Photo Series

Hey there everyone. Most of you probably know me as ‘frontpage’ or my adopted blog farewell of ‘MB’. I wanted to share with you all a cartoon series that my sister did while she was in high school of my dad’s cross country bike trip. During a summer in college my dad and uncle rode their bikes from Boston to San Francisco.Unlike us, they did not have a support vehicle and camped every night. It’s funny now that we are doing such a similar ride to my dad’s. Never really saw myself as the cross country bike type but here I am.

Enjoy.

Day 48-51: Onward West We Go

Today the ride was dedicated to the woman we met yesterday in Yellowstone. After learning about our organization’s mission, she informed Michaeline and I that the reason she was in the park with her two sons, was because her husband had originally planned the trip. Unfortunately, he died of colon cancer earlier this year in April.

Sorry for going incognito on all the daily readers out there. We have been camping in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone the past three days. I know I have made this claim about more than one state before, BUT Wyoming was definitely the best state we have passed through so far. (don’t let dissenters Phil and Tyler tell you otherwise). While in Dubois we met a dude who was completing a world tour on his bike. He plans to ride from Miami to Portland, take a freight boat to China and Kazakhstan, through Europe, and back to the US. He thinks the trip will take around 3 years. If interested, look up ChefAustinHarley on Instagram. Even though his riding style did not exactly match ours, he was an exceedingly interesting man to converse with.

Most of us had not heard of the Tetons before this trip but they were absolutely amazing. For those of you who also were unfamiliar, picture snowcapped mountains with jagged tops and a pristine lake below. We even spent a few hours wading in the lake during our rest day.

We spent yesterday biking 80 miles through Yellowstone. We got to see Old Faithful erupt and turquoise hot springs. To be honest, most of the way in Yellowstone I was counting down the miles until we would finish because of the excess amount of cars and people made riding on the shoulder a little scary. However, it was really cool to see all the wildlife. We witnessed a stoic buffalo (fun fact buffalo and bison are synonyms), a family of elk moving across the road, and an eagle in flight.

Leaving the campsite this morning after three days of sleeping in a tent, I think many of us were thankful that we have the luxury of a roof over our heads for a majority of the ride. Since we were in bear country we had to lock up all of our food while we slept. Some of the team even claim to have heard wolves in the middle of the night yesterday. Although cooking hotdogs and s’mores over the campsite was fun to switch it up, it would be hard to be camping every night. Don’t get me wrong camping was super fun, but I am glad we did not have to do every night like the founding I4k team did. You guys are the true bada**s

Today’s ride was ideal.  Instead of riding over mountains like we have been doing lately, we got to bike in between them and mostly downhill for 70 miles. Two state lines we crossed, Idaho for about 10 miles and then back into Montana. We even had a tailwind towards the end. We got in at around 2 PM and the whole team tackled cleaning the post-camping messy van. Since one bowl of pasta didn’t cut it for most of us, we invaded the local gas station to stock up on snacks.

More tailwinds please

MB

Day 47: Cowboys and Wild Horses

Today was an amazingly scenic ride. We saw mountains in the distance and red rock canyons. We even spotted a herd of wild horses running on the side of a hill.

Mack dedicated the ride today to his neighbor’s son, Patrick Alexander. He passed away a few years ago from cancer of the bile duct.

Introducinggggg Mackenzie Bach! Mack is our resident fraternity star of the team and he always seems to be in a good mood. His signature phrase is “wow, what a good day”. Catch him speeding down

Biggest weakness: beautiful women

What is your hometown like: Mount Prospect. It was once ranked the best neighborhood to raise your kids in back in 2005. Very cozy hood. Lot of old style houses and it fits into the Chicago suburban scene.

What day of riding has been your favorite: My favorite day was June 26th going into Kadoka South Dakota, because that was my mom’s birthday for one and it was also gorgeous day. It was the first day where we didn’t see any suburbs or cornfields anymore. We passed through huge rolling hills and had lots of tailwinds. We averaged 18mph for all 96 miles, it was as quick day for such long mileage. This day was when I finally realized that this is i4k. Beforehand we were still talking to cancer patients and traveling the country, but that day where we saw so much beautiful land and scenery and I realized how broad of a scope I was reaching.

