One last post for our trip ... Yesterday was a day of firsts. For the first time all week we finished biking by 1 PM. For the first time all week we broke 1800 feet in elevation. Our high point was at the check in station at Rollins ... the second highest was on the hill above Camp Hickory Hill at 1778 feet. The last first was related to our ongoing speed question ... Our max speed yesterday was 41.0! Making it the first day that ya officially topped 40. Our average moving was 12.6. More notes from the week ... Our lowest moving speed was 3.1 mph on Monday on route 20A just past 77 ... that was the toughest incline me the week. Total distance for the week was 351 miles & total time in the saddle was 27 hours 52 minutes. Giving us an average for the week of about 12.6 mph. Thanks for reading and praying for us ... The families will be here shortly so we can have clean clothes
again!

Rollins! We have arrived ... Going to sleep until the family comes tomorrow. Where were we? Bass Pro Shop in Auburn.

Good morning a little late from county number thirteen. Sorry that we didn't post last night but we were out of cell phone range. At this point we are taking a break in Tupper Lake. We are only ten miles away from our destination. Yesterday we arrived at our church stop at lunch and decided to forge ahead ... We were planning to find a trail to pull off on to camp, but found no suitable locations. So after riding more we came across Cranberry Lake state park. All told we rode nearly 73 mile and climbed most of our elevation for the trip. Yesterday's max speed was 31.2 and the moving average was 12.6. Finally the answer you've been waiting for. Two days ago Ray hit a snake with his bike. Not as exciting as a moose but not nearly as dangerous either. The answer to 'where were we' is coming later after our arrival at Rollins Pond.

Dead phones

We are almost out out power on both phones, so unless we can plug in somewhere, this may be one of the last posts till family arrives.

Cranberry Lake Camp Ground

Well, we made it to Cranberry Lake. We spent the night at the campground there. However, we are experiencing radio silence. We are 20 miles from Tupper lake and 30 from Rollins Pond. We are going to push through today and set up camp at Rollins Pond this afternoon, 1 day early (barring any major bike problems).

Saturday's Ride

Time for lunch. We are about 65 miles from our final destination - Rollins Pond.

We must be getting close. We are only 9 miles from the next church, so it looks like we may eat lunch there and press onward & upward.

Where were we? Part last.

If you look very closely you may see that our flags are starting to fray just like Dan's did.

One quick post. Yesterday max

One quick post. Yesterday max was 39.7 & average was 13.0

Friday's Ride

Where are-were we? Part cuatro

Welcome to Watertown! Now in our tenth county, Tyler & I have seen large expanses of farmland - some even go to great lengths by labelling their crops so that we know what they are growing. We've also seen a lot ofwildlife ... Deer, enormous hawks, fox, dead frogs all along the road. Which brings me to tonight's question ... What kind of live animal did Ray hit with his bike today? Since we are highlighting Ray today ... you would be correct in deducing that our only flat tire of the trip thus far was Tyler. Tomorrow looks to be a lighter biking day ... But it may be another wet one. Time to eat dinner ... Oh goody! Another MRE! Soon a new clue for the 'where are we' game ... Although, we should start calling it the 'where were we' game, cuz we aren't there anymore. :-D

Tyler said to send the lighthouse picture for Barbie

Lake Ontario ... 17 miles from Watertown

Ray's doing the dishes ...

Looks like a good spot for lunch.

Lemonade tastes great in Mexico!!

Nuts ... Wrong direction!

Dan can sing you the song ...

BTW ... yesterday maximum was

BTW ... yesterday maximum was 35.2 & moving average was 12.4

Where are we? Part drei ... Remember that these are all the same place & we're looking for something specific.

Waking up from our 8th county this morning ... Thanks again to Pastor Carl & Community Wesleyan for their hospitality. Only 72 miles to Watertown!

Thursday's Ride

Where are we? Part deux.

We have arrived at Community Wesleyan Church in Baldwinsville just outside Syracuse. Pastor Carl has taken extremely good care of us since it rained on us since lunch. We have access to the dryer and have taken advantage of that. Another dinner. Another MRE. The answer to the stop light question ... We went thru 11 and were stopped by 2 ofthose. A new question tonight ... And it's a 50-50 one ... Who do you guess had our first flat tire, and only flat to this point? And no, Dan & Dan, it wasn't Rob!

Where are we? More clues coming.

Tyler picked up a lil' something something.

Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls?

Significance?

Geneva NY

Good morning from our fifth county. I know many of you are anxious for the answer to yesterday's speed questions. Maximum was 35 mph and the moving average was 12.5 mph. To make it simpler I'm not putting anything in metric. Today is a little longer ride. We'll be doing over 66 miles, but hopefully fewer hills. Thank you for the comments & encouragements you posted. Mary has been reading them to us. Keep praying, today may be wet.

Wednesday's Ride

Tyler is having his military issued cappuccino.

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Tyler found his parking spot!

