Thank God you are both OK!

+1

Thanks for the update - glad you're safe.

Glad you are both safe, I hope all works out well. I hope Ryan's knee isn't too bad.

Please continue to keep us posted.

Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm glad it wasn't more serious and you guys seem to be OK. Keep us updated on how things shake out.

I'll give a call later this morning.

Just talked to Ryan.

The impact was a slow 5 mphish hit. After a nice talking too from his parnets he will going to the doctor today and get checked out. Josh apparently just has a uise on his elbow from when he landed. Ryan has some swelling in his quad, but that appears to be it, but getting checked is a good thing.

They are on the way to a bike shop to get whatever needs to be done fixed. The worst seems to be Ryan's front wheel not being round anymore.

That doesn't surprise me one bit. He leaves you behind?

Sounds like you will be ready to ride. Stay warm and best of luck.

Just spoke with Ryan in Baton Rouge. He is doing fine - he likened his injury to getting a helmet to the quad in football, which is something we both know a lot about, having played on the same team in High School. He should be okay to go tomorrow, though he thinks he may have to build up again to doing the seven hour rides. The bikes have been fixed and apparently the guy that hit them in his Jeep has been helpful. Just another story of the journey! :)

My bike has a few dents in the frame and I lost my GPS. We should be heading out tomorrow morning.

Krickees! Glad to hear there weren't any serious injuries.

Joshua, would a helmet, or handlebar mirror have helped you guys notice the driver not avoiding you? It might be worth thinking about using one, just as another safety tool, like reflectivity & a helmet.


Tailwinds & safe riding!

Found this article today on urbanvelo:
http://urbanvelo.org/inagural-bike-valet/

So, it's entirely possible Ryan (and anyone else on a bike) will get to ride into DC.

Wondering how Ryan's doing, I checked his website. His most recent post is dated today, Jan 2, from Mobile, AL. Interesting bar encounter chronicled there. I'd say "Welcome to the south", but I can't guarantee it wouldn't happen here in parts of Wichita or any other large city east of the Rockies.

No mention of any ailments, so let's hope he's able to keep moving along. Google Maps says it's about 400 miles to Jacksonville and 700 miles from there to DC, probably a bit more by secondary roads. He has 17 travel days left. It's doable barring more accidents and bad weather. Worst near-term weather looks like Tues and Wed along the coast. Good luck, Ryan!

Sure, it's doable, because he's not riding the whole way. His Dec. 29 post on his website has the following, which was prior to his accident later that day:

"Two hours later I convinced two truckers named Ed and Jan to give me a ride down the road about 20 miles to the next big truck stop.
Simply put (I’ll spare the hitching stories for another time), after two more rides across spans that are impossible to cross on the I-10 I finally got to Baton Rouge and reunited with Josh, who had lucked out in his hitching expedition and was waiting for me at the Chimes Bar next to Louisiana State University. After finishing the local brews and gumbo, we headed out to our host’s family five miles away."

A reasonable person has to wonder just how much he's been riding, and how much he's been thumbing. He seemed to get across Mississippi awfully quickly. Does anyone really know if he biked the mountains of New Mexico, or the long stretch of west Texas? And then, of course, there was the car trip from the California desert to Phoenix.

I've heard that tattoo removal can be quite painful.

Maybe I should register http:\\www.ridinginacarforobama.com

:P

Actually www.hitchhikingforobama.com. :)

In reference to his blog. One again he tries to "color" everyone with the same broad brush because of one moron. I was hoping he would learn something on this trip.

I read that. I've been trying to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, but what was obviously a chance encounter with what I would refer to as an "gangsta wanna-be" seems to have been painted both as a racial division and a broader dissertation of the people in that area. I find that at the least short-sighted and would have thought that his horizons would have broadened by now. My impressions are that that's not the case. I'm really curious now as to how much of this he's actually ridden, but we'll never know. Not hard to throw your bike in the back of a truck and claim 100 mile days when there's no one there to see him, and it sounds as if he's dodging his riding partner.

