They survived closed encounters with moose and chipmunks. They endured sore knees and road rash. Flat tires? They stopped counting several states ago.
Today, 14 cyclists rolling through Morristown will face the greatest challenge of their 3,300-mile odyssey: Metro area drivers.
“I was yelled at three times in my first 10 minutes in New Jersey,” laughed Ben Skoda, enjoying a hefty meal last night at the Morristown Presbyterian Church.
Ben, a 31-year-old special education teacher from Chicago, and the others began their journey in Seattle on June 20 and hope to end it today in New York.
They each paid close to $5,000 to pedal with Venture Expeditions, a Christian nonprofit based in Minnesota that combines adventures with social causes.
This tour, called “Just + Hope,” aims to fight slavery and human trafficking in Thailand by raising money for a community center there. It will serve as a refuge and an educational facility, the bikers said.
The group bunked at the Presbyterian Church last night because Ben is friendly with Joel Strom and Kimberly Light, newlyweds who are active in the Morristown church. Another church member, Jamie Barnette, spearheaded efforts to feed the hungry bikers.
Similar scenes of hospitality have played out across the country, from friends and strangers alike, the cyclists said.
“People we would bump into in the grocery store would say, ‘Can we make you breakfast?'” said Karl Pasche, 25.
He and Becky Salter, 21, are the romantic item of this expedition. They both attend North Central University in Minnesota, but didn’t really get to know each other until someplace in Montana.
“I kind of realized somewhere in … Billings or Helena, ‘I think I like her,'” Karl said with a grin.
The group took a northerly route through America, crossing the Rockies in Idaho, a highlight cited by many of the riders. A team from Venture Expeditions carried their gear in a van, and procured food.
Many tour members only were casual cyclists when they saddled up in June. They have averaged 80 to 100 miles per day.
The trip’s only casualty was Erin Morris, a 23-year-old waitress from Nashville. She hit some gravel on a downhill in Pennsylvania, near Penn State, and tumbled onto her head and hands.
While the mishap was “really scary,” she took the opportunity to pitch the trip’s mission to hospital staffers who bandaged her thumb.
Ben Skoda preferred climbing the dry, towering Rockies to the muggy, up-and-down hills of Pennsylvania.
South Dakota’s windswept plains also won few fans, and Ohio was “sketchy,” recalled Karl Pasche. Yet those were minor quibbles.
“I never realized how beautiful our country is,” he said.
The adventure’s youngest and oldest cyclists are the father-son tandem of Tim and Zachary Murphy, 50 and 19, respectively, from Syracuse.
Tim said he’ll never forget South Dakota–and not just because of the headwinds.
“We hit a grasshopper plague,” he said, describing roads caked with insects.
Tim and Karl Pasche said their humanitarian mission kept them going; both look forward to giving their saddles a rest, however.
“My body is tired,” Karl said. “It’s time to be done.”
