We’ve frequently been asked by those who follow our ride if there are any other groups across the country who are taking a similar journey for a similar cause. The answer is yes  — based out of the University of Texas at Austin, the Texas 4000 also embarks on an annual bike ride across the country for cancer (they actually have three! See more info below, but please also read more about their amazing organization here). While we’ve known about the Texas 4000 (T4K), we had low expectations of ever crossing paths with them due to our different routes and timelines (we learned that they would be arriving in our past stayover of the World’s Only Corn Palace just a couple of nights after us). However, if there’s one thing we’ve learned on this ride, it’s that we will never have an uneventful day. Ever. In a beautiful twist of events, we crossed paths with T4K today on our short ride into Kadoka, and were able to bond over our shared journey and meet the only other people in the country who are as insane as us to be doing this.

Ride Overview

Mileage: 42.7

Elevation: 1,981’

Ride Dedication: Paul Cotton, Anthony’s uncle, stomach cancer

Points of Interest: 1880s Town, Kadoka City Swimming Pool

Quote of the day

Tales of the Trail

Today’s morning activity was led by yours truly (Maaike), and I decided to make our team look as goofy as humanly possible in front of the 400-some person population of Murdo, South Dakota. To celebrate 50 days until the start of the Marching Illini’s preseason camp, I taught the entirety of the team how to march fast chair, a type of step which involves moving your leg as though you’re repeatedly kicking an invisible wall. We then held a march-off, judged by Claudia, who determined Jack, Emma, and of course, Neal are the expert marchers of the team. There’s nothing quite like learning new skills at 7am!

The first stretch of our short ride to Kadoka was somewhat reminiscent of a Peloton workout — we could almost hear the peppy music in our ears as we worked through seemingly endless rolling hills. Some lovely headwinds made this 22 mile chunk quite a challenge, but by rotating riders regularly we pushed through all in decent time. Again, the assistance of music kept us chugging along as well — group Party Rockers chose to only listen to “Party Rock Anthem” on repeat for the entirety of today’s ride (a promise they upheld, although they did switch between the original, Kidz Bop, and Alvin and the Chipmunks versions). 

Our first and only rest stop was at the historic 1880s Town (hyped up by ample billboards that really got us excited. Although seeing any sign of human life at that point had us eager enough). We met some beautiful goats, ate some delectable ice cream, and stopped in one of our favorite gift shops of the trip. 1880s Town is home to one of the most unique restaurants we’ve visited, as it runs the length of a train — and contains amazing biscuits and gravy. As we enjoyed a quick meal and stocked up on snacks, we unexpectedly reunited once again with Ed!!! If you’ve missed the past couple of journals (how could you), Ed is on a solo cross country cycling trip to meet his sister in Eugene, Oregon. He’s been lovely to connect with over the past couple of days, and proved his never-ending kindness once again by providing Joey with a quarter to feed the goats. 

As we reluctantly rolled out from the wonders of 1880s Town, the winds lightened up on us a bit, but the endless hills of South Dakota gave us a bit more work to do. As today marks the first day of the 2024 Tour de France (which some members of our team do follow, for any fellow cycling nerds out there), we truly felt that we were on a Tour de South Dakota. The universe has a way of sending us the encouragement we need though, as we saw cars come up behind us in the distance and were immediately shocked — the only signs of life we’d been seeing were the headlights of our own SAV and the cows grazing near the road. Even more surprising, the cars turned out to be the support vehicles of the Texas 4000! We ended up pulling off and forming multiple mega-groups for the rest of the way to Kadoka, where T4K would be rest-stopping before continuing on for a longer ride. 