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Thank you to Crosswinds Wesleyan Church for giving us a patch of ground to pitch the tent. Tonight's question: how many traffic-stop lights did we pass through & how many of those did we have to stop at?

Ding dong ... 40 miles done & stopping for lunch.

Time to tell you the stats from yesterday ... Maximum speed was 62.4 kph & average speed was 16.4 ... For those who are having a tough time figuring out what that means in America, maximum was 38.9 & average was 10.2 ... Today we are looking at one of our longer rides - 64.9 miles, just a little more than a Metric Century. It's about the same distance as Roswell, but this time we have loaded bikes. You can check the elevations me each ride using the map that is hopefully in the post below. We start the day with a steep descent and then we are relatively level the rest of the day. Keep praying for us. Our Lord is with us.

Tuesday's Ride

Do you know???

Varysburg, the home to Camp Hickory Hill, where we spent our first night, was purchased in______ (what year) and what was the purchase price?

Please use your best guess, no fair looking up this info.

Well we arrived at Hickory Hill. We're set up in an adirondack shelter down by the pond. All in all it took about 3 hours to ride ... Some big inclines but we're showered and ready for dinner.

7 miles from camp, we ran out me water, God provided a nice couple to give us water.

We stopped for a break at a restaurant to fill up water bottles ... It was closed. 12 miles to camp.

Finally, on the road, see you Sunday, Boys!!!

It's Official, 1:04 pm-- the boys are gone, down the road.

And We're Off ...

Ready to go ... somewhat

So ... tomorrow Tyler is coming to my house so that we can leave. We should be departing the house around 2:00 PM and heading to Camp Hickory Hill in Varysburg, NY. Our two sons are at the camp this week, so we'll see them around dinner time. If you've never heard of Camp Hickory Hill, check out their website. This is a great boys camp, affiliated with Christian Service Brigade. Both Tyler & I grew up attending & working at the camp ... most of what I learned about ministry (before I began my full-time career), I learned at CHH. Tomorrow's ride will be fairly short (only about 25 miles), but will contain some of the most difficult climbs of the entire trip. It's either great that we'll get them out of the way while we're fresh ... or it'll stink because we will tire out on the first day ... I'm hoping for the first.



This will be the last blog post that I put on the site before we are on the road. From now on, we'll be posting using my phone, so the posts will be shorter and possibly a little cryptic. We won't have too many fancy games to play each day (like our friend who recently crossed the US on bike), but we'll try to have some. Unfortunately we cannot check the blog until we return home on August 8th. Just for fun ... and to make our trip sound more impressive (for Dan Richbart's sake) I'm thinking that I'll be posting all of our stats for the day in metric.

To start the games ... what will our maximum speed be each day? or our average moving speed? You can post by clicking comments just below this blog.

Almost Time

So Tyler came over to the house today to go over what we had & what we still needed. I think we're basically ready to ride on Monday. We've decided to go with fewer MREs for meals while we're on the road ... that's OK because they are easily the heaviest things that we are carrying. However ... I need to re-hash an earlier post ... it was about Tyler shopping for the appropriate meals for our trip. Check it out here. In that post, I made a comment about how I was training for the trip and Tyler was shopping for food for the trip -- not only that, but he didn't even get what we needed. Long story short ... he has yet to find any more MREs since that day ... and most of the MREs he bought that day ARE meatless. So his fussing about buying no vegetarian meals has back-fired. That's OK though ... since the MREs are laiden with calories anyway. Penne Pasta & Imitation Pork Ribs here we come!!!!

Tomorrow I plan to take a fully loaded bike on the road for the first time. We'll see it handles ... and how it handles me!

Warm-up ride

I rode out Millersport and back down Transit today--16.5 miles. Tried my seat a slight bit high and learned quickly that you can have your seat toooo high. It took about 7 miles and the bottom of my feet were sore and I had a nice case of saddle numbness. So the seat is back down where it was.

Getting close.....

Looks as though we will be leaving a day early; probably Monday. Weather report doesn't look great. We may be riding in the rain at least once. So....I went for a ride on the wet road. The tires take some getting use to as they don't grip the road so good when they're wet. The brakes lock easily because the tires don't have enough friction.

Tomorrow we go through our equipment to see who's got what equipment and make final decission on what we're bringing.

Check out this week's adventure ...

Our youth group is in Newark, NJ to work with a Haitian church. Check out our youth group's blog ... http://shine09.wordpress.com

FINISHED!

My calves started to cramp so I an eating a 'ba-mana'!

40 mile mark. Wind is

40 mile mark. Wind is a little stiff ... But all in all doing well. We'll see how it goes in July when we add hills.

Riding with Pastor Todd and his son Levi.

Third rest stop. Halfway to the end. Levi has already eaten six sandwiches.

Second pitstop. Feeling really good.

Second pitstop. Feeling really good. I'm riding today in memory of Mary's mom who went home to be with Jesus almost 18 years ago.

