DAILY BLOG

Just ran across this one:
http://www.telegram.com/article/20080629/NEWS/806290389/1101

We made it to Blythe, CA!

The two common enemies that cyclists often speak of are hills and the wind. However, the second straight day riding through desert temperatures of 104 degrees, I think I’d take either of those over the extreme heat. While we only had 82 miles to ride today, the heat zapped our energy levels to such an extent that it seemed like we rode twice that amount.

Knowing that Blythe was expected to hit over 115 degrees today, we started biking at sunrise to see if we could get all of our miles in before the worst of the day. We did! We averaged close to 17mph over the day’s miles, but had several stretches in which we were pacing at 23-25mph.

Leaving Brawley at dawn

Riding in formation

Justy taking his turn at the head of the pack

Jared looks at the camera

Yikes! Where are we?

When we departed Brawley, the terrain was flat agricultural land, with highway 78 going in a perfectly straight line for at least 20 miles. The terrain changed when the road turned northeast, and we began to experience the desert once again—Sahara desert like, complete with sand dunes. It was spectacular scenery.

Riding by the sand dunes

Spectacular scenery

Rich and Jared

Once we passed the dunes, we returned to the desolate, dry desert, but this time, we had a series of rolling hills, one right after the other, for several miles. After long stretches of straight, neverending roads, Jared and I were encouraged by the variation. We raced down the downhill and used our momentum to go up the uphill. We’d repeat that for each of the dips. When we hit this stretch around 10:00am, the temperature was well over 100.

The final stretch of the day was through Palo Verde and up towards Blythe. At this point, the roads were flat again, and the goal was simply to get there as quick as possible to get out of the heat. We were excited to get into Blythe by 12pm, giving us some extra free time this afternoon. And it is a good thing too—at 6:00pm, the temperature was 120 degrees!

Evangelism tip of the day: bring someone to Blythe. They’ll quickly want some “fire insurance”.

Rich

We are now settling into a routine, working together to load/unload the support van, etc. It is a full joy to do this as a family!

Jordan claiming victory at the dunes

Oh yeah, video camera update. It is definitely broken. We are going to see if we can get any low-cost alternative when we get to a store. Not sure if Blythe has a store or not. May need to wait until Prescott or Flagstaff. But we look forward to providing a full video update for the blog soon.

You can see all of our tour photos are: http://flickr.com/photos/expeditionaryman

And so it begins…

What a grueling day it was in the saddle! But before I talk about the oppressive heat, let me start with the beginning.

Before we could begin the actual biking today, we had to travel from Orange County, where we had the kick-off beach event last night, to our official starting point, at the San Diego Animal Park in Escondido. So, we packed up from my sister-in-law’s in Anaheim at 5:00am and arrived in Escondido at around 6:45am. After a brief breakfast stop at McDonalds, we arrived at the San Diego Animal Park at 7:00am to officially start the tour.

Rich and Jared ready to begin

After the five of us circled in prayer, Jared and I began the journey on our bikes, while Jordan, Justy, and Kim followed in the van. The temperature was actually a chilly 62 degrees, with morning fog in the mountains. After 3 miles of relative flat roads, highway 78 quickly started to ascend into the mountains. And climb we did!

Morning mountains

Rich and Jared ascending

For three straight hours, we climbed over 3,600 feet over 34 miles until we arrived at the quint town of Julian. Jared and I both were ready for a break, but felt pretty good after that first mountain climb.

We ate an early lunch at Julian, finding a nice park bench in the city center. I wish we would have had time to stop and walk through the town, as there were many neat shops and markets there.

The funnest part of the day for Jared and I came after we left Julian. We had about a 10-mile decent down the other side of the mountain into the desert. However, on the descent, I was struck by the total change in scenery that takes place when you leave the Julian community—rural/small town California turns into totally desolate, desert-like mountains. Jordan and Justy joined us on the ride at this point.

I can see for miles and miles

The four Wagners riding

However, as we descended from 4,000 feet to below sea level as we hit the desert “town” of Ocotillo Wells, one major factor soon came to dominate the day—the totally oppressive heat. Julian was in the 90s at lunch—hot, but doable. But when we hit the desert, the heat seemed to keep climbing—101, 103, 109, 111, and topping out at 114!

It actually hit 114 about 20 minutes after we shot this

I’ve ridden on two cross-country bike trips back in college, and today was, without question, the toughest conditions I’ve ever biked in. The swirling winds turned the road into a convection oven, burning as it blew across our face. (And anyone who says “well, it is a dry heat” should come out and experience it! ) Jordan and Justy picked the wrong time to ride, because they immediately faced this heat. They rode for awhile, but after 20 miles or so decided to return to the support van.

Within four minutes of getting a new water bottle from the car, the cool water became hot to drink. To help prevent dehydration, we used Hammer Endurolytes, which worked great for awhile, but I suspect there are limits to any electrolyte supplement in those extreme temperatures.

The heat began to takes it toll, and it soon started to get a bit scary from a health perspective. After about 60 miles, Jared began to experience light headedness, a symptom of potential heat problem, so we put him into the support vehicle to rest for a little while. He was really upset at getting off the bike, but our biking goal is to do our best, but not risk life & limb as we cross the country.

