Tuesday went better than Monday even though I crawled out of my tent having significantly less sleep than I had hoped and was in quite a bit of pain. Breakfast was a parade of people asking how my shoulder was and all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner, eat food and try to get a bit more sleep. Frustrated by the outrageous number of conversations I had before 6:15 in the morning I just decided to take down my tent all by myself and get out on the road. I probably overdid it a bit trying to stuff my sleeping bag in the stuff sack and taking my tent down. I got my shoulder taped by a physiotherapist which hurt a ton and departed camp not really sure how long I’d last out there on the road.

With the morning behind me and permission to increase my dose of ibuprofen if I wasn’t taking the Hydrocordone I set out from camp. The whole ride was into the day long headwind and I rode with Eritia for 95% of the day joining a few other pace lines here and there. The day stayed cool and my armwarmers stayed on for the whole day. Things turned around maybe 20 minutes into the ride when we started to get to the rolling hills that had destroyed me and my lack of shifting ability the day before. I had asked Lawrence to index my gears which had been switched to friction shifting after the bent derailleur. He made the adjustment for me and that really did save my day. I was able to reach across the bike and shift with my good hand quickly and accurately. When I gained a bit of control over how my day was going to work I felt so much better. The next 140 kms were all good even though my shoulder gave me more trouble than yesterday. I enjoyed the day on the road and upon my arrival at camp escaped to the library so I don’t have to answer questions about my shoulder. I can sit here and type and just answer the barrage of questions “How did your day go?”, “How’s your shoulder?”, “Did you catch a SAG wagon?” by putting my index finger over my mouth.

What would I rather talk about? There is a 40km time trial planned for Thursday. I would of course like to go under 1 hour but considering the circumstances will be quite pleased if I’m able to be under 66 minutes. Paul Tichelaar of Edmonton finished out of the medals in the Men’s Triathlon in Beijing with a 33 minute run split he’s probably not so proud of. Simon Whitfield however did bring home the silver medal for Canada. We cross the border into Canada tomorrow so I guess I need to find my passport sometime tonight. It sounds around camp like people are more excited about going to Tim Hortons than they are about anything else in life. Some of us Canadians have had discussions about what habits of Americans don’t make a lot of sense. Well this one takes the cake, I have no need to go there tomorrow, nor the next day for that matter.

To sum up today’s ride in one word… Lousy. I headed out of camp not really knowing what to expect and did manage the whole 111 kms at an average speed of well more than 30 kph. Those 2 statements probably don’t fit together very well but that’s because it’s not my legs that are causing trouble it’s that shoulder. I got bandaged up a bit this morning but without the correct kind of tape it didn’t really do what it was supposed to as far as keeping my collarbone in the right place. The leaning on the handlebars isn’t much trouble at all but when I want to move that hand around on the handlebars. I have to support it with my shoulder and that’s not something I can do very well. That means every time I want to shift gears I have to reach across the bike and shift with my other hand. I also have zero ability to stand out of the seat and the bumps in the road don’t really make me smile either. I had to give up on my first riding group of Bob Terpstra, Sarah Terpstra and Stephanie Webb and joined Eritia Smit and Jess Fox for the rest of the ride as I couldn’t manage getting off my bike at one of the pit stops. The big tailwind today was nice and even though I was cruising along quickly I have to admit I did start debating the merits of getting a ride, When those thoughts get in your head the prognosis isn’t so good for a successful completion and I just decided I had to get out of there and get to camp as soon as I could. I made the big effort to get in a different gear and upped the pace by a full 10 kph and headed towards camp at more than 40 kph. Upon arrival in camp there were about 5 people drafting me. “We drafted the cripple here for the last hour” was the announcement made to a slew of riders as we climbed off of our bikes. I threw some ointment on the road rash which made it all start to ooze orange fluid as we waited for the gear trucks to show up. Eritia has the photo of that… and I stole it from her blog:

I’m quite sore, and riding with not much mobility but I did get the go ahead to take more Ibuprofen than the normal dose so things may be looking up. I’m giving up on my other drugs, the painkiller one, because it doesn’t seem to do anything for me. Plus it’s “habit forming” and I’m not super keen on putting that kind of stuff in my body unless I have to.