As we arrived at our stayover, we enjoyed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with T4K, swapped stories from our rides, and took tours of each other's support vans — which are hilariously organized almost identically. The T4K group we connected with is on the Ozarks route, which has been active since 2013 and takes 25 riders from Texas all the way to Alaska. They were incredibly kind to share some pancakes and snacks with us, teach us the hook ‘em hand symbol, and some fun chants and traditions their team shares. We kept marveling at how insane it is to run across another cross country bike team in South Dakota of all places, and how similar our journeys have been. T4K amazed us with their strength and courage, from riding through triple digit temps in Texas to doing a half Ironman yesterday before (we’re not kidding. They did that.) They’ve additionally proven to be some of the kindest people we’ve met, from the moment they screamed support at us from their van :) We have nothing but endless love for the T4K team and wish them all the best on the rest of their journey — until we meet again friends!

Our extended time in Kadoka was well spent — we’ve officially crossed into another new time zone, so we gained an hour along with arriving earlier than usual. Some of us ventured to Subway, while others got some very needed rest in order to power through one more day before a full day off. We were given an amazing home-grown meal from the Presbyterian Church, and were able to hear another cancer story from our very kind host. We also engaged in a yearly I4K tradition tonight, Why We Ride, in which the team sat down and dove a little deeper into our reasons for choosing to take this journey across the country. While we won’t be sharing these full stories publicly, many of our teammates have shared some details in their Rider Bios, so feel free to take a look at those :) We will roll through the badlands into Wall tomorrow before spending a rest day there and eventually making our way into Wyoming!

Cyclist’s Corner

Today’s Rider: Maaike Niekerk

How are you feeling today?

I just ate a footlong cookie from Subway, so currently not feeling phenomenal! However, the rest of today I felt really good! It was a short but kind of hard day because of the headwinds, but we had a guest appearance from Texas 4000 and that was quite honestly the coolest thing ever. They were so nice, so that was super fun. So, good day, good day, very happy with today!

You’ve fundraised thousands of dollars for our cause. What has been the most impactful fundraising experience you’ve had?

The fundraising was honestly the scariest part for me about this whole thing, which sounds stupid but, I don’t know, I’m just not very outgoing when it comes to advertising for something even though it is such a great cause that I care about so much. I don’t know, it was cool to meet people through fundraising and hear people’s stories through fundraising, that was a very interesting part of it. I think the most memorable fundraising experience I had was there was a night first semester last year where we just bought a ton of snacks and put them in a wagon and just went around Green Street and sold snacks to people on a Saturday! That was really cool, just to like meet a lot of people — when they hear that you’re fundraising for cancer research, a lot of people that hits really personal for them, and they share their stories with you, so that was very cool. I think that was like the first moment of realizing how many people we were gonna reach by doing this… it’s also just been really cool to see through fundraising on the website, fundraising on social media, people you haven’t connected with in a long time donating to you. It’s a very cool thing to see.

What keeps you going when it gets difficult to put in all of those miles or even to get on the bike?

Kavin is our philosopher of the team, and I think about his interview a lot… he was like, “I was never really doubtful that I would be able to do this. Like it was never a doubt in my mind that I’d be able to do this, physically and mentally.” And I feel very much the same. I think I knew how motivated I would be to do this, because the cause is so important to me and cancer has hit my family really hard. So I just think about the cause and I think about my family and I think about our ride dedication every single day during the ride whenever it gets hard, because if someone is battling cancer then I can bike a hundred miles. I don’t know, thinking of that kind of makes the battle seem a little less in a way. But kind of in the moment, if things just get hard — I know this sounds really dumb — but I feel like it’s really easy to forget to look around in I4K when you’re on the bike. We’re biking through all these places that I’ve never been before, so I always take a moment, just like look around, and it’s a really good reminder of how grateful I am to be here. I started doing that with running too… I would just stop in the middle and take everything in for a moment. Or, if we’re chugging up a hill, reciting the Marching Illini parade cadence really helps! It’s like six minutes long, gives your brain something to do, and it’s catchy! Good brain tricks… also, I found I don’t generally listen to music when I’m working out like ever, but if you’re kind of in the mood and not having the best day, the aux can kind of switch everything. Trust in the music, trust in the jams — it can completely flip the mood of you or the entire group! So, that’s my biggest tip. The aux. 

Do you have a favorite accessory to wear with your ride uniform?

