About 50 riders and nearly as many volunteers on the support crew got donations. Riding with a friend who lost his mother to Alzheimer's, I expected just another day on the bike. Physically, it was. I knew I had the legs for the roller-coaster road, and I spent my energy and refueled as needed. But I hope I was building more than muscle.
Physical fitness can gird a person's mental toughness, too.
If pedaling shores up the ability to meet an emotional challenge, whether that's a loved one's long-term illness or anything else, then that's compounded interest on a pretty painless investment. That goes in my memory bank. Chviruk started in mid-May at Fairbanks, Alaska, stuck to the Canadian side of the border all the way to Ottawa, then came home through New York and New England. He had an awful lot of rain, but tailwinds sped him across flat Saskatchewan, and he only had one minor mechanical problem, a broken spoke, on the 4,300-mile trip. The Thunderhead Alliance will offer a one-day workshop to train bike advocates Oct. 28 in Hartford.