Madsen is raffling off some of their cargo bikes on the condition that you like to their site, cool.
MADSEN Cargo Bikes
We want YOU!
...to join the Illini 4000 and ride your bike across the country!As one ride comes to end, we are looking to start another ride and assemble a Bike America Team for the Summer of 2010. We are looking for dedicated college students who want to make an impact in the communities we ride through.For those of you at the University of Illinois, we have information sessions Wednesday, August 26th and Monday, August 31st. These sessions will be held in the English Building, room 131 at 7 p.m. each night. Come out to find out more about the Illini 4000!For those of you who are sure that riding a bike across the country is your thing, our application can be found here. We ask that you review our rider policy doc here before filling out an application.
Apply Now
Applications for the 2010 Bike America team are now available. If you think you have what it takes (or think you could train to what it takes) to ride your bike across the country, then consider filling out an application at illini4000.org/forms/application . Hope to hear from your soon!
The Last Post, or The Reason We Ride
It's hard to believe that it's over, it still doesn't feel real. I had that single moment of realization on the beach in Oregon, but now that feeling is gone, lost in the rolling gray surf, and once again its hard to imagine that we actually did ride our bikes across the country with nothing but our bikes, a stuffed backpack, and a single team van. It's crazy looking back at all the blogs that I have written over the past 2 months. I read what I wrote about riding into DC in the pouring rain or getting lost on the way into Everett, PA, and its hard to believe that we were only a week into the trip at that time, it feels like those days were just last week. I look back on this trip and see a lot of amazing things. It's amusing to think back to the start of the trip and realize how much I have learned, not only as a cyclist, but also about people and life. I have met so many great people on this journey, and not only on our bike team, which was certainly not short of characters, but also just talking to people while stopped at stoplights and at rest stops, at national monuments and gas stations, and realizing that cancer affects so many people. Whether it was the older man I talked to on the way into Washington, whose father and brother had died from cancer, or the woman from Mt. Rushmore with the 8-year-old child who had been diagnosed with cancer within his first month of life, and was still fighting it, each person inspired me in their own way.
I will never forget way I spent the last summer before I became an official adult. I cannot forget; tornados in Wyoming, tiny bookstores, how sick we all got of bagels, the great prairie fire of Murdo, the cheers of Beaver High School, endless PBJs, ridiculous tan lines, the Kanji game, standing around every morning waiting to leave, looking at the stars at 4AM in Yellowstone, letters to Matilda, I4K T-Rex, going down mountains at 50+ mph, Pannekoeken, hose showers, listening to cancer survivors tell their stories, and great friends. I will never again take for granted; a good place to sleep, being able to eat whatever and whenever I want, warm showers on cold days, and not growing up on a farm. For better or for worse, we lived together for 65 days and annoyed each other, laughed together, yelled at animals, sometimes yelled at each other, and by the end of the trip, I was ready to be home, but also didn't want it to end, which I think is a true sign of how this trip brings people together. I came into this trip very much on my own, meaning that I didn't know much of anything about biking, didn't know anyone who biked, and didn't know a single person who would be joining me on this trip, but now I feel like I have my very own western family, like I have known all of these riders for years. I'm gonna miss you guys.
Thank you to everyone who supported me, I hope my thank you notes have reached all who donated, and please know that I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of support I got from all my friends and family. In the end, I ended up raising over $5,000, and we raised $64,000 as a team, which I think is pretty amazing for 20 poor college kids who aren't working for a summer.
If you are a younger kid following along, you should definitely try to do this, its an amazing experience, it will allow you to push yourself to limits you didn't know you could reach, you will make 20 new friends, and you will never get a chance to see the entire country like this again. To everyone else, let this be a reminder that you too can make an impact. While I was on this trip, one of my aunts was diagnosed with cancer, one of my mom's co-workers had a son die from cancer, a good friend from high school lost a mother to cancer, and a friend from college contacted me to tell me that his mother was also battling cancer and recently had a lung removed. This trip was started 3 years ago as a project from the minds of two U of I students, and now we are raising incredible amounts of money and carrying on the tradition. All you need to do is have an idea and you can change people's lives. As we have been reminded, if this trip convinces one person to test themselves for cancer, if we can raise enough money to allow researchers to make a breakthrough, if we can save even one life, then this trip is more than worth it. That is what makes this journey worth it. That is the reason we ride.
Thank you all so much. Please direct questions and comments to jkrantzler@gmail.com. Final pics are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8300819@N03/
Day 65 & 66 - Chicago Is So Two Years Ago
Hillsboro, OR to Portland, OR
Our final ride day!! We were led into the city by Barbara, an alumni and member of the Portland Illinois Alumni group. She took us first to the Nike campus, just outside the city, where two riders, Dan and Christa got the last two flats of the trip, but once they quickly changed their tubes, we entered the facility and began the tour. The Nike campus was really beautiful and we got to see parking spots reserved for Tiger Woods, Gary Peyton, and others, along with a beautiful running track, the Lance Armstrong Center, a really cool reflecting pond, and amazing soccer fields which really made me want to play again. After that, we headed to the famous Washington Park and visited the renowned Rose Garden, which overlooked Portland, and then finally headed into the city. We got to Overlook Park, where our supporters were waiting to welcome us in, and everyone was really excited to see my mom, and it was very exciting in general. The alumni put on a great picnic for us, and we ate tons of food, took lots of pictures, did some of the more memorable cheers and games which we have been doing on this trip. Afterwards, we headed to our stayover and headed into the city for the night. Portland is known for its microbrews, so we went to Deschutes, where I had a really good lamb burger for dinner, then we went to Rogue Brewery, had some of the famous doughnuts from Voodoo Doughnuts (the banana fritter was amazing), and then visited the Thirsty Lion before heading home for the night.
