Thank you, thank you, six days of riding done, (400 miles, 20,000 feet of elevation gain and 1,700 feet of loss) 3,400 miles to go. Several times we have had wonderful, strong, westerly tail winds allowing us to roll at 20 to 24 miles per hour on the flats, and occasionally we have faced a bit of challenging crosswinds. I have felt my body needing to work pretty hard on most days; hopefully that will improve with time. Yesterday, I managed 100 miles for the second time in my life.
Riding this week has put me in some of the most beautiful parts of the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington. There is clearly much industry and agriculture given the less expensive power and water that our federal government has made available to this area. We have been on highways, bike-paths, gravel roads, chip seal roads, and crossed the river several times on very large old and new bridges, some much more comfortable to ride a bike over than others. The team is current about 29 people and we are learning to work together accomplishing all types of daily tasks ranging from a rapid church cleanup or food preparation, to dealing with descending on a Laundromat every three days with 300 pounds of cloths and running 10 driers without losing clothes or over drying bike shorts. The churches we have been fortunate enough to stay in have treated us to some very tasty food and plenty of it with left overs for creative use the next day. We have been in Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches of all sizes. The Presbyterian complex we are staying in tonight has it’s own women’s and men’s showers and we have learned that they are planning on feeding us this evening.
My lightweight road bicycle that was creatively retrofitted with a 11-40 rear cassette by the mechanics at Bikeman / Bath Cycle and Ski, Woolwich, Maine 1-800-BIKEMAN, has worked very well and helps on long hill climbs. I will plan to post again, courtesy of my son Kirk’s assistance, in about another week. Thank you to all who have partnered with me to allow me to undertake this adventure and contributed to this effort! We are currently at 91% of my goal of which over 90% will go directly to fund home construction, in many cases moving folks out of dirt floor blue tarp structures. https://fullercenter.donorpages.com/2018BikeAdventure/WilliamTurner/
Lily and I are excited to be signed up for a Fuller Center build trip to Puerto Rico in mid November.
Thanks for reading,
-Bill Turner
