After the second day of Chefs Cycle we
stayed at a Days Inn near the water in Morro Bay. The parking lot had been
transformed into a staging ground for an army of cyclists who just had one of
the hardest days of their lives. Travis Flood, a chef who rode, summoned the
energy to cook dinner for the rest of us in a makeshift tented kitchen with
massive black iron grills. Eight massage therapists leaning over tables worked
on the sore or injured.
We’d pedaled just under 200 miles in 2
days and with one more day to go. The first day from Carmel to King City
took us through the Salinas valley. We saw what John Steinbeck saw: the back
breaking nature of the manual labor that harvests the food we so enjoy. “These
migrants are more American than half the politicians in Washington” one rider said to me.
Restaurateur Christopher Myers and I
compared notes on what we’d witnessed: Dozens of bikers who couldn’t go on but
wouldn’t quit, pedaling so slowly up steep hills that from a distance it looked
as if they had stopped and got off their bikes. The quadriceps of some cramped
and were hard as stone. One sat silently against a tree with ice bags on her
knees. Those who overheated poured ice over their head to lower the
temperature of their body’s core. As the heat intensified, a silence descending
on the ride. Riders stopped for water every 3-4 miles, sometimes knocking
on farmhouse doors, in addition to the official water stops every 25
miles. The day before, Ellen Bennett crashed and needed 21 stitches in
her hand. The next day it would be Allan Ng, who broke his collarbone and will
have surgery this week. “It was carnage,” Christopher said, his eyes wide,
“Carnage!”
Temperatures hit 106 degrees
that day and there was no shade to be found. I had less than 15 miles to go,
one-third of it a steep mountain pass. I wanted to finish, having completed
every leg last year and having trained more this time around. But the
heat overhead and off of the asphalt had sapped my energy and along with it
some of my spirit. I feared what stopping would do to my confidence on the
third and last day. But I feared going on as well.
Near the crest of what would be
my last hill of the day I saw a lone orange jersey near the top, a biker
straddling his bike with both feet on the ground, head down and resting
on his folded arms across the handle bars. He was as still as a statute.
I pulled alongside. “Are you okay?” He lifted his head slowly. It took a moment
for his eyes to focus. He didn’t say anything but didn’t have to. “Let’s
just walk for a little while” I said softly. After 15 minutes a support
car pulled up. We loaded our bikes on the back and got in.
Does it seem inconsistent if not
insane to say that almost all of us look back on it as exhilaratingly fun? Is
that the nature of resilience or simply time’s passage? At dinner, several
chefs said Share Our Strength had become their doorway to the healthier
lifestyle they wanted to create for themselves but never knew how. If they
could get healthier they could help their customers do so too, as well as the
hungry kids we seek to serve.
The entire experience was
"sharing strength", up to and including unforgettable images of one
rider after another struggling up a steep mountain pass with another stronger
rider on each side of him/her, one of their hands on the small of his back gently
lifting him forward even as they struggled one handed to pedal themselves up
the rest of the way.
As challenging as is the ride,
what we do every day at Share Our Strength and Community Wealth Partners is
even harder: insisting on transformational rather than incremental change,
maximizing impact for every child, designing new ways for individuals and
businesses to share their strength, maintaining our commitment to innovation
and accountability, all while knowing that the cathedral we are building may
not be finished in our lifetime.
I went to sleep on the evening
of the second day saying to myself that I wasn’t riding again tomorrow. I would
be a volunteer instead. But when I woke up 6 hours later I couldn’t wait
to get back on the bike. Again there were steep hills. But temperatures
were in the mere eighties. I rode from start to finish as I had the first
day. Even kept up with Tom Nelson (mostly). We exceeded $1 million raised. It
was a glorious ride.
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