It's been 6 months...

It's been about 6 months since the Ride:Well Tour 2010 ended, and I'm starting to get sense that I'm about to begin the heart of my processing... It might sound crazy that it'd take this much time, but a life changing adventure that was as grueling and intense and refining as the Pacific Coast tour was will undoubtedly take a lot of time to be fully digested.

So I've been thinking a lot about the tour lately, about my team, about being on the bike, and how the trip changed me.

Here's what I thought today:

I recently started listening to Don Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years on audio book for when I'm commuting to and from the office.

About a year ago, I read this book in one day. I was completely incapable of putting it down. Don's latest book is an account of how he made intentional changes to his life so that he would live a better story, something that was epic and worthy of making a movie out of. If you haven't read this book, I would highly suggest it. It has inspired so many people to stop living sedentary, boring lives, and instead encourage them to get up off the couch and be a part of the world, truly active and engaging. To start doing.

In the book, Don talks about how he rode his bike 3,000 miles across the United States, from LA to DC, for Blood:Water Mission. This was in 2008, and it was the first Ride:Well Tour. It was Don's account of this life-changing event in his life that inspired me to do the same, to ride my bike across the country, from San Diego to Seattle, for my neighbors in Africa who need clean water and medicine. Who need their story to be changed, too.

So, today, one year after reading A Million Miles, I'm driving into my hotel, several thousand miles from where my adventure happened, listening to the audio version that inspired me to go on the tour, and Don starts into the chapter where he talks about Ride:Well. I've waited for this moment, the part of the book where he starts to relive his experience with signing up for the trip, being on the bike, loving the team and the trip, and the sweat and the grime and the pain because it was for a good cause. In some ways, I've been hoping Don's words will help me explain my own experience.

I didn't know what I'd think, but it only took a few simple words along the lines of I knew this trip would be something I would tell my children about, and my grandchildren... and I lost it. The tears started streaming down my hot cheeks, and suddenly, I realized that I had participated in something truly epic. This epic adventure to help bring clean water to people I'd never met in Africa was now a part of my story.

I was instantly transported back to my bike in the middle of California, the Pacific Coast Highway stretching out endlessly in front of me and behind me, the wind blowing through my hair, my knees aching, and my breath quick and tired. The melodious rhythm of my pedals swinging round and round and round and round. Sometimes I would ride alone for an hour or two, and other times we would ride in a long pack, drafting through the howling wind and yelling out stories about spearfishing in Hawaii and backpacking through the Adirondacks to try and distract each other from the pain.

This is truly a story I will tell my children about. And their children.

I don't have many profound words to say. I think I'm still stunned at the opportunity I had in front of me, the fact that I took it and ran with it (or rather, pedaled away with it), that I joined a community of people who truly love one another, take care of one another, and have formed a special family around this cause. And maybe most importantly, that I'm apart of a team that raised tens of thousands of dollars for clean water in a remote village in sub-Saharan Africa called Marsabit, Kenya. A place that is now becoming an oasis of hope through the intentional actions of the growing Ride:Well community.

I don't know how many people read this blog, but maybe you're here and you are thinking, I'd like to do something like that.

Well, then you need to. And I can assure you that it will be hard, but trust that you have been called to a better story, and that you have a unique, compassionate, and adventurous community of Ride:Well-ers around you.

I can't wait to hear next year's stories. Just remember to keep pedaling, and then take breaks.