No news is good news, right?

For those following Ben, and relying on me to give them updates, I don't have anything new to share. Ben and his companions have been riding in Southern Utah where apparently they have VERY spotty cellphone  coverage. People warned him about Nevada, but it was much better than Utah.

I did get texts the last two days saying he was still alive, so I feel optimistic. :)

Here are the blogs of a couple of the folks he is riding with (they actually take the time to keep their OWN blogs, uh hem, Ben.)

http://daniellebrickr.tumblr.com/

http://fearlessinfreckles.wordpress.com/

The first one is a couple, and the second one is a sister who is Ben's age traveling with her brother who is Marshall's age.

They haven't updated anything either, so I can assume Ben's silence is not of his own choosing.

Happy Happy Happy

Ben's text to me yesterday afternoon made my heart happy. This is what he said:
"I had the best day. I was given a quart of ice cream; it was a beautiful ride and the KOA I am in had some Red Bridge (his gluten free beer).

Glad to hear the joy back in his voice. Not sure if it was the ice cream, the beer or the company that made it so great. Knowing Ben, it could have been any of the three!

This is a picture of the night before. He didn't say exactly where, but it is somewhere near Bryce Canyon.

And this is what he considers his energy food on the bike. 

Gummy Bears.

Although he did not send a picture of his campground from last night,
I found this shot on their website.

Hope today is a great day as well.

Back in the saddle again

Ben left Cedar City pretty late yesterday because he had to buy the only pair of Crank Brothers pedals the bike shop had, since the ones we mailed never got there. His new friends had already left to go on ahead, but (as Ben says) they ride a LOT slower than he does. So he caught up to them. I wonder if he will stay with them, plan on only meeting up with them in the evenings, or just go on. He HATES going slow. But, he hates being alone even more. He is so very very social.

Here are his latest pictures. VERY nice.

He says they are on their way to Bryce Canyon today. Should be even more nice pictures.

No Longer Alone

The bad news is that even though Ben spent the entire weekend in Cedar City waiting for his pedals to arrive in Monday's mail, they never showed up (despite the online tracker saying they were in Cedar City!)

The good news is he met up with a group of cyclists he is going to join. Apparently they are already a random group who have just met up along the way. A couple from San Francisco, a retired military guy from Ireland, and a brother and sister pair from somewhere.

He was pretty excited to have companions. Ben is an incredibly social person and was missing having people around.

R and R in Cedar City

Ben actually seems to be enjoying his time in Cedar City. He did real laundry in a real washing machine (as opposed to washing them in a bathtub with himself!),

ate ice cream and really BAD Mexican food, saw a cool museum  with old machines, including this old snow mobile

          experimented with his diet, 

and went to a book store. Yes, a book store. He called asking for book suggestions, but since it was a cool used book store, they didn't have the ones I suggested, which were new releases.

Here is hoping that the mail comes early to his campground so he can hit the road tomorrow. I understand that the next leg is STRAIGHT up.

I was looking for an image of the road out of Cedar City, and this picture kept popping up on my Google image search. Yikes! I assume (hope?) this isn't his route.

Here is a close up of his next few days crossing Utah and on into Colorado.

One legged pedaling

Ben limped into Milford, UT the other afternoon with a broken pedal. Well, limped may be too strong of a word, but he did have reduced power since he could not clip into one of the pedals (which means he could only push on that side, not pull as well). Ed said, "Man! I worried about the wheels I built him, and his brakes, but never thought about the pedals. How long has he had those pedals, anyway?" I would say as long as he has had the bike, which dates back to his cyclo-cross days in high school.

He likes Crank Brothers pedals, and most bike stores only carry Shimano, but we happened to have an extra pair here, so we put them in the mail to Ben and sent them to Cedar City. Of course, this was on a Friday, which means he will have to stay in Cedar City until Monday. Mailing from one small town to another small town means there really is no overnight mail. He was pretty bummed about that, until this happened:

As he said, God made two good things: Tail winds and ice cream. So, it's all good.

UTAH!

After a very cold night in Ely, NV, Ben took down his tent to find this little critter trying to stay warm.

No worries, Ben SAYS it was a bull snake (but I have my doubts).

He rode a fairly easy 60 miles to Baker, NV (near Lehman Caves in Great Basin Nat'l Park). He says it was the crappiest camping spot so far. They charged $25 for NO grass in a buggy area. Not sure if he had any services to go with that, as he didn't mention showers or anything.

He has now crossed the Utah state line. Let's hope Utah is kinder to him than Nevada has been. Also, he is on new territory now. He is on Highway 21, which none of us have ever been on.