Jared, after succumbing to the heat

I continued on. What was most striking about the heat was the inability to even think clear headedly. I could not listen to my iPod. I had a hard time focusing on my prayers. So, I ended up stopping every 8-10 miles and cooling off in the AC in the support van. Poor Kim had to wait outside in the heat while I sat in her chair to clear my head.

After 45 minutes, Jared climbed back on the bike. His presence was a shot in the arm to me, and he began to set a strong 18-19 mph pace into the headwind. However, the heat once again got to him after 30 minutes, so we mutually decided that he should call it a day.

Rich going solo in the desert

I kept going for another 30 minutes, but when we were about 23 miles from Brawley, the heat claimed its final victim. After I began to shiver a little and feel lightheaded, we decided that it was not worth risking my health to bike those final miles into Brawley, so we packed up the bikes and headed to the hotel. Like Jared, I was disappointed not to ride every single mile, but believe we all the best we could given the conditions.

I can’t figure out how anyone would want to live in Brawley. When we ate supper at 7pm, the temperature was still 109 degrees. Definite Fire & Brimstone territory! Repent ye Brawleyians!

One major disappointment for us today was that our video camera broke this morning before we could even us it for the ride. The problem is that we had planned to capture a lot of video footage for a daily YouTube video blog update. We are exploring what video camera options we have, but we probably will not be able to do anything until we get to Prescott in a couple of days. So, we apologize for no video updates yet, but hope to have them coming shortly.

Tomorrow morning, we plan to start riding by 5:30 (sunrise at 5:37) so we can beat the heat (expected to be 117!!!!) as we ride to Blythe, CA. It’s a shorter than usual day (85 miles), so we hope to be able to get the ride done by noon if we ride strong.

Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement!

Quick note before we head to bed. We had a blast at the kick-off event at Huntington Beach.

Rich sharing about his book and the tour

Dipping tires in the Pacific

Impromtu interview

Jared, Kim, and Jordan

Sunset on Huntington Beach

Tomorrow morning, we leave in the support vehicle from Anaheim and will travel to Escondido. Once there, the bikes come off and we officially begin at 6am Pacific time. We’ll have a full report on Day #1 in the evening.

Wow, 1 day to go! Tonight we are having a kick-off event at Huntington Beach, in which among other things, we’ll dip our tires in the Pacific Ocean to ceremonially begin the tour. If you are in the in southern CA area, we’d love to have you join us at 6:00pm at the Huntington Beach Pier Plaza (north side of the pier). The Beacon Church (Anaheim, CA) is sponsoring this event.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the incredible help that Fezzari and Rack-n-Road were. Today, I’d want to express my gratitude to Zondervan, my publisher and our main tour sponsor, for their assistance in making sure we are back on our feet after Monday’s bike rack disaster. Zondervan has been incredible to work with on this tour, and we are so grateful for their coming through for us in a time of need.

Today, we traveled the final 700 miles from Utah to California to finish up our pre-bike tour road trip. Now, we have a couple days of final preparations before our Friday night kick-off BBQ and then the official start on Sat. The newly fixed bikes traveled fine on the new bike rack. It was great to go a day without any incidents. Thanks God!

The most original road name we’ve ever seen!

Best of all, we picked up my wife, Kim, at the airport this evening. She had to stay behind to work a few more days at the hospital (she’s a NICU nurse) while the boys and I drove cross country. So, now the entire family is here. The stage is set. We are ready to go!

We started out the day with the challenge of trying to get four damaged bikes repaired and obtain a new bike rack—all within the day so we could continue on to the west coast to begin our cross-country journey. God is good. If a disaster like we had yesterday was going to happen, He could not have put us in a better location than in Orem, Utah and connected us with two great companies, Fezzari and Rack-n-Road.

Fezzari team working on our bikes

At 10am, we headed over to Fezzari, our bicycle sponsors. Originally, we planned this brief stopover in Orem to meet with them and to get some publicity pictures, etc.. However, when we arrived with our broken bikes, they turned into a bicycle SWAT team, fully assessing each of the four bikes and repairing the broken parts. Jared’s bike came through essentially unscathed. The bikes of Jordan and Justy received moderate damage, though fully repairable. Unfortunately, my bike was a major loss—particularly the carbon fiber frame which was fully cracked and had to be scraped. (Rich is trying to hold back tears as he writes that!) However, they were able to salvage many parts from my old bike as they equipped me with a new replacement frame. In all, while the cost for the parts was significant and is a budget bender, Fezzari tried did their best to minimize the cost for us.

I can’t begin to express my appreciation to Chris Washburn, Fezzari’s president and his entire team for their efforts today, essentially putting their normal work on hold for several hours to help us out. If you need a road or mountain bike, check them out at Fezzari.com. They will take care of you!

At 2:30pm, we headed up to Salt Lake City to go the nearest Rack-n-Road store. Rack-n-Road sponsored us with the original bike rack. We called them and told them of our accident. Ryan Lower, the manager, ended up squeezing us into his already filled schedule and replaced the old one with a new hitch-mounted rack (instead of a roof mounted). We are so thankful to Rack-n-Road for their speedy resolution to the problem (thanks Jennifer and Ryan!!!). Please check them out online at racknroad.com if you need a sports rack on your vehicle.