First pit stop.

Waiting at the starting line. Looks like a great turnout for the ride.

Getting ready for the ride at UB. Levi and Todd pumping up a tire.

So it's been a while ...

I thought that I would take some time to let you all know what's been going on ...


I finally got back on my bike this morning ... it's been a few weeks. I've been battling plantar faciitis on and off for the last 13 years. This year was the year to finally start taking care of it as it became less of a nuisance and more of a constant pain. My podiatrist says that it won't affect my bike riding so the trip is still a go. However, the last few weeks have caused some intense pain that made it so I didn't even want to step foot out of bed in the morning (my time to bike). I working through some treatments now and decided I just needed to suck it up and ride. So I did. I rode my general training route "around the block." It felt great to be back on the bike, listening to Scripture. This Saturday is also the Ride for Roswell ... looks like it will be a good day for the ride.


The other thing that got in my way of riding (only slightly) was my father's health. He was down in Mississippi last week doing some work for his mission and suffered a fairly serious heart attack. After assessing the situation, my mom & I flew down to be with him and bring him home. All in all, Dad was very blessed by the Lord to still be with us. After I returned on Sunday night, my parents followed on Tuesday evening. Dad is home now, resting! He joked with me that he has now decided that he won't be joining Tyler & me on the ride to the ADK.

Oh well ... Saturday is the Ride for Roswell ... a Metric Century or 100 km ride (that's about 62 miles for all you old school types). I hope to do some blogging during the ride so that we can test the reliability of doing so in July. Check back on Saturday morning to see how the ride is going.

Speaking of that ride in July ... I've finally secured a place for us to stay the first four nights on the road. We'll be staying at Wesleyan churches all along the way, until the last night in Tupper Lake. Tyler & I have decided to play that night by ear and simply cruise into town and find a spot to pitch our tent. I'll give advance thanks for all the places we'll be staying ... Camp Hickory Hill (Varysburg, NY), Crosswinds Wesleyan Church (Canandaigua, NY), Community Wesleyan Church (Baldwinsville, NY), Grace Wesleyan Church (Watertown, NY), and East Pitcairn Wesleyan Church (Harrisville, NY).

The next few weeks are crazy for me & the family. VBS in Orchard Park, followed by a mission trip to Newark, NJ ... then a week at home before we head off on the bikes. I believe the countdown is at 33 days. It's a-coming.

Sunday with Dan

Our prayers are continually with Dad and Mom. They are planning on returning to Williamsville on Tuesday.

I spent the day riding with Dan Richbart. He took it easy on me and only travelled 62 miles. The wind was light, but seemed to be in our face most the day. But that didn't bother me, I followed Dan all day.

One thing that I realized that I need to bring this summer is sunscreen. I got slightly crispy in a couple paces. It also appears that I have developed an acute case of cyclesundosis.

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/oh/-nepolean-to-fremont/519124562810766394

I got wet!

28 mile training ride today and it started rain around mile 15. I was a bit chilled and I heard thunder in the distance, so I called Mona for a ride. My bike performed well in the rain, but I was definitely hydro-planing at times. I filled my panniers up with MREs so I carried plenty of weight and still managed to go under two hours.

I will probably do this route again at some point, as I was actually hoping to get to Cincinnati.

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/oh/dayton/164124464797479181

How slow can you go?

Took the family out on the bike trail today. This was the first time I made Bubba ride by himself. We went 5 miles out and 5 back and averaged 5.7 mph!

This was also the first time on the new road tires. They felt smooth and fast, but didn't really get the chance to open-it-up because of the blistering pace the fam was doing.

I guess I won't add this trip to map-my-ride.

Riding vs. Shopping

I can understand my brother's concern with what we are going to eat, but ... come on! While I toil away on my bike, training for this ride, he tells you about going shopping for food ... and he doesn't even leave the store with what we need!!!! Unbelievable!

Can't say much in my own defense though ... today was the first day I've been on the bike since last Saturday. However, I addressed my bike ride this morning a little differently than normal. I did my standard 10.84 mile loop around the "block" (if you haven't seen it before, check out the course by clicking on the button below).

This morning, I decided to increase my speed a little. Each time out on this loop in May, I finished the ride in 47-48 minutes. That puts my mph around high 13s, low 14s. As I've been reading on mapmyride, that indicates a medium effort workout. High effort/intensity begins at 15 mph ... so this morning I wanted to average at least 15 mph. I kept the average over 16 mph for almost 2/3 of the ride, but faded as I returned home into a stiff breeze. Still I was able to keep it above 15 mph ... 15.21 to be exact. Moreover, I shaved nearly 5 minutes off of my previous times ... almost 30 seconds per mile faster. Upon arriving home, I felt like I was about to die, and upon checking my water bottle realized that in my haste I had neglected my hydration (I only had about 5-6 oz.). Little lessons learned ... now it's up to me to remember them ... I bet that there's a sermon illustration in this one somewhere ...