The Rust Belt

Rust belt? Well, my knees are feeling like they are rusting up a bit, and I've been tightening my belt, so that equals the "rust belt." Had a shower at the YMCA last night and stepped on the scale. I'm now 168, down from a high of around 186 when I first started training for my bike ride across America. At the end of the day tomorrow, we will have officially ridden for 2,999 miles, and we will be just 522 miles from our final destination, the World Trade Center in NYC.

Erie, Pennsylvania, where we are having a rest day, seems to be trying to pull itself out of decline. However, the only industries in town seem to be Welch's Grape Juice, a harbor front looking out on Presque-Isle, hence a fresh water fishing industry, and the preservation of a whole lot of crumbling buildings. The town's heyday came when it was the main port for shipping goods to Pittsburgh along an Erie Canal extension. To give you an idea of the town, I've included a photo from the tower at the end of the pier, showing a view of Main Street. All the modern buildings are along the waterfront.

And of course, here's another picture, showing a collection of Walleyes being filleted down by the harbor, along with one lonely Brown Trout on the end of the lineup.

In yesterday's blog, I wrote about how I came to be on the Bike Trip America team. The other three riders, Bryce, Ryan and Jonathan, are all students at Astoria (Oregon) High School. Bryce met a team of Eagle Scouts who rode through Astoria, and was inspired to start organizing his own bike trip. He was fifteen at the time. He started working on a route, and placed an ad in the school newspaper inviting anyone who was interested his bicycle venture to join for a few training rides. He got around a dozen interested teens, both boys and girls. To get the trip sanctioned by the Boy Scouts, he had to reactivate an old Astoria troop and then form a Venturing Crew. They started riding, and started a few fundraising activities. They also selected several charities, and then voted on which one they wanted to support. That is how the ride became a fundraiser for Operation Comfort Warriors. The twelve riders eventually dwindled to the current team of three boys, who knew each other from school, but weren't necessarily good friends. They've done a lot of bonding and team-building on the road this summer. When the summer is over and it's time for everyone to go back to school, Jonathan will be the only one remaining at Astoria High School, where he will be a junior, and will probably be legendary after his epic summer!!! Bryce won a scholarship to attend a college prep school in Canada, so he will be spending his senior year there. And Ryan will be moving to Hillsboro, so he will complete his senior year there.

Pat Wollner is another team member, and is probably more important to the team than anyone else, because she does the cooking, the driving, the first aid, the communications, finalizes the lodging arrangements, and keeps all the boys' families informed. The story of how she got involved is also the stuff of legends. She is an avid cyclist, but had gotten a bit rusty (did I mention the "rust belt"?) and started looking around for others her own age to ride with. She looked up a local website for a group called the "Old Spokes" and saw a ride advertised that was leaving from the Astoria American Legion hall. So she showed up. She looked for the Old Spokes, but all she could see were a bunch of teenagers. She stopped to ask them if they knew where the Old Spokes group was ... the contact name was a Mr. Bryce Nurding. Bryce stepped forward with an apologetic grin, and and said, "I'm Bryce. I just borrowed the Old Spokes website to look for adult riders." 

Pat rode with the teenagers, and chatted, and eventually discovered that Bryce had this grand vision of a trip across America. "Sure, you do," Pat said. The way she tells the story, you can tell that she didn't think the ride would ever actually become a reality. After all, it was a fifteen-year-old kid organizing it. "And when you guys go, I'll be a support driver." Not only did the trip seem unlikely to materialize, but there was another support driver already lined up, plus two other adult riders, neither of them living anywhere near Astoria. Well, to cut a long story short, the other support driver dropped out, the other adult riders had to drop out for various reasons, but the ride did materialize! Hence, Pat is now in Erie, Pennsylvania along with three teenagers and me.

Each of us will have our stories to tell, and for each of us, the story is probably so remarkable as to be unbelievable. One of the boys' mother commented that the three boys probably don't yet appreciate just how special this trip is. I'm sure they don't, but I'm also sure that they will value the memories and the experiences for years to come. So will Pat. So will I. We'll value the memories while trying to forget the aches and pains.