Favorite part of a typical day: Dinner. We’re always starving, but dinnertime brings everyone together. Makes us feel like a family.

Least favorite part: The first rest stop just because I know we still have so much mileage to cover… and that I have to put sunscreen on.

What has been a lesson you’ve learned from this ride: I’ve learned that there is so much more out there that I have yet to see. The generosity and authenticity of people has really amazed me. And everything that nature holds, it made me realize that I just barely scratched the surface. From my years growing up in Virginia and Illinois I thought I knew it all, but truth be told I’ve only just begun.

What do you do to past the time while riding: I like talking to people and playing the questions game. It allows you to get to know your teammates better and show who they really are…in a good way.

What are you still looking forward to? Crater Lake and camping. Our camping days have been pretty cool because we were actually roughing it for the first time. With only a backpack when we go outdoors, that’s when you really feel like you’re actually doing it.

How do you think i4k will impact your college experience? I think it will teach me not to judge anyone because there are plenty of people on the ride that are here for the right reasons. Also the generosity of people; from giving us water to doing our laundry for us, it reminds me that there is still goodness in the world.

What’s an ideal ride for you? For me it would be riding through a mountain on the horizon with pine trees everywhere and the wind blowing in my hair.

Describe i4k in one word: astonishing

Day 46: A Hot Boy

To cap off the fourth of July last night some of us watched fireworks blasted off the top of a tall canyon yesterday. While out to get ice cream for the second time that day we heard that the fire department was watching the festivities closely, and we watched them put out a small fire on top of the canyon.

Today was another hot boy (I4k speak 101:we use ‘boy’ to refer to nouns)with temperatures around 96 degrees by lunch without shade. Luckily we only had 55 miles from Thermopolis to Riverton. For Wyoming, Riverton is a pretty decently sized town of 10,000 people. The views today were canyons and deserty hills. Since it was such a short day most of us took a long nap once we got to the church or showered at the high school.

Mountains are again visible in the distance and after tomorrow we will be able to enjoy yet another rest day. However this time it will be in the Grand Tetons! We are all excited to be able to camp again.

For some reason I am missing colder weather

MB

Day 44/45: Wyoming is LIT

Sorry I could not check in yesterday folks, we had our first day of i4kamping in Meadowlark Wyoming. We had more than 7,000 feet of climbing in only 43 miles as we ascended a mountain in Big Horns National Forest.  As we reached the top we got pretty close to snow. We happened to run into the 4k for Cancer New York running group at a rest stop. It just so happens that their group is running from San Francisco to New York in a relay setup with distances between 6-16 miles. Since they are a national group with multiple teams their organization raises around $800,000. It was such a crazy coincidence as we saw their support vehicle pull up right next to ours on the mountain and their team excitedly ran up to us. We exchanged the logistics of our organization and it turns out, we have the same goal of cancer fundraising and setup of staying in churches and such. They gave us the hot tip to ask grocery stores for donations if we are low on food. It was such a weird coincidence and it felt like we had just met ourselves in a parallel universe.

Rolling into Meadowlark Lake was the most beautiful scene we have witnessed so far. Pretty blue flowers dotted the sides of the grassy hills that surrounded our campsites and there was a fresh pine smell in the air. After the insane amount of climbing we settled into our campsite which was overlooking a ski resort lake. We broke up into groups of 4 for our first night in the tents. For dinner we roasted our own hot dogs and made s’mores. It was chilly when we woke up but as soon as we sped down the 15 miles of downhill in only 30 minutes, it was already hot and we shed our multiple layers. After the downhill section the mountainous forest scenery was traded for hilly desert and it was a hot one! As per our usual tradition we stopped at the local ice cream joint on our way into town. Some of us took the opportunity to use the shower facilities in the hot springs park and spent some time in the stinky but refreshing natural spring water. To celebrate the 4th tonight we plan to watch fireworks outside of the church.