-R

That's what most racists do.:rolleyes:

I don't draw the same conclusion. What he wrote was confusing in the final 2 sentences, but it doesn't sound to me like he was making a flat statement about "everyone".

It's interesting that the true believers have been so quiet about the hitchhiking he's doing. I imagine some doubt has set in concerning the entire endeavor.

Well, sure. Ryan stated up front that he'd ride as much as he could, then do whatever he had to in order to get to DC on time; accepting rides is pretty much the same thing.

I'm not sure if I'm a "true believer", but I do hope he makes it.

Silence in my case means a lack of anything meaningful to say. There's always been doubt in my mind about this endeavor, more than a little. I expressed my misgivings earlier in this thread, there's no need to rehash them.

Nor do I. I didn't find anything all that offensive in his comments on this.

I don't consider myself anything close to a "true believer" in this case, but I do wish him well.

It is not very clear to me how many car rides he has taken and why. I took the comment, "two more rides across spans that are impossible to cross on the I-10", to mean he got short car rides over bridges or sections of road construction that forced a car ride. On rereading I am less sure what he meant. Still I didn't get the impression that he was taking car rides left and right for no reason other than to avoid riding. I was disappointed with his long car ride to Phoenix. In that situation I would have taken the car ride to Phoenix if I couldn't work something else out and then would have tried to arrange a car ride back to ride the section skipped before proceeding. It was Ryan's choice though and at least he was upfront about it.

My personal approach to taking rides is to try to avoid it when possible. I have toughed out some rides in strong storms and other dicey conditions, but if a bridge is closed to bike traffic and a reasonable alternative wasn't available I would consider a ride (I have not yet needed to do this). Also I know that I did not feel bad taking a short ride with the construction crew in remote places where road construction caused the road to be closed to bikes and there was no reasonable detour (since it was on the TA they arranged the pickup truck ride specifically for touring cyclists). This happened a couple times on the TA and riding a mile or two in that situation was not something that bothered me. I felt a little worse when I had to take a 20 mile car ride to a bike shop for repairs or have my group wait for me while I walked. If I were alone I might have ridden back to where I caught the ride, but I didn't feel too bad though since a few days earlier I rode 40 miles on a day off.

When one of us was injured and she needed to take a car ride she opted to go back rather than forward and we rode our bikes back to meet her. I would not have faulted her if she had taken a ride to the next town to get medical attention and started from there.

OTOH, I felt that another group we met cheated themselves when they hitched rides over every major pass and lots of other sections that they just didn't feel like riding. I didn't care for the impression they gave to folks about bike tourists. Still it was their choice and they were upfront about it. I didn't approve of it, but it was their decision to make not mine.

I am kind of anxious to hear what the deal is with Ryan's car rides. I don't really expect to find that he is sneaking car rides just to avoid riding. I also do not expect to find that he really didn't ride the long days he claimed and think that those who suggest that possibility are reaching pretty far to figure out ways to judge Ryan. If it does turn out they are right I will be very disappointed, but I think that highly unlikely.

Methinks some of y’all have got too much invested in this ride. To paraphrase an earlier post of mine, what we have here is some kid on a bike trying to make it to DC. He’s idealistic, unrealistic, a bit overzealous, and seemingly culturally illiterate beyond what lies within his own childhood. You know…like every other kid out there. He’s neither the beginning of some movement with a higher calling nor a cycling purist. In that spirit, his Mobile bar incident is no different than what most black kids from out of town would encounter in a bar in Mobile. At least he didn’t start bangin’. :) As far as hitchhiking, I hope he makes it somehow. Having no stake in the purity of his “ride”, I only look at this as a many-week investment on his part that I hope is not for naught. Expecting any more of him will only lead to disappointment on your part, as we’ve already seen. Will he deliver what he promised? No. Will he deliver more than he would have staying home? Yes. Do I look up to him? No. Do I wish I were out there, too? Yep.

