Happy Birthday Jane…

Yesterday, I didn’t tell you about John & Cynthia—I was first waiting to see how they were doing for the day. Cynthia was with Jerry, Pete, Andy, and Jake & I was with Louis while John was on sweep. Early in the morning Cynthia went down, lightly, when she couldn’t get clipped in on a hill. I wasn’t there to see it but I did see the skinned up ankle bone and she spoke of a sore rump—but she said her hip was okay. Last night I confessed how anxious/down right scared I was to ride with her in Canada when she joined us. I was afraid for her safety…afraid she’d do damage that would hurt her healing…afraid I’d somehow be responsible for something. I was very tense on her behalf—that’s why I wasn’t with the group she pedaled in when we’d split up in the mornings. She understood and it was no problem since we were usually at the SAG areas and coffee together anyway. I was glad I didn’t see her tip over—those are lasting images regardless if the rider gets hurt or not.

John was riding sweep duties and coming down a hill when a lady couldn’t decide if she should slow down and wait for him or speed up & go in front. Her delayed reaction had her making a last minute decision and she cut right in front of John sending him skidding down. She stopped to apologize but she couldn’t put the skin back on his backside or the paint back on his bike. He didn’t show us his injuries but he had to keep moving today so he didn’t’ tighten up.

Our last day of riding…people have been asking if I’m ready to be done…I can’t answer that easily. I’m ready to be with my family, ready to return to the familiar, but I could easily turn right at the Atlantic & follow the coast for the winter if my family could come along-and my biking family.

I didn’t sleep very much last night—I messed up the copy/paste on my Word doc. for my blog & ended up retyping it all. It may have been because I was tired or just antsy to get to bed. So at 12:00 when I finally put the computer down and made my way down the hall I got the wrong room & may have scared our host’s daughter a bit—I apologized to Rob at breakfast & explained. Then at 5:00 Cynthia’s alarm went off an hour early…just let us sleep—the guys will wait for us on the last day won’t they?

We got to the school and true to form they were all ready—get our bikes, fill our waters, grab a Cliff Bar and we’re off. We only make 2 miles and we had to make a stop—last night John visited with an owner of a local bakery and they were expecting us for a donut.

When we mounted up again the ride took us through suburban areas but we didn’t always know where we were—NY, PA, & NJ—they ran into each other it seemed. When we asked a guy on the street what state we were in he yelled back, “NY” and gave a look that said he thought we were out of our minds…well, sometimes we are.

When we were 35 miles into the morning we stopped for coffee. We only had 15 miles to go for the meeting area where all 200 & some riders could gather and all ride to the finish together with a police escort. I was so jittery I had a hard time keeping it under wraps. We were told in Seattle at our first meeting that we would all take a turn going down at some point on the ride—I hadn’t yet and really didn’t plan to do it on the last day. (I’ve only tipped one time and that was 17 yrs ago when Angela & I came upon a car in the ditch on an early morning ride.) One of my goals besides safety was to ride every mile of the tour—I was chanting a little prayer all morning for alertness, safety, and to finish strong.

The restaurant for our break was right on the route and we could watch others go on. At coffee time some were ordering a bigger breakfast but I didn’t want much & ordered caffeine, to keep me awake, and a roll. The roll was so big I had a hard time eating it all.

We figured this would be the last time we’d be together as a group without other riders, family & friends around—so we held hands and had a final prayer together around the breakfast table, just like we did when we finished the other stages of the tour. John led the prayer—again we joked that the food would get cold if we had one of our preachers say it. It was a prayer of thanksgiving, for the food, safety, and friendships. It was also a prayer for the purpose of the ride—poverty and those that don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

Jerry’s chain broke yesterday and he had a problem with it earlier today—it got him in but he did have to do some fixing on it. For the last few days I’ve been saying an extra prayer that my bike holds up. After knowing about Jake’s carbon seat post and John DP’s carbon front fork snapping, my carbon fiber seat beam was adding to my prayer list along with my bottom bracket concerns.