The next day, we had a hospital visit where we got to tour the Portland Cancer Center and then headed into the city for lunch with my family. We went to Powells, the huge bookstore in Portland, and managed to restrain myself to buying only three books while I was there, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Watership Down by Richard Adams, and A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. We also visited a local thrift shop where I got yet another unnecessary t-shirt for my huge collection, and then had some delicious Chinese food for dinner from Hunan. And that was it, I broke my bike down and left Portland Tuesday!
Somehow, no one bothered to check our flight out of Portland, so we got to the airport at 6:45AM and found out that it had been canceled. That was pretty frustrating, but we didn't really have a rush, and we would have to take a flight that left 5 hours later and had a stopover in Atlanta. However, I got some great reading done, I finished The Road, and bought one last book(Better by Atul Gawande) from the Powells in the airport, and finished that too. The people at Delta were very helpful in organizing a new flight for us free of charge and Christa, Matt Harlan, and I eventually made it home around 9PM, and I was able to sleep in my own bed for as long as I wanted, which felt great!!
States traveled through:19(NY,NJ,PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR)
Distance today: 27 mi
Total Distance traveled: 4072 mi
Day 64 - Hitting 4000
Seaside, OR to Hillsboro, OR
Today's ride was only 65 miles, but we had a pretty hard ride to actually do it. We climbed a 1000 foot hill at the beginning of the day, and then had a lot of hills the rest of the day and the shoulder of the road was not very good, so the ride wasn't always safe. We were finally seeing Portland signs, and we could feel the end of the trip getting closer with individual pedal strokes. I hit 4000 miles just before the first rest stop of the day, but it was during a downhill, so I had to snap some quick pictures to capture the moment, thankfully, the road was pretty empty at that point. We took a wrong turn at some point, but somehow found our way to the stay-over. We were staying at the Sonrise Church in Hillsboro, which was an amazing church, everything was huge and brand new, I guess they had bought the building as an old Motorola warehouse, but had totally remodeled it, and made it really impressive. They also bought us some pizzas, and Sae-bin's parents bought us dinner at Appleby's which was really appreciated. We were also able to shower and do some laundry, which was much appreciated, and Sean Laude, our co-director arrived from Chicago today, so he will drive in tomorrow, so that we can all ride in to Portland as a team.
States traveled through:19(NY,NJ,PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR)
Distance today: 65 mi
Total Distance traveled: 4045 mi
Day 63 - Coast to Coast!!
Castle Rock, WA to Seaside, OR
With time running out on our trip, we rode into our 19th and final state of the trip, Oregon. The ride was our final really long day and the weather was not very good, it was overcast and it looked like it was gonna rain all day. We had to ride a ferry across the Columbia River in order to get into Oregon, so that was pretty cool since for the first time, we traveled for a few miles on something that wasn't a bike. The ride took us through beautiful Astoria, OR where we got lunch at a McDonalds, and then climbed the steepest hill of the trip. Conor and I were able to make it up this hill, which had to be approaching a 100% grade(45 degree angle), but the rest of our group had to walk it or they were going to fall over trying to climb it. It was a short hill, just really steep, so it was actually kind of fun to climb it, as long as you didn't fall over. The hill was so steep that the sidewalk was actually stairs!!
Finally, we got our first glimpse of the coast from the top of a hill about 5 miles away, which really got us pumped up, and we were really excited to ride into the coast. When we made it to the beach, we jumped off our bikes, and sprinted into the ocean. Once we had jumped some waves and done a little body surfing, we got out of the water, which wasn't as cold as I had expected, but it was still cold. We had some time to consider what we had done as we waited for the back groups to arrive, and for the first time, I really had a sense of realization of what we had done. We started this trip 60 days ago and could see the Atlantic from New York, and now we were all the way across the country. We actually rode almost 4000 miles, from coast to coast, just by taking it one day at a time, and it took seeing the opposite side of the ocean to really put it in perspective. At night, we got a ton of pizzas donated, and also visited the pool right next door, where we could rope swing, use the slide, a hot tub, and they had a rock climbing wall suspended over the water, so that was pretty awesome too. Tomorrow is our last real ride day, so everyone is excited for that, and I am scheduled to hit 4000 miles tomorrow, which is also awesome.
States traveled through:19(NY,NJ,PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR)
Distance today: 84 mi
Total Distance traveled: 3980 mi
We did it!
I just wanted to make one last entry to thank everyone for their loyal support to the Illini 4000. This trip truly would not be possible without the support of our stayovers, friends, families, and people we’ve met along the ride. I can’t even describe how many times I have been impressed by the generosity of my friends and family, as well as all of the people I have met along the way. Also, a special thanks to all the riders because I wouldn’t have been able to make it without your jokes and support. Feel free to email me with any questions, and pictures should be up soon!KristenKtull012@yahoo.com
I totally just happened to see...
I totally just happened to see my ex-boss's car at the same apartment complex I'm staying at in Mountain View. What a small world.
WE DID IT!
Thank you to everyone who helped us out along the way - Thank you to Portland and the Illini Club for throwing the best finale imaginable. This was an unforgettable summer for all of us and we could not have done it without you! More words to come, but for now... 4000 miles down and just as many memories!