(Rest of quote snipped.) My note below yours wasn't a reply to your own well-stated positions. I was typing away when you posted it, and didn't see it. I'm referring more to earlier notes of Hurrahs and I Told You So's. We're all here reading because he's captured our interests, yes? I want to keep hearing how he's doing, but won't get too worked up about it either way. The sun's out, the fog's burned away. Bought a new Specialized Roubaix last night. I think I'll go ride for a while. A long while. :thumb:

I keep reminding myself about how much advice he received on having a support vehicle or taking Amtrak for part of the way. I don't think any of us thought he would make it without some type of help.

Now that he's accepted help, and been up front about it, I find it curious that it's being highlighted as some huge transgression. I can tell you that around here, I-10, I-35, I-20, I-40 etc, etc, is under constant construction. You can find long stretches where it is reduced to one lane with those concrete barriers on either side of the lane. There is barely room for a vehicle to go through, and certainly no way a bicycle could ride through it and hold up miles and miles of traffic. I suspect this is what they have encountered. There is not enough time to take alternative routes to avoid these things.

I don't think he ever characterized this ride as a Trans Am style tour. Rather it's always been about using a bicycle to get to DC from LA. After all, his website isn't labeled, "Touring for Obama".

I'm not a "true believer", in fact our politics are probably very far apart. I have helped him out in a few ways and will do so if I can down the road. I would like to see him get there. The fact that he headed out with a "damn the torpedo's" mind set is attractive to me. I hope he makes it.

All I care about is the bike ride. That's kind of why I read Bike Forums.

I think Ryan's use of motorized transport is being emphasized since there was so much ugly rhetoric from the 'pro-Ryan' contingent in this and other threads. Nor did Ryan help by shooting his mouth off.

My take on 'not so sweet home Alabama':

There are cretins and nutters of all shapes, sizes, and colors. I'm sorry Ryan and Josh met one. I'm not surprised Ryan tried to spin it into some sort of social commentary. Tender misanthropes do things like that.

Were I in Ryan's skin, I'm not sure how I would have responded. I think he made the best of a bad situation. I might have been a bit more forceful than Ryan was. But then again, a Southern man don't need old Neil around anyhow, and I'm sure that would be made painfully clear to me.

Did you see the size of that guy??? :)

I think I would have politely thanked him for paying for dinner and handed him his money back telling him I can't accept it.

Frankly I don't really care if he gets rides or doesn't. It is all a part of the adventure. But as I said before, just as long as that is in the story at the end of the trip. He has a very good chance to meet Obama because of this stunt or at the very least get the attention of his staff, if not the media. The true adventure needs to be portrayed at the end.

Have you seen the size of me? Oh wait, you have. Point taken. :)

I would have accepted it. Ryan is a traveler with a story to tell. (Joshua too if he's still with him.) The fellow was well-paid with conversation.

Agreed.

I think it's being emphasized because it flies in the whole face of the concept of "riding a bike from coast to coast in time for the inauguration". Considering that that was the premise under which he was soliciting help and donations, I would say there was an expectation that he comply to that. Since he's chosen not to, he's opened himself up to the critique. From that point people are entitled to their opinions. I't certainly no longer newsworthy from a human interest standpoint once all the facts are on the table.

Yup, just like a car wreck. Ya know it's going to be bad, but you can't help but look. :lol::lol:

Agreed. I'd include the emphasis on his riding coast to coast as part of shooting his mouth off. The Ryanistas didn't help matters. Had Ryan and the Ryanistas talked less long and loud about his ride, its alleged importance, and the supposed motivations of 'enemies', I doubt he'd be getting much criticism.

I don't know about that. The general public probably doesn't care if he gets a lift here and there. If he winds up riding 90% or so of the way I imagine the most non-riders would not make any distinction. I suspect that we in the cycling community are the only ones who really care about whether we get a lift here and there. Among the general public I figure I am in the minority being disappointed by his lift to Phoenix.