They’ve been pedaling for more than a month. They’ve had to overcome mountain ranges, desert heat, giardia, a bike crashing at 80 miles per hour and the mental grind of cycling every day, all day, all the way across the country.
When they’re ready to quit, or cry, or both, Derek and Dylan Thomson just remind themselves why they began this California to New Hampshire bike adventure. They think of Gene Connolly, their former Concord High principal, who they are raising money for as he battles ALS.
“The physical part anyone can do. It’s the mental part that will get people,” Derek, 22, said last week on a phone interview as he and his younger brother, Dylan, were stopped for the night in Simcoe, Ontario. “You just wake up some days and you don’t want to bike at all. You’re sore, you’re tried, you’re cranky and you want to say, nope not today.
“But you’ve got to suck it up and we have been really thinking about Mr. Connolly and how he gets up every day and goes to work even through all his struggles. All we have to do is bike a hundred miles in the hot weather, that’s nothing compared to what he’s going through and that motivates us to keep going.”
They don’t have much farther to go. The brothers expect to be in Concord early this week and then make the final leg of their trip, to Seabrook, with a large group of family and friends, including their dad, Doug, who joined them in Niagara Falls to ride the last 450 or so miles with his sons. If you’d like to see them off from Concord, or even join, information can be found at facebook.com/events/1281894031838653/.
And there’s still time to donate to the Connolly Tough Fund (which helps the Connolly family pay for all the expenses that go along with fighting ALS) through the Thomson brothers and this trip at cyclingtheusforals.com. So far they’ve raised $14,110.51.
“A lot of people have been very generous, and we haven’t added all of the donations or t-shirt sales to the total yet,” Derek said. “We’re pretty close to our goal ($20,000), but it’s not going to be the end of the world if we don’t hit that. What we’ve raised is a lot more than what we had when we started, so that’s all you can ask for.”
They started in San Francisco on May 23 and have passed through some of the most amazing landscapes in the world – the California coast, the Rocky Mountains, Yosemite, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.
“Looking back at some of our pictures it looks like we must have had a green screen behind us or something, it just doesn’t look real,” said Dylan, 18, who had to attend his graduation from Concord Christian Academy in May via Skype because the bike trip had begun. “Probably Yosemite was the most beautiful, and the Rockies were crazy beautiful. Really everywhere we go is beautiful, but once you’re in it for days and days and you’re just so tired you’re like, I hate this.”
That was certainly their feeling as they crossed a 170-mile stretch of Nevada with no available food, water…or shade.
“We had two or people who were driving by at like 70 miles per hour just come to a complete stop and say, ‘You guys know there’s nothing for 170 miles?’ And we’re like, ‘Yeah, hopefully we make it.’ But the majority of the time you wouldn’t even see a car for like three or four hours. There was just nothing,” Derek said. “If you were driving through it you’d probably think it was beautiful, but when you bike in it all day long you’re like, I hate this place.”
They’re still having a great time, as the videos they’ve been posting on Facebook suggest. And they are still motivated by Connolly. And they know full well that straining to get past obstacles leads to great rewards – like the long downhill stretches in the Rocky Mountains.
“The best part about the Rockies was the signs that show the grade of the downhill coming up. We lived for those signs,” Dylan said. “The longest we went was 12 miles, so that was awesome…I don’t think we’re allowed to say the fastest speed we’ve gone. Our mom would get mad.”
The uphills have been far from the only challenges. They met up with a cousin for a short camping diversion in the Black Hills of South Dakota and put their bikes on the back of his car to get to and from the camping area. But on the way back to their bike route, three of the four straps holding everything down snapped, and Derek’s bike came off while they were traveling at the 80 mph speed limit.
“I thought we were going to be done for a long time, if not the whole time,” said Dylan, who needs to get to the University of New Hampshire by July 24 to report for men’s soccer camp, where he’ll begin his work as a freshman goalie for the Wildcats. “I thought we were going to need a whole new bike.”
Instead, all that needed to be fixed was a wheel and some of the gear works. But finding a bike shop that made sense took them off track, so they had to pedal through hilly and steamy Iowa instead of flat and cool(er) Minnesota.
Soon after that, they came down with giardiasis, an illness that comes from drinking water that has parasites. If you’ve ever had it you know that being near a bathroom is basically a requirement, but that wasn’t really an option for the Thomsons.
“The day I got it, it was bike 20 miles and puke, bike 20 miles and puke, bike 20 miles and puke,” Dylan said.
They’ve been lugging about 60 pounds of gear on their bike. They’ve been camping wherever they can find a spot, including the side of the highway. Baseball fields at high schools and colleges have been a treat because they can usually find an outlet to charge their gear and a water spigot to rinse their bodies. And they’ve been eating a lot of Subway.
“Chicken and bacon, that’s our go-to,” Dylan said. “But sometimes Pickles (Derek’s nickname) mixes it up and gets meatballs.”
They are helping a man both consider a mentor and an inspiration and they are raising awareness for an illness that has impacted millions of lives. But they are also going through a journey that will add another layer of strength to their brotherly bond.
“I don’t think I could have made it through with anyone else,” Dylan said. “Whenever I get frustrated, he’s right there when I need him. And I think if I did this with anyone else I would have killed them by now and I think I might have quit, but Pickles keeps me going every day.”
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or at tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)