USNA 1973 Ride-2-Remember

Post-ride, 28 October: Fairfax, VA

Well, it’s now up to me to summarize my feelings as best I can.  It’s very difficult to “tie a bow” on this experience, as I’m sure it will take me months to process all that we’ve been through in these last two.  I still wake up and realize I’ve been dreaming that we’re back on the road.

Perhaps the best I can do is to acknowledge, as Patricia pointed out to me toward the end of the ride, that this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience on many different levels.  Perhaps that will provide a framework to build on all the observations and lessons we’ve noted over the course of the Ride-2-Remember.

The first level is the mission itself, our rationale for taking on this ride in the first place and the first priority that Doug identified back in Astoria.  We set out to honor our departed classmates and symbolically gather their memories back to USNA for our 50^th reunion.  To that end we specifically rode for and paid tribute to one or more classmates every day.  We faithfully executed that duty on a daily basis with personal recollections, obituaries or comments from others where available, and concluded by playing the Navy Hymn.  And we raised a glass to toast them whenever we had a beverage on hand.

That ritual kept us focused and reminded us why we were here, but it also evolved as we progressed across the country.  As we began to hear back from widows and others in response to our Facebook posts, we started to realize how much these observances meant to them.  The ride took on a whole new significance as a result. Whatever doubts we had receded as we knew we had to finish the ride for them.

The second level was the purely physical aspect. We were all in relatively good shape or we never would have tried this.  Our group represented everything from “weekend warrior” cyclists to former ultramarathoners/triathletes. However, the most any of us had attempted was anywhere from a couple of days’ to a couple of weeks’ ride.  I think we all wondered if we could pull it off and whether we had trained enough. I did my best to ramp up and tackle every big hill I could find in the DC area, but I certainly had my doubts about the Pacific Northwest and whether I could make the climbs anticipated there. And nobody knew just how we would all hold up to the fatigue and wear and tear over time.

Well, our choice of route front-loaded a lot of the challenges we would face.  It took us 10 days just to get out of Oregon with three mountain ranges and over 30% of our total climb for the entire ride.  My new gravel bike got me up all the climbs and over some challenging terrain.  Somewhere, most of the way through the state, I decided I had done about all I could have to prepare, and we were all getting stronger and more confident as we went. Topping the Continental Divide 10 days later, I think we all started to feel that we were really going to make it.  A lot of riding lay ahead, but we were already performing well above anything we had previously done.

Level three was just the country itself as we saw, felt, heard and smelled it: spectacular views in the Columbia River Gorge, Cascades and Tetons, deserts and forests, endless cornfields through Nebraska and Iowa, small towns and farms that most people will never see, traces of bygone railroads, telegraph lines and canals, and a huge variety of roads and trails.  We rode everything from gravel paths to country roads to interstate shoulders, in 100-degree heat and pouring rain. It’s a huge, diverse land out there, and we were grateful to witness it in such a unique way.

Which leads directly to level four, the people we met along the way: just as diverse as the land, but almost always gracious, considerate and welcoming to us. There were tractor-trailer drivers who went out of their way to give us space where they could on roads that had little room to spare on the shoulder, numerous motel staff who accommodated our need for an early breakfast and pre-dawn launch, and a whole range of chance encounters with random, interesting folks along the way.  The hospitality of American Legion posts, firehouses, various cafés and most especially the residents of Ainsworth, in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, will always stand out in our memory. Ainsworth marked the midpoint of our ride and was symbolically the heart of the heartland for us.

The next level is really what we learned about each other and how we grew as a team and a group.  You can’t spend 60+ days together without becoming either very close or perhaps very annoyed.  We all have our quirks which we sometimes mercilessly needled each other about, but more importantly we all had our strengths and weaknesses which we all helped to leverage or overcome.  Everyone had a role. 