In the next few days we have the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. We are all psyched!

Wyoming is the best state so far.

MB

Day 43: Buffalo Wyoming

Mason dedicated the ride to his grandfather David Christianson. David has B cell prolymphocytic leukemia/lymphoma and has had a rough time this past week.

What a great day. Even though we were on the interstate for the full 70 miles today it was not as dreadful as we expected. Luckily the shoulder on the road achieved a coveted 9 (out of 10) rating from veteran rider Kevin, so we got to form double pace lines and talk the entire way. As we rode we were able to see real snowcapped mountains in the distance and we appropriately stopped for snow cones as we rolled into town.

The vibe here is very country western and there were many cowboy statues dotting the sides of the road on the way into the main part of town. It seems to be quite touristy here and there are many hotels and gift shops on the main street. Buffalo is absolutely beautiful and us 21 year olds are excited to experience the town later this evening at the local saloon.

Today we passed the smallest town so far of population: 25. So when our current 24 members of the team rode through we essentially double the population. At a gas station rest stop a kind solo police officer offered to give us an escort out of town so that was pretty cool.

Our shower facilities happened to be at the “world’s largest pool” (fake news) and the warm community members of St. Lukes provided us with some bomb sloppy joes and other food.

After dinner Cheryl, a two time breast cancer survivor gave us a presentation about her version of Relay for Life. Since the first time she got cancer was 25 years ago she noted that the second time she went through treatment it was much more pleasant. Once she got cancer she felt like she could not accomplish the goals she planned to eventually attempt. With a career as a campaign manager for people such as the opponent to George Bush Sr. she then put her skills to use by running for state legislature.

Because of this, when she was working on the Wyoming State Health Legislature she changed the policies so that cancer treatment and screenings were better covered by insurance in the state of Wyoming.

Later on Cheryl noticed that the Buffalo Relay for Life was not attracting as many people as it could. To change this, she formulated the event after Dancing with the Stars. She invited well known community members to compete in a dancing competition to raise funds. In her two years the event raised $15,000 and then $18,000. And now the American Cancer Society uses her event as an example for other local Relays to model after.

Tomorrow will be the most climbing the shortest distance: 7,000 ft in only 43 miles. Pray for us please.

Tomorrow also marks our first day of camping in Meadowlark Wyoming.

Excited for s’mores tomorrow.

MB

Day 42:Post Climbing High

Today Mason dedicated the ride to Aubry. She had neuroblastoma at a very young age and was treated with chemo and radiation. Although she doesn’t remember the treatment, she remembers how tough it was. After this she had no further fights with cancer.

We arrived in Gillette Wyoming this afternoon and were greeted by some exceedingly friendly church members. One woman was even nice enough to take us to all the hotspots in town which included an active coal mine.

Meet Christina Su. The nicest person on our team of loving a**holes, as we like to call ourselves. She is a ray of sunshine and it is impossible not to smile around her.

Where are you from: Bloomington, IL. It’s a good town to grow up in and I really like the people there.

What first got you interested in I4k: My Uncle passed away my senior year and going into college I knew I wanted to do something in honor of him. I first heard about I4k at sights and sounds which is part of freshman orientation. I turned to my friend and said “wouldn’t that be crazy if I did that” and a month later I was signed up.

What were your feelings before we left for New York: It was a mix between excitement and nervousness. I was super excited thinking about all the things we were going to see. I didn’t know what to expect really.

How are you feeling about the ride now: I am loving it! I never want it to end.

How do you think you’ll feel once we reach San Francisco:  Not sure. I try to imagine it, sometimes, and when I think about it I get really sad because I’m having so much fun. It’s sad to think that once we get there we’ll all be going our different ways. There’s so much so see still and so many people to meet, so the ride still has a lot to offer from here to SF.

What do you do to get you through hard ride days: My teammates help me get through a lot by encouraging me or telling stories and asking each other questions.  Remembering who we ride for and why we ride keeps me going.  Almost everywhere we go we meet people who have been affected by cancer and talking to people along the way encourages me even more.