Because of stop lights we broke apart—Louis & I in the back. We came up to Corinne S & rode with her until the next SAG stop—her parents were going from SAG to SAG and encouraging her in—it was cool because she was so excited too. While climbing one of our last city hills I was shifting into lower gears & my chain came off. Crap! The other day I shifted and moved my derailleur over, soft pedaled, and got my chain back on. Now going up hill I had to dismount, use my fingers while my chain was dirty & put it back on manually. Louis stopped with me until I was ready to roll again. We went over another hill & saw Bill & Rita W & Anne M. taking photos of the NY & NJ skyscrapers in the distance. Louis stopped but I started down the hill & stopped where Andy H. was taking photos. We all went to the meeting area from there.

We had a few hours to knock off before it was time for us to leave there. It gave us time to walk around and say goodbyes to some. It’s too bad we didn’t get to know some of the last stage riders better. I got a kick out of Ralphy Boy, John DV & Jim DG. and many others.

I saw Melissa Klooster cleaning a scuffed up area on her leg—she went down & another rider rode over top of her—wrecked her vest & jersey—she’ll be sore on the way home.

As people gathered a photo was taken of all the cyclists who had Brooke’s saddles—I think this was the most saddles of this kind on a ride. Then we took a final group photo of the riders. Randy & Fred missed the photo, and a few others, because Fred had a few flats along the way on the last day—just had to be a statistic one more time.

Tyler B. came to join us for the last 10 miles so he & Cynthia went to the front—so they didn’t get caught in a pack of bikers in case someone would go down they would have the reaction time they’d need.

As we were getting ready to go the last 10 miles Ed V was giving directions. We had to follow Billie D & him; they were on the motorcycle behind the police escort, and stay in one lane but to take up the whole lane. It was really a privilege to ride through the streets we did with a police escort. I know it took more than Ed will ever let on to get the cooperation of 3 police departments to help us the last 10 miles.

We had pot holes, cracks, manhole covers, and cobblestones to ride on the last 10 miles. The police stopped traffic on busy roads, bridges, and Liberty State Parkways for us—and lots of the time cars were honking for us when they didn’t even know what was going on.

As we entered the park and we saw family and others from our support staff cheering it hit me that we were at the finish—a few tears started to fall. We all went down the shoreline in a long row, stopped and said the Lord’s Prayer together, and all walked to the water to dip our front tire—very cool.

Photos, hugs and rejoicing all around.

Pack the bikes up, head over to the school by Faith Community Church, clean up for dinner. We were tired and alert all at the same time. As I was packing my bike Brian told me that when I shipped my hard case home from Seattle some one removed all my tools that I had inside. I think I’ll have a talk with the UPS Company when I get home. I’m missing a new pedal wrench, rubber mallet, packing skewers for my front & rear forks, metric wrench set, and more. Oh well, plan B—Brian always comes prepared and we made due with the tools he always takes along when we travel—he’s a keeper.

The hotel was on the way to the school so I stopped to shower there, put on some of Brian’s clothes until I could find my own, and got to the school. It looked like organized chaos—some people taking their bikes apart, some unloading the gear trailer, others removing the decals from the kitchen truck & gear truck—it was energy in motion of a different kind. Then off to the final dinner and rally at Cedar Hill CRC—I need to stop eating—I’ll start tomorrow. It was a long time since that roll at breakfast.:-)

I met more people who were blog readers and were praying us up along the journey—thank you for that. I was very tired during the rally that night but tried to stay focused. John & I were interviewed and I had to watch what I said—I usually zone when I’m tired or get really giggly—I know I biffed one question because I just couldn’t focus. One question the man asked was what drew us to the ride. John answered first & my first reaction was to mention the funky tan lines & weight loss program—I behaved myself.

Some final stats:

• 195 falls—from tipping over because of not being able to quick unclip to hospital bound
• 819 flats—combined total of all the riders
• 28 flats—Eritia Smit had the most for the 9 week trip
• 36 flats—most flats in a day—and it was today, our last riding day
• 11 no flats— the numbers of riders that started in Seattle & went to the finish in New Jersey.

Final photos and goodbyes—more like, “I’ll see you laters” are tough after 2-9 weeks together. I really think I’m going to see many of these people again on future CRWRC work projects, or something like it, but time will tell.