Donald Miller and the Ride:Well Team Bike America

We are in the middle of week three, but I wanted to tell you a funny story from the end of Week Two. Friday of last week we rode from Socorro New Mexico to Capitan New Mexico, about 95 miles away. It was a day of errors and adventure for me that had a great ending. I left town a few minutes early knowing the next person to leave would catch me because I was waking up slow. But I ended up turning the wrong way on a street and found myself on the opposite side of town.

I realized I had made a mistake and headed back through town to catch New Mexico One out of town. I went about four miles before checking my map, which is when I realized I had gone the wrong way again. I went back to town and asked a gal at the gas station which way to go and she said my map was wrong and I had gone the right way in the first place. So I headed back down New Mexico One, only I was a good ten miles behind the pack. The problem with this is that Friday was a desert day and if I missed water drops I could have easily gotten into trouble, especially since we had no cell reception all the way to Capitan.

Anyway, I was fortunate in that Jesse and Brianne had a flat and I ended up catching them an hour later. That was the good news. The bad news was the first 40 miles after catching the back end of the group were a light uphill climb into a headwind. It was literally as hard as climbing a 6% grade for forty miles. At one point I was on flat ground, standing and grinding to get up to 7 miles per hour. It was going to be a long day. Much of the group stopped at lunch and wisely decided to rest their bodies in the van because we had another long ride the next day. Plus we were all running very late. But I decided to give it a try, and for a while was rewarded. We climbed a steep road and then dropped for ten miles or so into the other side of the mountain range. But after the downhill the wind picked up again for the next ten or so miles.

So by the time we got to a town about 20 miles from our destination, I was done. Literally, my body couldn’t go much further. And we still had a twenty-mile ride ahead, including 8 or so miles into the wind, and then a mountain climb up to Capitan. I had no intention of doing it until Jesse and a group of girls decided to try it. I watched them take off and realized I had to give it a go. I ended up riding about five miles before getting off my bike. I really didn’t think I could do it. I called a friend and told him that I think I might have to get in the van. It would be the first time I’ve gotten in the van yet (save a two mile drive when I had a flat and the sun had gone down and they wouldn’t let me ride anymore) but I was fine with it. I knew I would be worthless the next day if I tried the climb.

But I got saved! By a hail storm.

So for the last hour or so, pedaling into the wind, a storm had been brewing up in the mountains. Dark clouds were coming out of the canyons and I could see sheets of rain falling into a distant valley. Where I was, I could see for many miles, tomorrows weather, it seemed. But the storm started coming in more quickly and I knew it was going to get close to me. Still, it looked as though the storm were going to pass in front of me and allow me to come in behind it.

Just when I figured I might make it through, a mini-van passed me and I heard it slowing and stopping behind me. I got off my bike and turned to see the van turn around and come back toward me. At first I thought they were just coming to see if I needed a ride to escape the rain, at which point I would have explained to them that I didn’t, because I thought it would pass before me. But the van didn’t stop. It raced by me at full speed as though running from something. Then I noticed that three more cars were turning around, and then I noticed why. There was a giant sheet of white hail pounding the asphalt about two-hundred yards down the road behind me. I’d never even noticed that storm because I’d been watching the one ahead. Hail was cracking against the asphalt and it was as though a curtain of white-rocks was heading my way, almost as quickly as the cars were running from it. I looked around and there wasn’t anything I could get under to protect myself from the storm. There wasn’t a tree or a building or anything. I was in the worst possible spot.

So I stuck out my thumb and waved to try to get a ride from the cars running from the storm but nobody stopped. The cars were seriously gunning it to get away from the hail. And then the storm hit, and the hail came down so hard I felt like a thousand guys were hiding in trees shooting b.b. guns at me. The ice was cracking against my helmet and my hands that were covering my face.

The only structure near me was a wooden-ranch fence so I dropped the bike and started running for the fence (seriously, as though hiding under a horizontal piece of one-inch thick wood would have done anything) and just then a couple guys flew off the road and through the ditch and stopped their car between me and the fence. They threw open the back door and I jumped into the car. It was two hispanic men and as I shut the door the hail storm got worse and began pounding the top of the car. It was coming down so hard we couldn’t even talk, and I remember thinking that any minute the glass windows were going to shatter. After about a minute, I thanked the guys and realized they didn’t speak any english. We worked through broken spanish and english to laugh a little and they definitely knew I was grateful.