Do you see yourself doing anything after the ride that compares to this: NO (haha) it still is super cool for me and I still kind of can’t believe that were doing it. Day 32 it really hit me that we are actually biking across the whole country.

What has been your favorite place so far: Really hard, definitely the most special was Rochester New York because that’s where my parents first came, and the police escort and the mayor, and on top of that I cleaned my bike on my own for the first time (haha). All the little things made it really special. When we were visiting the Hope Lodge there and seeing the wigs that they donate to cancer patients meant a lot to me because I donated my hair. That day was one great thing after the next.

What is one moment you’ll never forget: Watching the sunset in Madison Wisconsin with the team. Everything about it was super pretty.

Describe i4k in one word: life-changing

LOVE YOU TINA SU

MB

Day 41: WyOmInG

Crossed another state line today! Although today was hyped up to be one of the hardest rides due to almost 7,000 feet of climbing and the 81 miles, most of us felt very good at the end of the day.  We had the opportunity to see Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument, and Black Hills National Forest. It was such a beautiful day. Seeing the famous monuments up close was also super cool. It amazed me at the level of detail the sculptors used to create the eyes, hair, and clothing on the president faces, and all using only sticks of dynamite. Before today I was unfamiliar with Crazy Horse. Similar to Mount Rushmore, it is a carved mountain depiction of a famous Lakota chief, Crazy Horse, with an outstretched bow and arrow riding a horse, or at least it will be once it is finally finished. It is much larger than Mount Rushmore. With 80 years of being in the works it still remains unfinished, likely due to budget constraints because the builders refuse to take government money to fund the project. Unfortunately we decided that the $5 cover entrance to the park was out of our price range so we took pictures at the gate.

Out of the three things we got to experience today, the Black Hills were the most impressive to me. Although I have mentioned this before, today actually felt like the West we passed by real mountains and got to smell pine. And even though there was a lot of climbing, being able to zoom back down at 40 mph made it worth it. So far Wyoming has been really pretty and I hope it stays that way.

BRB buying a cowboy hat

MB

Day 40: Rapid City Rest Day

Rest day in Rapid City. Since we are staying at the local YMCA we had to be out in the morning by 7 AM and could not come back until 8 at night, we had to find ways to entertain ourselves for the whole day. Most of the team went out for breakfast to treat ourselves to pancakes, omelets, and French toast. After breakfast we ended up splitting into smaller and smaller groups as we walked around the two blocks that made up the main area in Rapid City. Since the town was so small most of us made our way to just about every store there was. Other activities included seeing a movie, walking around to vintage stores, going out to lunch, and spending time at the street fair with live music.

While browsing through a bookstore Schuchen and I encountered a book called Haunted Hotels of the West. We noticed that one of the haunted hotels, The Alex Johnson, happened to be two blocks away from us. We walked up to the guest counter to find a journal where guests left stories of haunted happenings. For example, a flight attendant reported getting a voiceless phone call in the middle of the night and hearing children’s voices from the corner of the room. The 8th floor was also supposedly haunted because a young bride had committed suicide by throwing herself from room 812 back in the day. To investigate this we snuck past hotel security and took the elevator to that very room. We did hear a strange faint noise as we stood in front of the room…

Overall a nice day

MB

Day 38/39: The Badlands

Day 38 marked the official halfway point of our trip! Progress IS being made. We checked the first national park off our list yesterday: the Badlands. Since most of you are wondering “why is it called that” we learned that the name is a translation of the Lakota naming. It was titled this for its rugged and dry terrain.

