. Suddenly I had great doubts about my ability to complete this trip. Was I too old ( yes, no, maybe), was I in good enough shape ( yes, no, maybe) had I trained enough (yes , no, maybe), did I lose enough weight (no), was I up for the heat and sun of the desert again (yes, no, maybe), could I sleep on hard ground again(no)? At a loss as to how to sort out my woes I buried my head in a soft pillow and faded off to restless sleep.

The next morning I arose at 6 and road 40 miles as fast as I could to prove to myself that I was in fact ready to go. 

As I pedaled I thought about previous trips and recalled that each day is a single event, and that in fact each day has partitions…the water stops. A successful rider thinks ahead only to the next rest stop just 20 miles ahead. In this way the magnitude of the ride is less overwhelming. The maps help , each panel no more than 30 miles with a bright red line showing us the way…if only someone had bothered to put that red line on the actual road for us…

Concentration telescopes to a single map panel, the next water stop, and the constant living in the moment so each of us stays safe. 

Worries of the total path ahead disappear 10 seconds after the first departure point.

This year ,however , there is an added concern, that of Covid. Organizers of the trip have put in place elaborate contingency plans if anyone gets sick. Campsites and places of worship have asked for modifications in how we camp. Each rider has been vaccinated 3 or 4 times and each tested for the virus before the ride. 

The East Coast Riders just completed 2500 miles and luckily none tested positive or became ill with Covid.

As an MD I may be asked to make difficult decisions if someone become sick…but I’ll cross that bridge if and when need be…

As I pondered all this Angel and Flossie appeared, wondering at my deep thoughts. I shared with them my poor night’s  sleep and concerns only to have the two of them launch into endless stories about how they lived through the Black Plague centuries ago, Angel ferrying souls up, across, or down on Dantes orders and Flossie calming her bovine relatives who suddenly found themselves alone in the world…their bipods being led off by Angel of course.

Given their great expertise in times of crisis I asked their advice.

“ Well wear your mask of course… and follow the beak.”

I guess I’m ready now… 

5/21/22

Prior to the industrial revolution most babies were conceived between 2 and 4 AM while monks were completing their first set of hymns and  prayers…

I have my final three days of training rides starting tomorrow at sunrise, 60 miles each AM. I am often asked if I get bored riding these long distances. 

I have walked 4 miles every morning for the past 25 years and ridden more than 50,000 in the past 8 years. I don’t think I have experienced boredom even once. 

We divide Time into past, present, and future…it is an irony that of the three divisions only that which is most fleeting  is actual,  the other two  exist only in our imagination yet occupy 99% or our mental time. 

The added irony is that of those two which absorb so much of our thought process , one cannot be changed, and the other is guided most often by the whims of chance. 

The imagination is a powerful shaper of each of us…the science of psycho-cybernetics….a.k.a….   The Inner Game of Music, Tennis, Baseball…you pick your subject…

Don’t ever downplay how  dwelling on the past or future warps our souls…sometimes we each need a rest…

We may spend endless hours stewing over the past, and endless hours worrying about our future yet so rarely do we spend much time where we actually live…in the present. These hours of concern, looking forward, looking back move as slow as cooling lava  and consume, literally consume, hours of the fleeting moment…such a loss…

But the present…it moves like greased lightening, like a 99 mile an hour baseball passing over the plate, like a shooting star, like a rainbow in the sky…

Think of times we have been absorbed in an activity of the moment..how often do we look up to see that 1,2,3,even 4 hours have passed when it seems that we just started the task?

How often does a day dream seem to last just a minutes when so much more time has passed?

How often does time with a loved one seems to move so much faster than we like?

Time does not exist in the moment and millions of added moments in the present…the real present, not that clouded with thoughts of the past or future…add up to “ no time at all”…

A careful bike rider cannot afford to live in the past or future…only the present matters…there is in fact only billions of milliseconds of “now” ….

Hence… there is no time to get bored…

There is another time the rider experiences , that being  natural circadian rhythms, often lost in the rat race of daily life…

The past and future are psychic, while the circadian rhythm is corporeal

For thousands of years humans have lived and died by this rhythm, one which curiously enough puts us to sleep during the siesta hours and wakes us between 2 and 4 AM. Much creativity has come from these hours early morning hours…investigate when the great musicians, authors, poets, inventors, businessmen, generals, leaders, etc. did their best work. Look to where intimacy between partners was most often likely to flourish. Look to when babies were most often concieved…During these few morning hours post a deep, natural, restful sleep. 

All that was changed for the worse by the clock, the industrial revolution and finally by electricity. And of course “schedules”…

On these rides the clock has little meaning, there is no real electricity, and our only schedule is set by sunrise, sunset, and the weather of the day.

Not only has the rider entered a world of living in the pure present for 8 hours a day but so too has the unaltered circadian rhythm been allowed to resume its important place in life. How many times have I come across a rider fast asleep during siesta time?

Boredom cannot exist and natural rhythms resume control. Could it get any better for the soul?

Actually …Yes …because while all that is happening the rider finds themselves  surrounded  by “Mother Nature”  bathing all in her endless Glory day after day after day….