Saturday we woke up to a cool Michigan morning just a bit south of Grand Haven ready to ride the final stretch of our route into Grand Rapids. The day was to be a short 75kms with no elevation gain worth noting, a couple stops at CRC churches and the home of Tyler Buitenwerf. We were anticipating riding past 11 different CRC church buildings during the day. In addition to our contingent of 150 cyclists 130 others were joining us “officially” for the day and numerous others “unofficially”. Considering the fact that I met 3 of the bandit riders and- never figured out who was riding along as part of the “official” ride-along there could have been many more than 300 of us on the road. Leaving camp in the morning at around 8:05 we were of course taking up the tail end of the group and had approximately 300 people ahead of us to pass during the day. Riding with me were John Vanderveen, Brad Geerlinks, and Marc Vanotteren. This was a group of guys included all of the perpetual City-Line-Sprinters and we were excited to compete in what we’ve been calling the second biggest sprint race of the summer. The race into Grand Rapids, Jersey city being the other big one we were looking forward to. (The Canadian border sprint will happen on a Ferry and therefore doesn’t exactly count because we couldn’t race it).

The day started out with us riding along hovering just below 40kph keeping a running tally of how many people we had passed so we could gauge how many were on the road. We were all the way up to 126 riders within the first hour of riding and everyone had smiles from ear to ear. After rounding a bend we saw in the distance a town line sign for Lemont Michigan, a little race to scope out the strategies of the other guys we were riding with. It was a long gradual downhill followed by maybe 100 yards of flat to the finish. I was up front and could see John Vanderveen was perched just over my right shoulder. We were heading north and the sun was still low in the sky so I decided I’d try to lour him around me on the downhill hoping to make my move at the bottom of the hill. I looked left and watched his shadow and could see him move further to my right and come up alongside me. Exactly as I had hoped I felt confident I was positioned correctly as we neared the bottom of the hill. I quickly glanced down at my speedometer and noted we were traveling at 54 kph. I was going to need every gear I had if I was to get ready and stand to sprint this line against John who is geared faster than me. At this point my chain skipped and I lost tension in my chain and my pedals went for a whirl. If you’ve ever been walking up the stairs and expected there to be one more step before the top you’ve felt the same feeling. You try and place your foot somewhere and there’s nowhere for you to put it. My left foot made that attempt and landed nowhere, it came unclipped from my pedal and my bike veered sharply to the left. I wasn’t about to make any sharp corners as I was now moving faster than 54 kph so I continued in a straight line. I tucked in my arm and went for a slide down the road on my right shoulder and then on my back. I saw Marc ride by while sliding on down the road and began to scramble to my feet so I wouldn’t be hit by any one of the other riders coming behind me. Marc told me later I was on my feet before I had stopped moving. A quick couple steps and I was in the ditch and made my way to a patch of grass in the shade where I parked myself.

It was about here that the serious praying began and group at the side of the road in the ditch began to grow. John who had dislocated his shoulder numerous times before started to feel things and get the lay of the land. His initial reaction was that it was dislocated and asked if I could move it. I moved it up from by my side to above my head without much trouble and it just felt better there so that’s where I kept it. Soon enough Betsy, a nurse, rode up to the scene and did her version of the little diagnosis. Hers sounded like 50% dislocation and 50% broken collarbone and the prospect of the end of my tour loomed large. The other guys were all rather sobered by the situation and did what they could to help out and throw in a few words of encouragement. My new camera which had taken a grand total of one photograph was absolutely destroyed so Brad snapped a few photos of the wreckage on my behalf. Art Smit pulled up in one of our 10 passenger vans and my bike made its way in between the seats. Soon enough we were headed for the hospital Art driving and Betsy along as my hospital tour guide.