Then I realized that I was sitting snug into a child’s seat. No kidding. I was sitting in a baby seat in the middle of a field speaking broken spanish. A great ending to a great day. After the storm let up, we got my bike out of the ditch and put it in the trunk. The guys were going to run me into town. But then Gregg and Drew came up in the van. Gregg captured some of that on video. So here is the clip. In the end, an awesome adventure. Plus, I didn’t have to climb that mountain! I got off on a technicality. So I still haven’t ridden in the van, officially. Of the 1033 miles in week one and two, I’ve ridden about 1030 of them. We will see if i can last through week three

I am sitting in my friend Jordan and Mindy’s living room, just having woken up on Sunday morning. Last night we pedaled from Hope Arizona to Anthem, right outside Phoenix. The day started at 3:30 in the morning and ended fairly dramatically as the small group that made it in before sunrise pedaled into the church as the sun went down behind the mountains, exploding in as much heat as color. There was a group on the sidewalk as we turned the corner. Only six miles before, Jesse and Briane, Mike Barrow and I were leaning against a railing discussing the fact that we didn’t think we had the energy to bike the last few miles of our all-day journey. But somehow we made it happen. Mike brought us in on a long, last downhill (Thank God) and we had survived the first week of our epic journey. Add to that my friends Jordan and Mindy were on the corner with the small crowd, and I can’t tell you how great it was to see their faces. Or to know they would feed us and give us a bed.

We have been told the first two weeks are the hardest weeks of the tour. Week one was certainly hard. But it was doable. The adrenalin of starting the ride lasted a few days, then on about day four (110 miles) I began to realize that I was going to be riding this bike for a long, long time. Much longer than I ever realized. Essentially, I will be living on my bike. I will eat cereal, read the paper and watch television on my bike. I will get married and have children on that bike.

Some personal hi-lights:

• Riding through the streets of Los Angeles, dodging traffic, stopping at the walk of fame, the entire team together.

• Deciding not to hitch a ride and to finish day one in the mountains. Aaron Smith caught a ride up to us and finished the last climb with me. He stayed behind me and just talked as I pedaled. He talked about what a great trip it was going to be, how proud he was that I was doing the climb. And after about an hour we crested the summit and topped out at 42 miles per hour down the windy road into Palmdale.

• Convenient stores. Previously I thought convenient stores attached to gas stations were dirty and smelly and to be avoided. But I was wrong. They are beautiful shops filled with cold things and wonderful fashions including t-shirts with wolves howling at the moon. They are air conditioned and filled with friendly people and if nobody is looking you can go to the back isle and lay your hot sweaty body on their cold dirty floor, or you can crawl in under the beer in the freezer and take a nap. When I get home I am going to sell the condo and buy one of these places and live in it.

• Joshua Tree: We rode out of 29 palms an because we had a downhill I broke away from the lead group a bit. I ended up thirteen miles out and was running out of water. I hadn’t seen a sign of civilization (or a tree for that matter) for thirty miles and had run out of water. I rounded a corner and saw a truck coming toward me and waved my water bottle at the truck. The guy stopped and pulled out a cooler of ice water and filled both my bottles and my camel back. I got back on my bike and kept pedaling and made mile 50 within three hours of having left. That was a great morning. Add to that I cheated and pulled out my I-pod shuffle and listened to the Joshua Tree Album while pedaling through Joshua Tree. I prayed and asked God to not let me get caught listening to my i-pod (we aren’t allowed for safety reasons. It’s a very good rule, actually) but the van came up behind me (I didn’t hear it for some reason) and I got caught. Luckily I am still allowed to ride with the team. But I am on probation.

• Completing my first century. It was awesome.

• Completing my second century. It was kind of awesome, but I think these things are overrated now.

• The team: I can’t tell you how much I enjoy each member of the team. Nobody gets on my nerves. These are truly great people. Very laid back, fun, hard working and thoughtful. We are having terrific conversations. So good.

• Having our van fixed in Los Angeles. THANKS THANKS THANKS FOR YOUR HELP

• The Diamondback Game. Today, the Arizona Diamondbacks have given us a suite at the game against Kansas City. That is huge for us. We’ve been roughing it for a long time and this is a great treat as we wrap up week one and move into week two. I can’t wait.

Some unfortunate lowlights:

• The doping controversy: As you know, cycling and steroids have had a long, dark relationship. Our team is, unfortunately, no exception. Each day we are drug tested and on Wednesday of last week several of our team members tested positive. After a long, last sprint to the finish tuesday, the team suspected that Mindy Gunter was doping and sure enough that evening she tested positive. And last night Mike Barrow found uncommon strength at the end of the ride in order to finish first on the longest ride of the year. Mike is fifty-five and so we made him pee in a cup.

Do pray for us and the steroid controversy as it has the potential to ruin the team and negatively affect our campaign. Also, if anybody has a testing kit we could really use one. Right now we just hold the cup up to the light and smell it and swish it around like a glass of wine. Then we go with our gut.

Okay, pics from week one: