Congratulations Ralph. You are the ideal that we all aspire to.
While you appear to have a white light emanating from your head, and are ascending to the heavens, the rest of us have to contend with that nasty bit of reality called "human nature".

I would find it extremely difficult to live in your racist free vacuum. Rather than purging yourself from all instances of "racial slight", I would invite you to look at it from a different perspective.

The only control you have is of your own behavior. You can choose to "dismiss" (as you have with Ryan), "run" (as you did in your workplace example), or educate by word, deed and example (as 10wheels has graciously done with Ryan). With the latter, everybody wins.

I remember the "he's not my President" claim being made quite frequently in the 90s too.

Let's keep this thread out of P&R territory, please, so it doesn't get moved there.

This is my last comment on this.


You're right MNBikeguy, racism is a good thing and anyone who has been personaly and deeply effected by it and decides to take a stand against it is getting up on their high horse and is nothing but a self ritghous snob.

Hey guys and gals. We had a bit of a tough day. Started out with rain like I have never seen (at least not on a bike). I spent two or three hours under an over pass trying to hitch because of the weather. I was soaked to the bone and quite cold. Ryan is always ahead of me so we often split up and meet at the end of the day. I got a ride from two quite funny and nice people all the way to Baton Rouge. I only rode about 30 miles. Ryan caught up with me and we got something to eat. Our ride back did not end so well. About half a mile from where we are staying we both got hit by the same car. I am fine with a small bruise to the elbow. Ryan messed up his knee. Earlier I estimated three or more days of recovery for him but I'm not sure about that. There was also some bike damage but as far as we can tell right now there is no damage to our frames. The person who hit us was a young college kid who stopped and was as helpful as he could be. He is taking us to the bike store tomorrow to pay for our bikes to be fixed.

I feel I have become a small part of this so thanks to all the well wishers.

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.