The riders all performed better in some conditions than others, and we all encouraged and challenged each other to keep going and catch up whenever we could.  Doug was likely the strongest of us, as the ElliptiGO takes 30% more effort to ride than a regular bike. He just kept going and rarely stopped.  And as the leader he had a lot of paperwork and correspondence to keep up on, especially on the rest days. Tes, our treasurer, was probably the fastest overall when he wanted to be, even uphill. He set some sort of land speed record one day trying to catch up to me – when I was actually several miles behind.  Dave can climb slower and go faster downhill than any human I’ve seen, and thrives on heat. He was also the resident foodie, checking out every available eatery whenever we rolled into a town.  Ron was working off some health issues here and there, but overcame them all and steadily improved every day.  I was somewhere in the middle – I climbed pretty well on one bike and did better on downhill or flats on the other.

The support crew were absolutely essential.  Sally was the den mother/mother hen keeping us in line. She stocked us with bananas and PB&Js before launch, made all the early SAG stops with her “bumper buffet” enroute and negotiated rooms and breakfast arrangements on arrival – then made the daily Facebook posts. Mark made major repairs, serviced the bikes on days off and sent us out every morning with “Make good choices.” He was also the safety officer on the very long and/or hot days, monitoring us for signs of fatigue or dehydration. Nick helped with everything and especially tech issues for us old guys, and Barley was always there whenever you needed a warm paw or a lick.

We all grew together over 2 months and 3200+ miles in our little rolling community of 8 folks and 1 dog.  I feel we share a bond that is hard to describe to anyone that hasn’t been there. In some ways it’s like being on cruise with your ship or squadron, but a bit closer and more intense.  It’s good to be back, but I also miss it.

Finally, there’s a level of what each of us learned about ourselves.  For me, it was partly just how far I could push myself and continue to perform.  In addition to giving myself little milestones along the way – the next hill, the next 5-mile lap on my Garmin, the next SAG – I found I could get into a zone where I had a sustainable pace and didn’t need to worry about how far we had to go. On one miserable 90-mile day in the rain,  Tes noted, “You know, it just doesn’t get any worse.” He was right – while we were certainly ready to be done, we could have gone another 4 or 40 miles with the same relative level of pain.  In the end, over each day, each stage, it was about just keeping going – “making circles” as somebody put it.

But it wasn’t only about personal or inner strength.  It was also about dedication to a cause, which we all committed to and carried out.  Individually, I don’t know if I could have sustained it, but the sense of community, and the shared purpose with the group, made it easier.

The accomplishment of our mission finally came home to me at the arrival in Annapolis and our Memorial Service the next day.  As they played the slideshow roll call of our departed classmates whose names we carried on our jerseys, I found myself smiling at the familiar faces – sometimes with a tear in my eye, but mostly remembering those I knew well (or came to know better through our tributes) in happier times.  It was indeed a happy event for me, and those memories should be a comfort and satisfaction to us all.  The many widows and other loved ones I encountered said much the same thing. They really appreciated all we did and now know their departed ‘73ers are not forgotten.  We hope that realization and connection may help to establish some sort of network among the survivors – that could be a lasting legacy and a model for others.

On a personal note, it’s been my privilege to edit this blog over the past 2 months, even if it meant some late nights when I should have been getting more sleep for the next day.  I appreciate all the content from my fellow riders. My role has been mostly to ensure a consistent degree of readability and at least a minimal level of accuracy – verifying we really were in the towns named on those days, for example.  Any errors that got by me are entirely my responsibility.

I hope this compendium has been informative, interesting and at times entertaining.  If it provides you with some appreciation of what we did and why, it will have served its purpose. With that, it’s bittersweet to try to close out this experience, but in some sense we have said all there is to say, at least for now.  The blog will remain up and open for comments for some time and will also be archived and available in another format for posterity. Details will be posted here at a future date.

Thank you all for your attention and interest. This concludes the blog – until next time.

Non Sibi.

Bill Montgomery