Fairfield, CT

Well, it’s been a week and a half since the eight SPS Cyclists proudly made their way down Black Point Road to the Prout’s Neck Yacht Club, where with unbridled shouts of joy, we plunged our bodies in the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean, concluding our journey.

Now, I’ve tried to procrastinate for the past ten days and do essentially nothing. I’ve even taken to replying back to people who leave posts on my Facebook Wall (the rarest of occasions for me), and have begun rereading select Harry Potter books again (so that the next time I play Ellen and Ellie in “Harry Potter” 20 Questions, I won’t be completely steamrolled).

But there comes a day when you have to return to reality. It’s time for me to process my thoughts on our trip and tie up all the loose ends, starting with this blog post.

            At the beginning, when people asked me why I decided to go on this bike trip, I gave them a really shallow answer. As many of the other Cyclists jokingly remind me, my short bio for our brochure started off with, “I’ve always been into anything extreme. And quite simply, I don’t see how anything can get more extreme than a 3,000 – mile bike trip.”

Although I sound like a thrill-junkie, that’s the initial reason why I went on this trip. For the excitement,for the sights, for the gratification of pushing my body to its physical limit. I wanted to ride across the country to quench my drive to accomplish bigger and better things.

During the first few days, I did push myself. Brendon and I would bike as hard as I could (I’m sure Brendon could have blown past me if he wanted to), and we would frequently become separated from the rest of the group. It wasn’t until the third day of biking that I realized that my mindset was helping me as an individual, but not the team as a whole.

Brendon was the one who figured it out. We had started out from the Mazama, Washington, and had about thirty miles of flat road until we began our first climb of the day. So the group decided to draft for the first time. With Brendon in the lead, we clocked in some of the fastest speeds I had experienced. It was incredible. Then Gwen fell. She bumped tires with Brendon, who was right in front of her, and hit the ground hard. While the three doctors who were with us that week tended to Gwen’s scrapes and bruises, Brendon said to no one in particular, “I’m gonna stay with you guys today. I like this pace. And I like helping out the whole group.”

For the prior two days, I hadn’t even considered that by staying with everyone else and contributing to the entire team, I could help to unite us all and also fulfill my own desires.

From that moment on, I tried to focus all of my energy into helping us work as a cohesive unit.

In the beginning, this refocusing brought me more hardship than joy.

On the flat plains of Montana, I frequently received a lot of constructive criticism when I led our pace line. It didn’t come that naturally to me. More often than not, I would try to gain speed too quickly, leaving a massive gap behind me. Or I wouldn’t point out a patch of gravel in the road, leaving my comrades to have to make mad swerves around the obstacle. For weeks, I heard from my exasperated friends, “Parker, can you please not speed up so quickly? You need to bike faster more gradually” or “Parker, slow down!” or “Parker, you need to call out the holes in the road!”. I’ll be the first one to admit that I was a terrible pace-liner. But what was really tough was that I put so much energy into trying to support all my teammates, and yet seemed much more of a hindrance than help. What was worse was that it didn’t seem like my overall skills were improving.

I’m happy to say that the criticism gradually faded away.

From experiences like that, I learned what it means to work on a real team. Although receiving such constant feedback about what I could do better was sometimes aggravating, I had to remind myself that it was supposed to be beneficial. That’s what good teams do: they push each other relentlessly to bring out the best in each other.

I was still using the bike trip as a way to challenge myself physically and mentally however. I remained much too focused on my own personal goals. The fact that we were riding across the country to help kids with cancer didn’t mean as much as it should. That all changed on one rainy morning in Montana.

As soon as we hit the road out of Gildford, we knew that we were in for a rough morning of biking. We had experienced rain everyday, but it had never come down as hard as this. My sunglasses soon became rain-splattered and foggy. Despite the extra layer of my raincoat, all of my clothes were soaked. And the rain just kept on coming.

During our morning leg, I found myself cycling side-by-side with Mark Richardson. “How you holding up Parker?” he asked jovially.

“Not too bad,” I replied, “the rain’s kinda tough though.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but you know what I just thought of? I was thinking about how much a kid being treated at Dana-Farber would prefer to be here rather than there.”

“Whoa,” I said, surprised by his insight, “I’m sure you’re right.”

Before Mark’s words could really sink in, a voice from the front of our group called out, “Grayson, get up here!” It was Renzo telling me to come up and hang out with him. Instantly I sped up to my tent-buddy, who shouted at me, “Dude, how epic is this? We look so badass right now!”

I had to agree with him.

“Dude, you know what I’m feeling right now?” I yelled.

“What?”

“Spaceman!”

With that, we launched into a rendition of “Spaceman” by the Killers.

As we were belting out the chorus, I couldn’t help but think about Mark’s words. There were some kids at Dana-Farber who had never known what it was like to go on a bike ride with your best friends. They had never felt the cold, but refreshing drops of rain on their faces as they sang until their faces turned blue.

            I really hope that after all of this, the money we’ve raised ensures that one kid can have the same life-lasting experience I had that gray morning.

Even though I started to come to these realizations, I still felt that I was missing something. I thought a lot about what that might be on this bike trip. In fact I spent hours fretting over it.

In the end, I’m happy to say that I found what I was looking for. The trigger came in a discussion I had with my dad while walking along the Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minnesota one evening. Dad was describing the small-town environment that he had been brought up in, not unlike the town we were walking through.

 

"You know, Dad, I'm really glad about the way I've been brought up."

"What do you mean?" my dad asked.

"Well, we don't have everything that a lot of our friends do, but we have something more basic."

 

It hit me. What was missing was that somehow over the last couple of year I had forgotten I am.

 I’m the guy with the small-town values. I’m open-minded, hardworking, and kind.

            Cycling through small communities for seven weeks made me realize that the close friendships I had formed with the other Cyclists were not so different from those that held these rural towns together.  I’ve resolved to go back to St. Paul’s and live my life by these new insights.

From now on, I vow to be a real small-town guy.

Last night, before I shut down my computer, I played a cover of the song the “Two of Us” by the Beatles. Biddle had played it for us on his iPhone to wake us up after our rest day in Niagara Falls. I sat down in one of kitchen chairs, and I thought about this amazing journey. I remember it being really turbulent, filled with highs and lows.

But there is only one image that came to mind when I thought about this entire trip.

 

It was the seven beaming smiles of Ellie, Renzo, Ellen, Brendon, Sarah, Gwen, and Mark at the end of the trip.