Yesterday was probably one of the best riding days. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and being able to witness the beauty of it all from a bike gave the experience a certain level of intimacy that merely seeing it from a car window just couldn’t offer. Our group made sure to take as much time to stop and experience the park. This entailed stopping at a gift shop to feed ground hogs, then stopping at every scenic point to climb the rocks and take pictures, and riding at a slower pace to take it all in.  We even got to see mountain goats up close once the sun started to set. Once we were on our last leg of the 60-mile day at the top of the hill we got caught in a lightning storm and had to be rescued by the van. Right before the storm got really bad the mountains looked so beautiful with muted tones of blue and pink, better than any of the pictures in the postcards.  Being in our uniform gave us the opportunity to chat up with many tourists passing through, and they were very generous with giving us water and congratulations.

Today we rode another 60 miles to Rapid City where we will have a rest day tomorrow. We saw glimpses of mountains in the distance as we biked up the rolling hills. Since most of the towns we have visited in SD have been extremely small I had low expectations for Rapid City. I was surprised by all the cute shops and unique restaurants in the ‘downtown’ area. Most of us are looking forward to being able to do laundry and chill out tomorrow.

The West just keeps getting better

MB

Day 37: You Don’t Know Small Town Until You Know South Dakota

This morning Jay offered up the dedication who spoke of Doug and Brick friends of his who also battled prostate cancer.

We could not have asked for better conditions for today’s almost-century (96 miles).  For the first time in a while the scenery seemed to change and we swapped the usual cornfields for…mostly nothing but rolling hills and cows. According to Mack, “today finally felt like we are making progress.”  We spent the whole day on a road off the side of the highway (one panel of cues, woo!).  There was a slight tailwind, around 70 degree weather, and nicely paved roads. Our last rest stop took us to a literal one horse town where we befriended a white pony tied to a sign post and spent some time at the only storefront in town, a gas station with about four shelves of goods.

Kadoka, where we are spending the night tonight has a population of 654 people. If you went to an average Chicagoland high school picture your graduating class starting their own civilization, and that is the size of the town we are staying in. Unfortunately, we had to break our amazing no-team pasta and lentils streak, which was still pretty good, especially after a long day.

After seeing no less than ten ‘Wall Drug’ advertisements today on our ride I am excited to finally see what all the hype is about tomorrow.

Home of the Free Ice Water

MB

Day 36: Still Zero Pheasants

Today we rode for Joe and Doug who we recently completed portraits with. Both of them are prostate cancer survivors. And also Pastor’s Matt from Miller whose step children whose father passed away.

The 20mph headwinds finally let up today making today’s 73 miles so so much better (even though we still had 10mph winds). The scenery we’ve ridden past has remained pretty much the same in recent days, except the sky has been noticeably bigger and the few cars that we do see passing on the interstate seem to vanish into the never-ending horizon.

As we pulled off for ice cream across the street from First Methodist Church, where we are spending the night tonight, we encountered a cancer survivor. Although our interaction with him was brief, he thanked us for our commitment and summed up a cancer survivor perspective better than anyone else with “it scares the sh*t out of you” as he walked off.

Later in the evening Jay, an exceedingly interesting man and church member of First Methodist, took it upon himself to entertain us for the night. He set up a backyard bonfire and provided us of-agers with some cold ones as he impressed us with his extensive knowledge from everything to famous architects to obscure Romanian dictators. As a veteran teacher with 49 years experience under his belt, he was well rehearsed in public speaking, and we all listened intently as he outlined his life for us, from his years teaching Latin in Germany, to students he still keeps in touch with. We were all starry eyed during his somber, yet lighthearted portrait documenting his experience with prostate cancer. To cap the night Jay  served the 21+ people his finest selection of tequila in his ‘That So 70’s Show-esque’ basement. As we were all leaving his place we exchanged knowing looks with each other that this was one of those ‘I4K’ moments that we will never forget.

South Dakota you continue to surprise me

MB

Day 35: Wind and Pheasants, That’s What South Dakota Does

Dylan dedicated the ride to his uncle David (dad’s brother) that passed away from bladder cancer 5 years ago.

Another day of heavy headwinds. Luckily we had a shorter ride today of only 45 miles. To treat ourselves as we pulled into Miller, a few teams treated themselves to broasted chicken and ice cream at the local hot spot. After arriving at the United Methodist Church, pretty much everyone took a nap. Later on we gave a presentation about our organization to some church members and then indulged in a feast of a plethora of salads and some fresh burgers and a top notch dessert table.

