September 28: Final blog

It’s over. Yesterday, Mike, Ted and I took a short final ride through the Amish country and Deborah Shockro took us in the minivan to Philadelphia. Last night, Penn hosted a delightful cocktail party for the Penn riders.  Kierra Reilly and Tracey Klebber from the L.A. Penn office flew in to join us and Elise Betz, director of Alumni Relations, Fanny Chu-Fong and Marge Tinsley, who handle global alumni relations, were also there. Most importantly, Susan Zolla was able to join us and gave a terrific speech. Linda Lansky, Ted’s wife, and Kay Faguet and Andy Fox, our good friends from L.A., also joined us.

It has been an amazing journey. For 19 days I was able to focus on riding my bike across every type of terrain the U.S. has to offer, stay at least once in almost every inexpensive motel chain located in rural America, and test myself physically. I had the pleasure of spending time with Ted, my college roommate (43 years later he is still as competitive as he was then) and with Mike, my law partner of over 30 years. I had the opportunity to watch Walt, a 75 year young boy, show us how to age the right way,  and observe Frank celebrate his 60th birthday with three generations of his family at a beautiful remote lakeside resort in West Virginia. I watched Murray Zucker join a group of almost total strangers and leave us all impressed with both his riding skills and his ebullient personality. And I watched Jay Kosa, just graduated from Bucknell, create a wonderful description of the days events to share with all of you. These are experiences I will not forget.

I thank all of you who have contributed to the Penn scholarship fund and who have supported us all along. I especially thank my wife who encouraged me to take this ride, (provided I did not ride too fast, did not ride at night, did not ride in the rain, did not ride in heavy traffic, and did not otherwise do anything stupid on the bike).

Tuesday September 25 Update

We have two days to go, having traveled  through 12 states and three times zones and collectivley ridden over almost 100,000 vertical feet and many thousands of miles. All of the riders who started with us in L. A. will each have ridden over 1000 miles by the time our trip is though.

Our days in West Virginia have been interesting. Yesterday we rode over long rolling hills, with the height of these hills being hundreds of feet. Today we rode over mountains measured in the thousands of feet with one coming after the other, and the route encompassed more than 10,000 vertical feet. It has been our toughest day. (The description of the ride even warned that the last mountain climb might be a “walker”. Needless to say, every rider in our group decided that the last hill was one he would ride and not one of us walked any part of the hill! 

It continues to amaze me how varied the country  and the living standards of the people in it are. We have gone from the mansions of Southern California to the shacks of West Virginia and seen everything in between. However,  virtually every small town we have ridden through, whether in Kansas or Missouri or West Virginia  looks as if time has passed it by – and that many of the younger people have already left. In addditon, even if the town is not large enough to support  a Subway franchise, every one of them had at least one, and usually more than one, church. Interestly, we have not seen ONE synagoge since we left L.A. 

Having spent the last two days in West Virginia we could not help but wonder why it has remained so poor – but none of us knows enough about the state’s history to provide the answer.

The last few dyas have been terrific for me from the personal end. Ted Lanksy, my roommate my senior year at Penn joined our ride three days ago and has been an excellent additon to the Penn team. Two problems have arisen, however, with him: (1) he has ridden faster than me up the hills and mountains and done it with a cheaper bike , which is a testament to the past two months of intensive daily 5 to 6 hours of training he has done every day for the past two months; and (2) we disagree on the efficacy of drying bike clothes in a microwave. More specifically, late last night,  Ted washed his only two  bike pants and socks. It soon became obvious to him (while Ted is very smart I do not understand why this problem was not obvious to him before the washing but I was too sensitve to ask him). In any event, Ted was desperate – he needed to dry his cloths or would have to ride with them wet – a truly uncomfortable propositon on a long ride. Our room had no working heater and Ted had foolishly left his hair dryer at home. As a result, when he came to me begging for help,  I did the only logical thing – I cooked his clothes in our room’s  microwave oven. While we argued over how many seconds was appropriatae (Ted’s view was a whimpy 15 seconds while I did the cooking in a more manly  35 seconds), our real disagreement involved whether my solution worked to dry his clothes. Ted claimed it was of only marginal benefit while it seems clear that my creative solution saved the day. If any of you  readers (if indeed there are any readers) has had any experience cooking bike shorts and socks in your microwave I would appreciate some feed back.

Thanks to the good work of my strengh coach (Andy , the natural, Fox) and my cardio coach, Steve, trainer to the stars Bauer, I have had no problem riding any of the 40 to 105 miles per day and feel great after riding 17 days and over 1000 miles.

I am sorry that I missed the beautiful High Holy Day services at Kehillat Israel, the temple I belong to, but Chayim Frenkel, our wonderful cantor and a terrific friend, provided me with CDs of the songs sung at the services and I have enjoyed listening to them.

I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.

  

Wednsday September 19 and Thursday September 20

Wednsday: 

The ride today through Missouri meant exchanging the flat land, harsh winds and hot dry air of Kansas for the hot, muggy air and flowing hills of Missouri. After seeing so much poverty and deteriorating property it was a surpise, while riding through the Ozarks, to see a beautiful Ozark lake, bordered by elegant looking four story condo complexes, expensive  boats and bustling shopping centers. (We were told the lake area contained second homes for the affluent residents of Kansas City and St.Louis.) I am almost fully recovered and rode 72 miles.

Thursday:

Today we rode from Missouri into Illinois, passing miles and miles of farmland, almost all of which had been planted with soy and corn, most of which had already  been harvested. We passed through small town after small town, one with a population of 650 (at least that’s what the town sign said). Mike and I each rode 80 miles. Tomorrow night I will meet one of my former Penn roommates, Ted Lansky, who will be joining us for the rest of the ride.   