Bikes on the new bike rack

At 4:15pm, we headed back to the hotel—with the four bikes now fully repaired and a new bike rack on the back of the vehicle. As we did so, we realized just 24 hours earlier, we were picking up the bike carnage on Rt. 6 in southern Utah. What a difference a day makes. God is amazing, answering our prayers, engineering the circumstances, and putting us in contact and proximity with some great, unbelievably helpful people. We definitely see God’s hand on this tour already—before we begin the first mile!

Each of our bikes have now various scratches and dings from the accident, which should be a major bummer since we’ve been caring for the new bikes so meticulously since we got them back in January. However, I loved the way the boys described these flaws—calling them “battle scars”. It is a great real life reminder that as we go through life’s battles, we’re all going to get dinged, dented, and scratched up in this imperfect, fallen world. However, as we rely on and trust in Jesus Christ in the midst of trials, he’s gives us the strength to persevere. Then, when we look at our battle scars after the trial is all over, they serve as visible reminders of God’s constant presence with us through those difficult times. That said, during the bike tour, each time I look at my dented & dinged brake lever, it will remind me of how God was with us today. Praise Him.

Today, we headed west from Colby, Kansas to Orem, Utah. Up until 4:00pm, the tour was uneventful.

The bike rack three hours before the accident occurred

However, when we turned off I-70 West to Rt. 6 North in rural, desolate Utah, everything suddenly changed for us on our routine pre-bike tour trip out to the west coast. An afternoon storm arose in the valley we were going through that produced a wicked cross-wind of at least 50-60mph. I began to be a bit concerned about the four bikes on the roof rack, knowing that the cross-wind must be putting a lot of pressure on the rack. But, given the 2-lane highway we were on, there were no real places to stop or even slow down. So we preceded on. However, within 5 minutes, I suddenly heard a loud noise and immediately looked in the rear view mirror to see what happened…I saw the four bikes attached to the bike rack smash down on the highway and slide over to the shoulder of the road.

Disaster yes, but it could have been far worse…Praise the Lord that on the relatively busy highway, no one was behind us! That accident could have been a real disaster!

We jumped out of the vehicle and went to retrieve the damage. Not only did we have to deal with the fact that our bikes were seriously damaged just days before our bike tour is scheduled to begin, but our bike rack was unusable. So, in a vehicle already stuffed full with supplies, we had to figure out how to somehow fit four bikes and a bike rack in the cabin to make it to our hotel. If you would have seen the filled vehicle before, you would surely have said it was not possible. But, with God’s hand watching over us, we bent some law of physics and somehow were able to miraculously fit them in there.

Miraculously fitting the wreckage inside the cabin

In a grand (providential) irony, our whole purpose in traveling to Orem in the first place is to visit our bicycle sponsors, Fezzari. We had scheduled a brief visit and quick tune up for tomorrow, but now we have to head there for “disaster recovery” and determine just how serious the damage is. From the looks of things, my bike took the brunt of the impact, shattering the handlebars, rear derailleur, chain, and perhaps even the frame. The other three bikes received minor to moderate damage, but should be be repairable.

Rich’s fallen bike

Rich’s frame took the brunt of the fall

Assessing the damage back at the hotel

We would appreciate your prayers as we seek to get our bikes back in working order tomorrow, so we can get out to California to begin the tour on time this Saturday.

As a father, one of the special things about today’s events are seeing how the boys lived out their faith today in the midst of the crisis. Even while we were picking up the carnage on the side of the road, I heard Jordan encouraging his brothers about how God will use this situation. On the drive to the hotel, each of them were offering their bikes to me in case mine is not repairable. Later on at supper, each of them talked with a confidence of God’s hand in the events. They proved a great encouragement to me not be allow myself to be anxious or stressed out about the various logistics and financial and schedule ramifications, and to simply trust in the Lord.

We made it to Indiana on our “pre-bike tour road trip” across America, staying at my parents’ house for a brief 1-day stay before we head further west. Unfortunately, Jared came down with a stomach bug today. We’re praying that he’ll be over it before we spend all day driving tomorrow in the support vehicle!

With Jared sleeping on the couch, Jordan, Justy, and I got a chance to get in a 30-mile ride in this afternoon. For Jordan and Justy, it was their first chance to ride in the flatlands of Indiana. They loved the chance to shed hilly terrain—at least for one day.

We live in New England, but are starting the bike tour in southern California. Therefore, before we can begin biking, we need to head west! Tomorrow morning (June 20), we begin our “pre-tour road trip”. Heading out from New England in the support vehicle with our bikes on top, we’ll travel 3,000 miles to southern California, so we can begin our bike tour on June 28. Our plans are to make stops in Indiana, Kansas, Utah, and then California over the next few days. We are a bit concerned about the inability to train over the next week, but we’ll try and squeeze a short ride in here or there.

Rich packing the support vehicle

Packing up the Hammer Gel