The hospital visit included a few Xrays which seemed to be “Let’s put this arm in the 4 most painful positions I can think of and then take photographs of it” and some rather suspenseful moments waiting to hear what the news would be regarding my prognosis. Betsy was great to have along and even though we never really did discuss the fact that my tour might very well be done her comments did help to bring peace to what was far from a peaceful situation. When the doctor eventually arrived back with the news the results were good, or great, or fantastic. I had no breaks in my shoulder and by his physical exam my shoulder was no longer dislocated and the X-ray did confirm that fact. He commented that I had done a number to my AC joint and he was going to call it a shoulder contusion. Later on a physiotherapist checked it out at camp and said that the AC joint was most likely separated. For all the non anatomy majors out there that is the bit of your body that holds your collar bone “down” and I would have to agree that mine is more likely described as “up”.

So basically from the time my foot came unclipped everything went in the best possible direction it could have. There is no question that I had God looking out for me. The road was smooth and I slid a long ways rather than grinding to a halt. I also was fortunate to have been able to tuck myself in before sliding and did so in a more elegant way resulting in less road rash than any other sprawl on the pavement would have. My head never smacked into the ground but my helmet does suggest it would like to be replaced so I will do so as to not suffer any consequences at a later date. I had people with me who knew what to do and insurance to make treatment and a full diagnosis available. The doctor’s orders included no mandatory rest and he told me that if I could ride there from Seattle he figured I was able to attempt continuing on Monday. My front wheel ended up in the shape of a pringle and while my bar tape, seat and derailleur are scraped up they are not broken. I had access to a new front wheel which has replaced mine now and should treat me well for the rest of the summer. I also was notified lated that I was named the honorary winner of the sprint into Lemont. John Vanderveen did end up winning the big race into GR for those of you who are interested.

My arrival into camp was a bit overwhelming to say the least. I had just been sitting for a while in the van and just wanted to lay down in the shade and get some food. I had 4 complete discussions after opening the door before I could even get out of the vehicle. I then proceeded to do the awkward left handed handshake with all sorts of people who I would have loved meeting and talking with under almost any other circumstances. If you’re reading (and I know a few of you are) I apologize for lousy first go of things. I didn’t catch a single name in the whole process but did figure out that I had an hour before someone was coming to pick me up to shower in her house, to let me do my laundry and have a real bed for me to sleep in. I finally got on my back in the grass and put a few drugs in me and that’s where I stayed for the entire hour letting everyone who asked know that I was allowed to ride on Monday and would be making an attempt to do so. The conversation repeated itself all weekend long and I’ll have to admit I am a bit sheepish telling people that we were racing when I crashed.

My host for the weekend was Cobi Hofman, the wife of the pastor who way back more than 50 years ago baptized my Dad. She had been a part of the CRC that I was riding as a representative of during its very early years meaning even though I’d never met her before we did have an endless supply of topics for discussion. We did watch a bit of the Olympics, which I haven’t otherwise had an opportunity to do and I was fed well. I also had a good bed to sleep in for the weekend and got a ride to check out Neland Ave CRC on Sunday morning.

If you think the jokes about the pilgrimage to Michigan by the SeatoSea bike tour are growing old… you’re only getting a few of them. There are new ones each hour of every day around here. Seems like everyone has the same sense of humour in that department.

Friday we rode north from South Haven to Grand Haven and rode through the town of Graafschap and Holland on the way. The very first CRC ever hosted us for lunch and a peruse of the little museum in the basement. A stop at the bike shop in Holland and then a stop to pick up a new camera. Followed by an afternoon on the beach at Holland State Park. 3 hours of sunburn later we finally decided to hurry up and head north to make it in time for dinner. Only half an hour late for dinner we rolled into the conference grounds and were just in time for the last few Steaks from the BBQ.

Here’s the newsletter from SeatoSea communications headquarters: The link for end of week 7!.

We rode into Michigan today for the first time. With more than 60 cyclists from this state there are alot of people excited to be here. There was in fact a lineup at the “Welcome to Michigan” sign to have their picture taken. My camera is broken, perhaps temporarily perhaps permanently at the moment so I didn’t bother standing in that line.

I set out this morning with Johnny Pierce, Peter Rabbit, Jody, Stretch (Marc VanOtteren) and Kevin Pasma and we were soon joined by Lawrence. The route started out through a wealthy community along the shore of lake Michigan and the road was flat… we were flying along in the mid 30s and having a great time with overcast skies and perfect temperatures.

