Welcome to Bike for Haiti By Erik and Abdiel

The idea of this trip began ten years ago on a family road trip. As the sights of the United States passed by me I dreamed of riding my bike across the country. I brought the matter up during our road trip. I remember saying something like “Next time lets do this by bike...” Of course at the time everyone thought I was crazy. Then five years ago on another road trip I discussed my dream with Abdiel, a friend of mine. He thought that a bike trip would be crazy, but also a great experience. Overtime the idea slowly started to develop and take hold.

While this bike trip will be a great learning experience for Abdiel and I we eventually decided to ride for a cause. We not only wanted this adventure to mean something to us, but to serve a purpose for others. This is why we have decided to ride for Partners in Health (PIH), and Haiti. As many of you know it has been about a year since the earthquake devastated Haiti displacing people out of their homes. Even more then a year later people are still living in tented communities. PIH is not only dedicated to continue to help those harmed by the quake, but has existed in Haiti for many years. As a co-founder of PIH, Dr. Paul Farmer has been revolutionizing how medicine is brought to those in need throughout Haiti. The mission statement for PIH states “When a person in Peru, or Siberia, or rural Haiti falls ill, PIH uses all of the means at our disposal to make them well... Whatever it takes. Just as we would do a member of our own family - or we ourselves were – ill.” This means that PIH is very adamant about helping those who fall ill upon their doorstep. (To learn more about what PIH is doing for Haiti visit PIH Stand for Haiti website)

Any donations are greatly appreciated. We hope the links to our blog will help better inform you about PIH and Haiti. A great book to read is “Mountains beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder. You can make a one time donation to our cause and give our ride purpose by going to our PIH Fundraiser Page or if you would like to donate an X amount of money per mile we ride that can be done by going to Pledge per Mile. Remember even the smallest contributions help.

* Your donation can: give a years worth of tuberculosis medication for one person that costs about $10-$20 dollars in poor countries such as Haiti. Antiretrovirals for HIV range from $70-$80 per year, per person. *All donations will go to PIH*

Friday, May 6, 2011

Another Century (Day 36)

Yesterday we went over 100 miles and today we went 114 miles. We rode from Eads to Pueblo, CO. The reason we did that was so we could have a good day off in Pueblo which is a fairly big town. The landscape is totally different now. It is a desert with some rolling hills. Everything seems so dry and parched. In fact my lips are having a hard time getting use to the dryness. They are becoming really chapped no matter how much chap-stick I use. It is so different compared to where I've grown up tha tis hard for me to believe that I have ridden my bike all this way. Another factor that is different about this area is how rural it actually is. There is no civilization for miles. In order to fill up on water we had to ride 50 miles from our start point. It is easy to spot towns off in the distance though. We are able to see a town about 20 miles away. You can tell there is one off in the distance when there is a sudden cluster of trees surrounded by the dry desert landscape.

After riding about 60 miles with very or no wind we got caught up in a strong windstorm. At first this wasn't so bad because we had a tail wind! It was so easy to ride along at 20mph. It felt great to ride about ten miles in a half hour. However, shortly after that the road direction changed we ended up having a strong crosswind. It made it really difficult to bike. Even though it made it harder to bike I actually had a lot of fun! At one point we were leaning really hard into the wind just to ride straight. I'm going to guess that the wind was about 30mph with gusts up to 40mph. Also off in the distance dust storms started to pick up blocking our view of the mountains which we first spotted 100 miles away.

Once dusk came the wind died down and we biked into Pueblo. That night we stayed at a house by using couch surfers. It is a website that helps you find a warm place to stay with a floor to sleep on. It is kinda like Hot showers which the cyclist from New Zealand told us about. In total we rode 114 miles. The longest I am sure we will ride for the entire trip.
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