Ride for Jim

TransAmerica Tour

Ride for Jim 2010 was a team effort, with many contributions from many people from many walks of life...all bound by a desire to further the research to defeat cancer, and the desire to honor someone or something in their life. For me, it felt like a "meant to be" event that I had to participate in. Over two years prior I had learned of the passing of Jim Popp, a great friend, fraternity brother, roommate, and study partner from my college "glory days." Surprised to learn of Jim's death, I searched for an obituary, and perchance found the "Ride for Jim" website, and there learned of the great thing Jack Haar was doing to honor my old friend. Interestingly, he was doing it by doing something I always dreamed and talked of doing with my sons. So it was at that moment, I knew in my mind it was something I had to be a part of. I waited for my boys to grow up over that summer and the next, then told Jack I wanted to jump in and ride in 2010.

The 2010 Ride came with quite a bit of history and anticipation for me, only matched by the great deal of planning and preparation once I committed. First, Jack informed me of Howard Smith, who wanted to ride as well, and a computer search for other riding partners hooked me up with Alex Weisbach, a cancer survivor himself, who wanted to ride to give back, and to honor those who gave him hope and cared for him as he fought his cancer. And of course, I had to convince my son Jordan that this was the summer we were really going to do this insurmountable thing that he had heard me dream of doing with him! Preparing for the trip took a great deal of coordinating schedules, drawing up a proposed itinerary and timeline for everything. Arranging plane trips, shipping bikes, shopping for appropriate camping and biking gear ate up the ensuing months. Not to mention the training schedule that I began about 4 months prior to my June 1st departure. I rode as often as I could, which became more frequent the closer it got to "time zero" as I began to feel an urgency and fear that I was not ready. I worked up to riding 4 hours consecutive, and I did it towing a trailer loaded with 60 lbs. of rock to simulate the weight of a loaded bicycle, and to strengthen my endurance for the mountain climbs. Honestly, the planning was one of the most enjoyable parts of the whole experience, but the physical training was tiresome and made me doubt myself.

Then on June 1st, using a one-way ticket, I hopped a plane to Portland, traveling through Atlanta. In Atlanta, I met my new friend Howard, and we exchanged stories, and answered questions about one another as we waited for the 2nd leg of the flight. I watched the earth pass beneath me from the plane window, mile after mile of tiny little specks traveling highways that looked like thread, and I thought, "What have I done." I remember doubting myself again as we all often do so many times in life, and I remember thinking what a commitment and long road it must be to fight cancer, and suddenly I felt ashamed for doubting myself. In Portland, with a rental car, we drove to Salem, OR to reunite with my son, Jordan, and we shopped for items he would need for the Ride. The following day we assembled Howard's bike, and had them all fine-tuned at a bike shop, then went to get Alex Weisbach back at the airport, where he was flying in from Houston. We assembled Alex's bike back at the Motel, and had a training ride the next morning to see if there were any bike problems before we began the journey. We pulled Jordan right from his high school class where he was a senior with a week of school left. Jordan had taken exams early, and by prior arrangement was free to ride with us, but we had to get him back to his graduation a week later, a maneuver we pulled off with a rental car my wife used as she flew from NC for the graduation. Anyway, June 4th, we began a 57 day journey from coast to coast, beginning in Pacific City, OR and terminating in Yorktown, VA on August 1st. We rode 4221 miles and learned lessons that are still surfacing in the backs of our minds. We learned of capacity for endurance. I think we all felt like the distance would be a tremendous feat in endurance that we feared, but now when we look back on it we are surprised in how easy it went by doing it one day at a time with a "little help from our friends" as the song goes. With patience, and commitment, it passed just like the lives we lead, one day at a time! The beginning and the end of the Ride are easy to summarize, and are quite brief, I guess because the attention is called to the concreteness of those focal points, but all the middle ground-----the road between the coasts, the countless free thought sessions, and personal battles of the will as we climbed arduous mountain passes, rode through bad weather, had bugs slap us in the face, endured numb hands, and very painful seats...the towns we saw, the many people we met, the many stories shared with people met along the way------all too much to summarize here, and too full of meaning to come in only a few paragraphs. There were endless stacks of pancakes devoured, big hamburgers( proudly touted as the biggest and the best by every small town along the way), ice cream, candy bars, and Gatorade.....all to sustain us and to give us the energy to continue. Sleepless nights due to one another's snoring, humidity, or just plain uncomfortable ground, to good sleeping nights in cheap motels, showering with a garden hose in our bathing suits on the town square with hardly a glance from passers-by, quick meet and greets from cyclists going the other way, and cat and mouse meetings of cyclists headed our direction...one rider behind you one day and ahead of you the next...riders warning you of what to expect or what to be sure to take advantage of, innumerable kind acts by those willing to shelter bike riders. Supportive words of friends and family on cell phone calls, writing in our journals, doing laundry, and a constant wetness from sweat...this was the world as we knew it for 57 days. We were Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and any adventurous hobo there ever was. Swimming in rivers, bathing in rivers, stealing water when we absolutely had to, dusting off and bandaging cut legs from being tossed from the bike, road rash, and for you cyclists, SHAMMY butter. Fixing flat tires, oiling bike chains, checking tire inflation, fighting off dogs, and dog bites, right Jack!.............all routine. Finding and picking the best places to eat, or sleep, were our biggest worries, and we didn't once think about what we were going to do when we weren't riding, because that is when we slept...bed by nine, up at 530!

One of our most memorable occurrences from the trip was another "meant to be" moment. As fate would have it, atop a mountain in Virginia, very far from our beginning in Oregon, and still a ways from the end of our journey, a chance meeting between strangers lead us to see the connectivity of all these people and efforts. We were pulled over on the roadside to rest and take pictures when a lost driver pulled over to ask us for directions. We had to answer that we were passing through and were unfamiliar with the road he had just traveled. He turned his attention to us and wanted to know what we were doing. He suddenly became excited about the magnitude of our undertaking. As we discussed our Ride in more detail, the name Jim Popp was mentioned by us, and the man immediately stated he had known a Dr. Popp from Florida. Being so far from home he probably felt it was just coincidence, but when I pressed him as to the kind of doctor he was and where he lived, I felt I knew what he would say! Sure enough, he answered Rheumatologist and Jacksonville, FL. This individual was from Florida, and had met and known the very man we were riding to honor. We couldn't help but feel Jim had put that man there as a way of showing gratitude for what we were attempting for him and many others.

The world really is quite small and each of our efforts for a worthy cause will truly reach our neighbors, friends, and family we love. There are anonymous donations, but the people you touch with them are not anonymous, they are all around us, very close, and very much like you and me.

- Doug Gardner