I 

I have included a link to a map that gives an overview of the route he is taking. He is currently on the red Western Express line, and will begin the brown Transamerica Trail line in Pueblo, CO and follow it all the way to the East Coast.

http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/overview-map-pdf/

If you live on that line, or know someone who does, let Ben know!

Busted Knees and Rainy Nights

Ben spent an extra day in Eureka, NV resting his knees. As you can see from this picture, there is not much to Eureka. I have no doubt whatsoever that he spent a long, boring day watching bad TV while he rested his legs.

He set out the next morning for a long haul to Ely. The trip ended up being over 80 miles because he missed a turn inside Ely and headed out of town the wrong way. Once he realized, turned around, and then headed in the right direction to the campground, he had added more than 4 miles to the ride. That doesn't sound like much unless your knee is "blown out." I sure hope it isn't actually blown, as that might mean the end of the ride. I hope a bit more rest will help it out.

Of course, riding in occasional rain showers is never any fun either. At least the heavens waited until he had set up his tent before they completely opened up and dumped. He says it is cold and blustery, but his tent keeps him warm.  I told him to ice the knee, and he said it was too darned cold to add ice.

Let's hope Nevada isn't the death of him! Maybe Utah will be kinder and gentler.

At least Ely is a little bit bigger then Eureka. Hey, it's all relative, right? Real grocery stores and an actual bike shop. What more could he want?

Here is the campground he is in. It has all the mod-cons he could want: water, electricity, showers and WiFi! OK. He might prefer a soft bed, or his dad's food, but not too shabby.

Fuel for the Ride

Ben says the hardest thing so far is getting enough food to eat. He just can't carry enough food between stops to last him between stops. First of all his cooking supplies are limited to a couple of VERY small pots on a small backpacker's stove. Plus he obviously has no refrigeration, and he can't eat anything with wheat.

He was telling me what he was eating, and I realized he wasn't getting enough fat. So I am thinking he needs to buy tuna in oil, sardines, eggs (but how to cook them in his tiny pots?) guacamole in a sealed package to eat at the next stop. . . And what else? Of course, part of the problem so far has been access to real grocery stores. Many of his purchases have been at gas station mini marts. Hmmm. . . talk about healthy eating. . .not.

What suggestions do you guys have for food he can  eat on the road?

In the beginning. . .

We got Ben into cycling when he was about ten, and ever since he was twelve he has wanted to ride his bike across America. So, after he finished with The Academy of Art University, he set off from California on his way to NYC. This will be a second-hand chronicle of that journey.  He will give me updates, and I will post them here.

Ed made a set of super strong wheels for his ride.

Before he headed off, we did some family camping on the Coast and with my sister in the Sierras.

Then we dropped him off in Jackson, CA on a SUPER hot day, well over 100 degrees, with a steep climb up the Sierras.

He said he pedaled and pedaled and pedaled and felt like he was getting no where. Finally, at the end of his rope, he pulled over to ask a retired couple who were in a rental RV if they knew where the closest campground was. Kind souls that they were, they loaded up his bike and drove him to the next spot, Silver Lake, and even let him share their camping space.

From there he climbed up to Carson pass and on down into Carson City, NV.

The next day he stayed in an RV park in Fallon, NV, paying too much money for a spot of grass on which to set up his tent (but at least they had showers!)


From Fallon he headed to Middlegate, but once he got there he realized it was not going to be a good spot for him to stop. As he put it, "I walked into this totally dark room from the bright sunlight, and I couldn't see anything. A woman with some freaky name starting with "T" grabbed my arm and started talking to me. The more she talked, the more I knew I had to get out of there before she raped me."

So he headed on a few more miles to Cold Springs Station RV park and bar. Made friends with a generous woman who gave him a free Hard Cider with his dinner and fed him a great breakfast the next morning. We like Cold Springs ourselves because they have the cleanest bathrooms you will ever find.

He had planned his next stop to be Austin, but he felt good enough when he got there that he rode on to Bob Scott campground several miles further down the road. This is a free BLM place that has always had running water, but when he arrived the water was turned off. He rode on to the Petroglyphs, another free site without water, hoping to find other campers from whom he could bum some water. He was able to from a generous British couple from Durango, CO, but he also met a rather odd man named Robert who was carrying SO MUCH stuff on his bike, from a full floor pump to a bike stand to a hard-back college dictionary.

Yesterday he arrived in Eureka, with his knees killing him. So I pulled the Mom card and told him to stay there two days to rest and ice them before his 78 mile ride to Ely.

More to follow.