I’m not really an accessory girly, but I do have two wrist bands on my left arm which my coworkers gave me from my old job — I worked at the roller skating rink in Champaign, my beloved Skateland. One of them is a pink breast cancer awareness bracelet which I wear because many people in my family have been impacted by breast cancer. And then I also have a green one, which is actually for mental health awareness and I have a lot of friends and loved ones who have been really really struggling with mental health, and so I wear that and I think of them. That’s kind of been a motivator too for when times get tough, I just look at them. Other than that, favorite accessory — my Marching Illini sunglasses. Many of my teammates have spent 50 dollars, 100 dollars on a nice pair of cycling sunglasses. I didn’t wanna do that, so I have biked the entire ride so far wearing the free pair of Marching Illini sunglasses that I received my freshman year of Marching Illini! They’re free sunglasses, the lens has popped out many times, and you know what? I pop it back in and I keep chugging, and they have served me well.

What’s your rest stop routine?

I am the biggest supporter of bathroom first! When you gotta go, you gotta go, and frequently when I get to the rest stop, I gotta go! Because I hydrate well. You never wanna be that guy who, when your entire team is ready to go, you’re like “aw man, I’ve still gotta go to the bathroom!” And then you either hold up your entire team by going to the bathroom or you have to hold it for like two more hours until you get to the next stop. So bathroom first. Always. Then I fill my water bottles. I don’t know who it was, I think it was  Dylan who was like, “if your bottles are empty — bad ride. Bad ride!” So fill my bottles. And then I get my little snacky. Usually something salty, something sweet. And then some random fruit that’s lying around that Claudia pushes at me because it’s about to go bad. Then I dap up Claudia. I always have to do my handshake with Claudia, otherwise, the next 20 miles? Not gonna be good. Then I put on my sunscreen, and then I’m good to go! So I usually just find somebody to yap with until we’re all ready to go. 

In the remaining portion of the ride, where are you looking forward to visiting the most?

I have a few answers. In order of closeness, Mount Rushmore. I have no concept in my head of how big the faces are, so I’m really excited to see them because I feel like they’re either gonna be way bigger than I expected or way smaller than I expected. So I’m pumped, Mount Rushmore is gonna be cool. Yellowstone has always been a bucket list item for me, so I’m very excited to go there. And all of Oregon I’m very excited to see, especially Eugene, because I’m a big runner and Eugene is a big place for running! Very excited to go there. I think my original answer in the first journal was Crater Lake, I’m also very very excited to see. A lot of people have told us that the pretty part of the ride is just starting, and even just like in South Dakota… so very very excited to see what’s to come in the West! And obviously, San Francisco — super pumped. That bridge is gonna look super cool.

Is there anything else you want to talk about?

As I said, we got to ride with Texas 4000 and that was just a super cool experience. A lot of people ask if we’re the only college that does this and we’re all like, “no! Texas does this.” It was really cool to see how similar we are and see how our vans are packed the same way, and they have all the same terrible tan lines and all the same stories. It was also  super impactful to see their team is pretty much almost an exact flip of ours, in that they have like 19 women and like six men. And so that was just very empowering and very cool to see a female dominated space, especially in sports because cycling is so male dominated. And obviously, I love our team, I would not change our team for the world, but it is just very inspiring to see women in cycling doing cool things. Even going back to the other question about what keeps you motivated when biking gets hard — I feel like knowing that cycling was not made with women in mind and being a female cyclist, that kinda keeps me going… it’s just a really cool thing to be experiencing and I hope that female representation in cycling grows. Which I know it’s on its way up, but it still has a long way to go so I’m very pumped for that. But, I don’t know, on a different note, thank you to everyone who reads the journals, as always! We love the journals! We’re cooking along, hopefully the South Dakota days have not gotten too boring because sometimes they’re a little boring on the bike, but still chugging along and we’re still so excited to be journaling… having a great time, life is good, and this is insane, and I’m still very grateful to be doing this. So, crazy, crazy stuff.

(A reminder that any unfamiliar terms can be found in our handy I4K dictionary.)