One thing that I noticed about South Dakota is that there seems to be a subtle obsession with pheasants, as both of the past two towns we have stayed at have had pheasants on their town sign, with Redfield claiming to be “the pheasant capital of the world”. For some reason I question this…

We were informed by a congregation member that “The west begins in Miller” so it is official. We OUT HERE! So far South Dakota has been treating us pretty well (except for the headwind) and the people we have interacted with have been very gracious and welcoming.

The weather channel app informs us that the headwinds will be slowing down tomorrow as we roll into the capital city of Pierre.

Haven’t seen a single pheasant

MB

Day 34: More South Dakota Wonders

Today I wanted to dedicate the ride to Pat McNamara. Today was the annual ‘Pat Mac Pack’ ride from the south side of Chicago to Long Beach Indiana. Pat got a brain tumor when he was two years old and passed away when he was 13. I knew Pat from growing up as the energetic kid I would see on fourth of July, since our families were close. He always had a good sense of humor, and even when he was balding from his chemo treatments he dressed up as the old six flags man for Halloween to keep things light hearted.

Two words: HEAD WIND. For a total of 73 miles today we battled 22 mph headwind on our way from Watertown to Redfield. To put things in perspective for you, Watertown has a total population of 22,000, which makes it the 5th largest city in the whole state. The entire state itself has less than a million people total. As a few of us walked around Redfield after dinner we noticed that it seemed to be a town stuck in the past. Many of the signs were hand painted and the main street looked like it had remained static since the 50’s. Since time is not our priority while on the ride we were shocked when the gas station clerk informed us that coming up is fourth of July weekend. It is really crazy how fast yet slow this trip is moving.

Today we stayed on route 212 for 70 miles today and only passed four gas stations the whole way. Morale started pretty low this morning as we faced rain for the first twenty miles. Luckily for us the sun eventually came out for the last 15 miles. It felt so freeing to be able to shed our layers of coats and feel the wind on our skin at the end.  Once the sun eventually came it it really changed our whole mood. Although South Dakota is not technically the Midwest, it is nice to know that we only have a few days until we start hitting the real scenes like the badlands and Mount Rushmore, and from there, the rest of the west should also be beautiful.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s short 50 mile day.

Where them president heads at

MB

Tailwinds of 20 mph All Day Are Pretty Cool

Too bad they were headwinds. It made for a long day.

Power ranking for the states gone through so far, excluding Pennsylvania and New Jersey as they were short lived:

1. New York
2. Wisconsin
3. Minnesota
4. Illinois
5. Indiana
6. Ohio

South Dakota is full of real people though so that’s pretty neat.

Phil “Wall Drug- 386 miles” Kagebein

Day 33: You Are Now Entering South Dakota

Mason had the ride dedication today. Here is his statement:

“My mom is a chemo nurse and I have met a lot of her patients throughout her career. There were so many people that I met who were so grateful for my mom to be a caretaker and she has shown that kindness back tenfold to others and myself. By doing this ride I just wanted to keep in mind the work that we do and my mom does go towards them (the patients). I want to keep the memory of the patients that have passed and their fight alive. There was one patient that I remember talking to the night before he passed away. We had a really nice conversation and he was only asking me questions, even though it was his last night alive. It has been inspiring to see the selflessness of people through my mom’s patients and by meeting people during this journey.”

Today’s ride was heavy rain in the morning which eventually cleared up around noon. Our first stop in South Dakota has treated us pretty nicely. We had showers, food provided for us and WIFI. Our awesome hosts even brough us to Thursday night out which featured an Irish band and outdoor seating. They even invited us onstage in front of the audience. Since Watertown is such a small town many of the locals recognized us as outsiders and came up to us to ask us about our I4k shirts.

We have already started to see advertisements for the famous “Wall Drug” in Wall, SD. Will all the hype be worth it? Stay tuned.