Tuesday September 18

We had a great day today; riding through Kansas, passing small and medium size cities and towns,  into Missouri. Every town we saw had empty buildings, decayed manufacturing facilities, and more for rent signs everywhere. The only stores that are prospeering are the ubiquitous WalMarts. 

 On the other hand, the roads were not crowded, great hamburgers and chicken  sandwiches were under $3 and we got ice cream cones for $.99. Mike and I each rode 60 miles today. At this stage in the ride,  when we have each ridden about 500 miles our bodies will either get stonger or we start falling apart. Thus far, we are all getting stronger. 

These long rides give each of us the chance to ponder life since other than pedaling, making sure you do not dehydrate, do not hit even a small  obstacle in  the road or veer into traffic or ride into the rider in front of or behind you, there is nothing to do but ponder lifae – and that is invaluable. 

Saturday September 15 and Sunday September 16

Friday was a bummer since I did not ride and my larnygitis prevented me from yelling about it to anyone. Yet, it was a beautiful day and the view from the top of the mountain was terrific. so, it was hard to be upset with the world. 

Saturday was another  beautiful day with our second and hardest mountain climb. The mountains were gorgeous and it was hard to resist riding even when sick – so I didn’t. Buoyed by an infusion of vitamin C, zinc and antibiotics I hopped on my bike and did  the only thing I had the energy to do. I rode the downhill part. The 10 mile downhill was steep and fast, with unpredictable wind gusts lurking around every turn. One of our younger riders hit a speed exceeding 60 miles per hour!  Wimp that I am, and knowing my devoted wife would read this, I kept my speed under 40 mph. Once at ground level I kept riding – but stopped at 22 miles.

Today(Sunday)  was another sunny  day. We began our ride in Colorado and ended up in Dodge City, Kansas located, as you probably guessed, on Wyatt Earp Avenue. The roads in between were flat and uninteresting and stretched for mile aftaer mile after mile. My more learned companion(Frank)  informed me that we went through both the flattest area of the country and the windest county in the country. During our ride we were buffeted by winds exceeding 35 mph and temperatures over 103 degrees. Luckily there were no tornados and a small storm missed us by a mile or so. On the other hand, every time we stopped, bugs of various sizes, but all with a high degree of hostility,  attacked the stationery riders or invaded  our minivan and launched  attacks on the driver. It is easy to understand why small town after small town that we went through had store after store with a for rent sign or a for sale sign or, most often, boarded up windows and the look of a place that had long ago been deserted by anyone who had the ability to leave. 

 I felt better than yesterday and rode 51 miles, which sounds better than it really is because I drafted the other two riders almost all of the time. We usually ride with two or three of us in a line, since the lead rider cuts the wind for the other riders,  which can make the ride 10 to 20 % easier for the non-lead riders if done correctly. Each rider is supposed to take a turn in front. Today, I kept skipping my turn. Hopefully, I will start doing more tomorrrow.  I would have ridden more today (and suffered as a result) had not  Mike Shockro kept telling me to act like a grown up and follow my doctors advice.       

We miss Murray Zucker who rode with us for three days and did a great job of getting along with a very disparate group of people, all of whom except for me, he had never met before, and kept up on long rides with the best of us.

Day 7 Sept. 15th

working on blog now…

My First Blog

Today begins the seventh day of our nineteen day ride. These first six days, through California, Arizona and into Colorado have been learning experiences for all of us.

We have been learning or relearning about our country, mile by mile.

We have been learning about each other and how to work together and the process has not been smooth or easy. Riders and our support staff encompass four generations: three recent college graduates in their early twenties; three people in their thirties; four people in their early to mid sixties (counting Frank who will turn sixty on this ride) and one rider in his seventies; all born in different parts of the country, ranging from California to Texas to New York and other Northeastern states; and with different real word experiences, ranging from very little (the college boys) to decades of practicing law, medicine, and business (the old guys) to video design, acting and even mountain bike racing (the thirty year olds). The riders are of varying degrees of skill but all have strong opinions on almost every issue, ranging from how the ride should be organized to how the miles should be divided up each day. Needless to say, there have been disagreements on almost every issue. It is sometimes like herding cats and makes it clear to me that it is not only lawyers or old folks who can argue. However, as each day has passed we have become better at dealing with these issues and with each other.

Most importantly, we have been learning about ourselves. Each day presents new physical challenges and the cumulative effect begins to take its toll. All of the riders, except for me, have stayed healthy. After five good days of riding and feeling stronger each day, on the fifth day I came down with laryngitis and some flu like symptoms and, trying to be mature (difficult), and listen to my wife (easier since with no voice it is hard to argue), I did not ride on the sixth day and will not ride on the seventh. Not riding is hard….

The ride has also given all of us a chance to think about ourselves and where we are and what we want. The college grads are just starting – and none of them know what they will be doing one or two years from now. Others are already well into the work cycle but still have many unknowns ahead. Finally, the old guys are either fully retired, embarking on second careers, or pondering what to do next.

For me, I am still mourning the death last year of my dear friend Ed Zolla. I am also contemplating a beautifully written and moving letter I received yesterday from my oldest friend, Peter Cohen, (my sophomore year’s Penn roommate) who has recently been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of brain cancer and is doing an incredible job of explaining his feelings as he goes through his various treatments.

All in all, a lot to ponder, without the usual distractions and routines that make it easy to avoid thinking about these types of issues.