Donald Miller and the Ride:Well Team Bike America

[sorry, this is a bit late]

It’s the final week of my ride across America. Today the Ride:Well Team will climb for 25 miles from Roanoke, Virginia up to the Blue Ridge Parkway where we will ride another 100 miles toward Washington, D.C. Then we will spend another day on the parkway before descending toward the Washington and the eastern shore of Deleware. It’s been an incredible ride that can only be described as epic. I’ll be blogging much more about it in the coming couple weeks, but wanted to share some thoughts with you before this final week begins.

Before leaving on this trip, I wasn’t 100% sure I could do this. I knew there would be multiple 100 mile days (there actually turned out to be ten or more, and much of the previous mileage we thought we’d be riding was “crow” miles not “road” miles) but somehow the entire team kept pedaling and we made it in every day. At the highest, we saw 118 degree temperatures (at the end of a 108-mile day) and at the lowest we rode in the frigid 40’s (first thing in the morning in the high desert of New Mexico. We rode over peaks as high as 8,000 feet, and rode one route that had us climbing for 98.8 miles. It’s truly mind numbing to think that we all did it.

What kept us going was the knowledge that with every mile we were raising awareness about folks in Africa who undergo these kinds of hardships as a way of life rather than a chosen adventure. And as we shared this message, we found the hearts of people in this country to be responsive. Back in Texas, I told a woman who worked at a gas station about what we were doing and before I could finish the sentence she pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket. I actually fell asleep a little later, right there in her gas station, and awoke to hear her talking to somebody else about how her car had been reposessed that very day. I think everybody on the team has a similar story. It’s been amazing to have so much of my cynicism allayed and pushed back by the truly good hearts of the people who live in this country.

On Thursday we will ride our bikes into the ocean. I am not sure how to feel. The team is tired and ready, and yet not at all ready to end our adventure. We want it to stop and yet want it to continue at the same time. After this long, I don’t know if we know of another way to live. We will actually miss the five-hour nights of sleep, the eight-to-ten hour days on the bike, the water stops and the conversations with strangers that feel like conversations with old friends. We’ve grown to depend on each other and lean on each other. We’ve had some very hard times and some very good times, too. I look forward to sharing with you as soon as I can how this whole thing ends. Right now I have no idea.

I will send out another e-mail update with a final report, probably to say we’ve completed our task, and then another in a couple weeks with final pictures and a final report. But for now, I want to thank you for taking this journey with us. Thanks for your encouragement and interest in what we’ve been doing over the last seven weeks. And thanks, especially, for supporting Blood:Water Mission.

If you’ve not donated yet, will you consider donating $20? I’d like to inform Jessica back in Texas how many people gave because they were inspired by her story. I think she’d be encouraged by that.

Okay, it’s 5:30 in the morning and we have to pedal out at 6. This thing is almost over. It’s been pretty cool. Thanks again for being a part. Blessings,

Donald Miller