Describe your home town: Plantation Florida (close to Fort Lauderdale) classic suburb. Pretty close to a Chicago suburb. Population is pretty close to Naperville “not as rich, much more Jewish”

How did you learn about i4k: I was at Illini sights and sounds. A couple groups that talk. Then I checked it out again on quad day.

How did people react when you told them you were doing this? Spanish side of my family thought I was insane to be doing any physical work over the summer. My stepmom’s family was confused as to why I didn’t want to be with my girlfriend. My parents were supportive. My dad knows that I will randomly pick up things that others might not expect of me.

What were your expectations for this trip: I thought it would be much harder. I thought I would be in much more pain and I would be struggling. Either I have gotten stronger or the routes aren’t as hard as I expected. I thought it would be fun but being able to sit in on Portraits has exceeded my expectations. Meeting people and talking to them has given me much more of a push to finish the ride. I have been surprised at the kindness of the random people we meet. Complete strangers will show you kindness and it has been a bit overwhelming.

What has been your favorite state so far: I really liked Wisconsin. The lakes were great. And even though we rode through Minnesota we didn’t actually go into any of the lakes. Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin was really cool. I liked being able to explore the nature of the state.

Favorite stayover: Hutchinson. The water park there was awesome.

Favorite ride: The first century with Mickey and Nodus was real fun. It sucked, but it was a good ride because we made it fun.

Favorite team memory: Dan’s rant about Notre Dame. When we were in the thunderstorm and stuck at a gas station. Phil got a pizza that got stuck in the oven when the power went out, so it was just kind of sitting there kind of half-baked and then our group was hanging out in the carwash in the gas station waiting out the rain.

What are you still looking forward to: Wyoming and the state parks like Yellowstone

Describe I4k in one word: memorable.

Bein’ stoic and managing.

MB

Day 32: Supersize Us

Christina Su dedicated the ride today because she found out that her grandmother has recently found cancer cells.

At this point, any ride that is under 70 miles the team considers an easy ride, even though today’s ride was 68.6 miles. Although we expected rain, once again, we lucked out and didn’t even see drizzle as we rolled out. With near perfect conditions: warm but not too sunny, a tailwind, and clear and well paved roads, the first 40 miles practically flew by. So far Minnesota takes the prize on state with the best maintained roads. However, a half mile of construction led us to an extra 3-mile detour which included walking our bikes through a gravel road.

We arrived in Montevideo (Minnesota, not Uruguay) at around 2:30 today. Within 10 minutes of arriving at the Montevideo Middle School most of the team claimed a spot (pro tip: always go for a space with an outlet), had set up their sleeping bags, and took a well-deserved post ride nap.

Today’s unexpected happening was McDonald’s donation hooked up by Mason “Floridaman/dolphin killa” Metzkes. It is nice to not have to worry about calorie consumption on ride days, and because of this, many of us got a hamburger side along with our free fries and double cheeseburgers.  When I think about it, we don’t actually even eat that many “nutritional foods”. Some weeks we don’t see a single vegetable on our plates, unless you consider tomato sauce on pizza a vegetable (I know the FDA does).  Hopefully I will be able to resume healthier habits once this is all over.  For now I will live in ignorant bliss of the my daily fat count as long while I spend 8+ hours a day on a bike.

On the CLIF bar diet for now.

MB

Day 31: Water in Minnesota

Alia stepped up to dedicate today’s ride to her friend Jasmine’s mom, who recently passed away from cancer. Jasmine attended Lake Forest High School with Alia.

Dylan’s breakdance Mosher this morning surprised us: Colin “Lil T” Tainter is an avid breakdancer. Who would have thought…

Simple 60 mile ride today from Minneapolis to Hutchinston Minnesota. Luckily a rain shower only lasted for about 10 minutes as we rolled out in the morning and we had warm breezy weather the whole way through. So far I have been very impressed with the landscape of this state and it has been cool to see the “10,000 lakes” slogan in action.  We rolled through a ritzy suburb today and had our first rest stop in an upscale downtown area off of Lake Minnetonka.