Reuben then passed us while people were taking pictures of the Michigan sign and I latched on to him for a bit. The road took us away from the beach and through some tree lined backroads in hardwood forest which were beautiful. Soon enough though we passed a few people who didn’t exactly want to be passed by a couple guys with silly grins on. They organized themselves and came howling past us at more than 40 kph. We of course latched on to the group and made 6. Pieter Pereboom, Jim, Josh Nyenhuis, Nathan Beach, Reuben and myself.

That group worked well together until Reuben’s tyre had a sidewall bulge and he needed to change it. He was heading to visit some friends and wasn’t planning to ride the whole day anyways with us so I just unclipped my second tyre from below my seat (Markus got the other one a couple days ago) and our group left him in the ditch to fend for himself. You don’t get alot of pity when you’re the cream of the crop. Sorry Reuben!

From there on in it was an efficient paceline working into the wind in the high thirties. When we were about 15 miles out from camp the pavement improved by a huge margin and that pace picked up a bit (now hovering around the 40 kph mark) as we no longer had all those potholes to dodge. Oh yes, there are a million potholes in this state. When 10 miles out from camp Pieter peeled off the front of the paceline and said “bring us home”. Looking at my odometer I thought we had about 5 kms left and decided to give it a shot. Well that 5 kms was more than 3 times longer than I thought it was. As that 5 kms dragged on I kept being able to dig a bit deeper and kept finding a bit more strength. I haven’t really pushed the pace for nearly 2 weeks and when Nathan Beach and myself pulled into camp it was really satisfying to be burning from the tops of my hips to the tips of my toes. (Trying to do the last hour of my 5 hour century into Wray was the last fast day.) In any case, I was beginning to wonder if all this riding was still making me faster and I suppose the answer is still yes, if only a bit.

I often say entries will be brief but this one will probably actually be that way.

A beautiful send off this morning at Trinity put me in a great mood to get out there and ride, but also to keep up with the discussions etc. I don’t know how many people I spoke with but did give out a dozen little cards with more stats and a web address. Anyhow, the reasoning: Aaron spoke of the fact that we’ve got unfinished business in this world while we’re still here. That while he biked home yesterday he still has 2.5 weeks left. Similarly when we reach New Jersey we’ve not yet finished addressing the issues of poverty that surround us.

We rode through Roseland this morning and stopped at Roseland Christian Mission. When I have an internet connection that can upload YouTube I’ll have another video and will comment more then. I also got a comment about “great legs for a guy” from a guy named Jim and promised I’d mention the fact of my first compliment on my blog tonight. In case you check I did keep my word.

We rode a good section of bikepath after a lunch stop at a CRC church though the trees… beautiful once again and got to spend some time on the beach and climb a dune this evening. Photos from the day are in the gallery for this week but aren’t linked from right here… sorry.

I registered for all my courses for next year tonight on the computer while uploading a few videos. That means I’m going to cut the typing short and let the other evidence speak for itself.

We rode a 60 km section along a bike path today on what I guess is towards the western edge of the greater metropolitan Chicago area. It was nice not to be on roads and deal with traffic for a good portion of the day but those paths aren’t terribly efficient in letting you maintain your speed so it took far longer than anticipated to cover the distance. That combined with a later start (stayed up late to try and watch the meteor shower last night) and a few long breaks to rest Stephanie’s knee and all told we didn’t arrive in camp until past 4 pm. So first… a couple videos from the bike path.

Following that we had some city riding to do and I feel like we must have hit every stoplight along the way. Progress once again was slow but that was a good thing for Markus Lise who had me behind him when he ran into tyre trouble today only 10 kms from camp. Markus rides a Long Haul Trucker which in the world of sweet touring bikes is really quite something. You could easily go on a bike trip to Yellowknife on that bike in January, it’s a beast and can handle anything. Anyhow, when he had a big gash in his tyre and the patch wasn’t holding on the tube things weren’t looking good. The option of catching a ride into camp wasn’t very appealing so we decided to do what we could and that was replace his tyre (36 mm wide) with my spare tyre (23 mm wide). The rim quickly got the nickname ‘behemoth’ and when the tyre was loaded onto it you could see rim on both sides which in case you were wondering is not normal at all. Anyhow the tyre held and he was able to ride all the way to camp on it. Photos of the patchjob and a video of the success:

