My Cycling Family

It’s hard to explain to people who are not apart of this trip how much the guys (and girls) I ride with mean to me as we traveled across the country. It’s difficult to explain the sense of closeness that can come with mile after mile of riding together on this trip. How you can come to quietly understand and recognize subtle shifts in each other’s cadence, posture and effort as we press against the wind, up and down mountains, through valleys and deserts. They understand and feel the same pain that I do on the hard days and we all celebrate together on the good days and when we accomplish something amazing like summiting yet another mountain. They know the roads we have traveled and the towns that we have passed through in ways that few others may ever fully appreciate. Sometimes it feels as though they pulling me along and sometimes I pull them. Some days our paces are in sync and other days I know that they are thinking I am too fast or too slow. I have watched them work hard when they are tired, even when their bodies and minds are telling them to just stop for the day and hop in the support van. I appreciate their words of encouragement as much as I appreciate the silence that often falls over the group as we work hard in the paceline to make our way through mile after mile, day after day, week after week. I’ll miss all of them when we go our separate after we dip our tires into the ocean; hopefully our paths (or bike paths) will cross again some day out on the road. Thanks for the journey of a lifetime to all of you. No chain!