After finishing up the ride we were surprised with passes to the local water park and everyone got to dip a toe. We took turns swinging off of the zipline into the pool and jumping off the diving boards. After a pizza dinner some of us got frozen yogurt while others (Tyler) completed the “leg waxing challenge” as Alia took off his leg hair to “make him more aerodynamic while riding”. Sure…

While eating our frozen dessert Nick Su, David, Analisa, Schuchen and I were discussing what it is about I4k that makes it so enjoyable.  We were saddened at the thought that it would probably never be possible for all 27 of us to be together again after the ride (unless someone on the team gets married, which we’ve seen from alumni that it is). Towards the end of this talk we agreed that the unexpected things that happen every day like getting to go hang out in a random water park in Minnesota, are what make every day memorable, and the ride overall awesome.

There’s water parks in South Dakota right?

MB

Day 30: If You Can Dream It, They Can Engineer It

Fourth rest day today. To kick off the morning we visited with cancer researchers Dr. Chris Stack and Stephen Heinsch on the University of Minnesota campus in St. Paul. Their shared discipline falls into the field of synthetic biology and specifically mammalian cells.  Their research focuses on reprogramming t cells to attack tumors on cancer patients.

We learned that at the moment, the University is licensing technology to a company to use in car t therapy. This works by extracting a patient’s t cells, engineering them to recognize and kill tumors, and then administering them back to the patient.

Since I am not a student in the sciences, I expected the meeting to be a bit over my head, however, the two kept the meeting very lively by engaging us in interesting happenings in the field of synthetic biology.  Although it focused some of us to try and remember the basics of the last intro to bio class we took, it was still very interesting. As we listened, each of us tried to see how this talk connected to our specific field, and actuarial science man Dan joked “can a genome have insurance”.

During their talk they brought up the possibility of synthetic blood, to help the dilemma of shortages in surgery. I also learned that genome sequencing is becoming standard practice in places such as Europe, and Stephen even pointed out that he “had a small device that plugs into his laptop that could sequence genomes” as if it were a casual thing to own. These two proved to be fanboys of the famous George Church aka the father of synthetic biology. As they began to delve deeper they revealed that they were interested in that type of sci-fi bioengineering you know of from movies like Jurassic Park or Gattica. And at one point they discussed a researcher at Harvard that is actively trying to recreate wooly mammoths.

After the meeting the team broke up and either made their way to one of the many local bike shops in the hipster neighborhood that we are currently residing, or took to exploring the town. To cap off the night many of us visited the famed Mall of America and treated ourselves to a sushi dinner. Overall Minneapolis was a very clean, bike-friendly, hipster city. I wouldn’t be mad if I ended up here (during the summer only).

God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.

MB

Look up George Church yourself if you are not familiar. (He is impressive)

*(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Church)

Day 29: Centuries Getting Better

Julissa stepped up today to take the ride dedication for a portrait we did recently. Sargent Dewyane Schweinler died of lung cancer in 2002 and we interviewed his daughter who expressed her struggle in dealing with his passing.

As a special Father’s day surprise for our resident dads (Tyler and Zach and even Logan) we organized a special effort to ramble the troops and roll out extra early this morning. Tyler was so pleased at the 7:08 line up that he “nearly fainted”. As a special Dad’s day touch Madeline made the Mosher for the dads to talk about their favorite memory being the team dad.

This century felt so much different than the last. With slightly cooler weather and not too much elevation change there were exactly ZERO accidents and we arrived in Minneapolis at about 6:00. As we have come to realize about the land outside of major cities, most of today’s views were farmlands or what David referred to as “the wild”. When we arrived at the stayover, Hennepin Methodist Church we were all in awe. This is hands down the nicest church we ever stayed at complete with couches (beds) and showers. To top it off Christina Su organized a donated pizza dinner for the whole team.

Even the brief views I was surprised that Minneapolis was such a nice city and also very biker friendly.  Most of the team is looking forward to having the day off tomorrow to explore the city of fix up their bikes.

MB