From there on in to camp we rode through the thick of Chicago rush hour traffic combined with a bit of construction. One road was standing still on new pavement so Kevin and I decided to race… the obvious thing to do when all the cars on the road are parked right? Anyhow, Kevin rode up the white line and I rode up the yellow line going 40 kph up the hill for maybe 3 kms shouting at eachother over the cars as we went, whether or not it was the actual highlight of the day is up for grabs but it definitely had the highest levels of adrenaline!
A photo from the start of the race when we were both still on the white line:

Trinity College has been a great stop… as I’ve said pretty much every time some group goes out of their way for us. It really doesn’t grow old, I ate dinner with Louis (another rider) and a family from just south of here. It’s fun to give insight into what it’s like to be on the tour to people who don’t have it all straightened out exactly. Their eyes really grow wide. Oh, and Louis’ group managed to find a shortcut today when they got lost. That wasn’t the case for most people, plenty of riders did extra mileage, some as much as 25 extra miles today just getting misplaced at various spots along the bike path.

We rode again mostly through Wisconsin today, one thing I notied while on the road was that it seemed like the immigrants to this area made a more intentional effort of maintaining their bits and pieces of European herritage than was the case in most of the previous states. Often along the road there’d be homes and farms with what I’d consider a distinctive style. Even a few patches of cobblestone here and there. The fields are smaller on average than anywhere else we’ve been and the patchwork of forests and fields is all jumbled up and follows contours in the hills rather than a big old boring grid. It seems more welcoming, more like these communities are nestled in here for the long haul. They brought bits of Norway, Germany and Sweeden (the ones I could pick out today) along with them when they arrived.

In some sense the ruggedness and barrenness of some of our earlier weeks in the mountains display a certain beauty. This landscape on the other hand displays another and I might even like it more. While the vastness of the mountains and the naturalness of the Cascade mountains shows God’s glory in one way, the development here in Wisconsin displays another, the way we as God’s people continue to shape the earth. While I’ve experienced alot of “God is evident in the wilderness” comments in the past few years God’s handiwork is also seen in the earth as it has been subdued and sculpted. While scripture does begin in a garden it ends with a big city and there’s something to be said for that fact as well.

So… the ride? It was two sections of 80 kms for myself as I stretched it out into a full century. We had lunch served and hosted by a local CRC church at the midway point. I also drafted behind a garbage truck for a few hundred yards. I gave up because it stank but did snap a picture of what it feels like to draft a big truck.

My derailleur hanger stopped chasing me across the country today. After missing me by about 8 hours in Sioux Center on Tuesday morning it hitched a ride with someone from town to Madison this morning who was attending the celebration service and finally landed in my hands. I’ve covered more than 2500 kms on my bent hanger and finally it got to be replaced. Now you might think that something that can last 2500 kms when nearly broken wasn’t all that close to being broken and in some sense I do agree with that notion, but every person in every bike shop who saw it cautioned against riding on it more than I had to. Every SeatoSea cyclist who looked at the stress marks on it thought it was probably going to give out in a few days. Not so, you can call it luck, you can call it misdiagnosis, call it what you want I’m calling it God providing a way when there seemed to be no way. Take a peek at some of these photos, it’s not kinda bent it’s really bent.

So I’ll quote from Exodus a story that’s kept me trusting that fiddly little piece of aluminum to get me through a new day when I was sure going up plenty of hills that I was sure it wouldn’t survive. (Yes sure is in that sentence twice on purpose, I would put it in there 3 times if I could do so in a grammatically correct manner but I’m an engineer and getting it in twice was tricky enough.)

Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.”

The Lord’s prayer reminds us to ask daily for our daily bread, that God provides enough for each day and that’s enough for me. If you would have asked me any day between Craig Colorado and Fennimore Wisconsin (Friday’s stop) whether or not I’d make it Madison with that hanger my answer would probably have been no. But ask me each day if it would last the day and my answer would be (usually with a lump in my throat) yes. But that patch of Moses’ story doesn’t end there, it ends with the important part and because time is short tonight that’s where I’m going to leave it for this evening as well:

So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD”