How Did We Get Here?

So how did we end up as fifty-something-year-old people who are interested in biking around the world? I can’t speak for Diana – or I can, but probably not a good idea. For me, I trace it back to a trip I took with my dad in 1979. 

My dad was the director of the Minnesota branch of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society at the time. A big part of the job was raising money – but my dad hated asking for donations. Kind of a problem. He was originally from Duluth and somehow got it in his head that he could raise money by holding a bike ride from Minneapolis to Duluth – with participants collecting pledges from their friends. Now this idea is pretty common these days – but that was a real breakthrough at the time. 

Anyway, my dad wanted to test to see whether “ordinary” people could do a ride like that. We were definitely “ordinary” at the time. My dad was middle-aged with a bit of a paunch. I was a ten-year old kid who had probably never ridden my bike more than 5 miles before. 

But my dad strapped a super-uncomfortable frame backpack on and we headed out one afternoon. I think we made it about 25 miles that first day. And then the second day we had the wind at our back and made it another 50 miles or so – to a town called Hinckley, where we stayed overnight in a hotel. 

That set us up for the last 75 miles to be completed in one day. Now, today there is a basically completely flat rail trail linking Hinckley and Duluth. But at the time the best bike route was on Highway 23. Through my eyes today this is not a particularly hilly route. But tell that to my ten-year-old, incredibly tired self. Every rolling hill just led to another hill. I think I cried on the way up every one of them. My dad started telling me about “five mile hill” – which he said led down into Duluth. Every hill we climbed I would cry and he would tell me that he thought this was the last one – and then it would be “five mile hill” down into Duluth. But every hill we crested just led to another hill – down, and then up again some more . . . And every time we would crest a hill and see another I would cry some more. 

Somehow, after hours of this, we arrived at my dad’s “five-mile-hill.” I have been on this hill plenty of times since. It’s not five miles – but it is probably two miles. And it’s a pretty nice descent. Very satisfying for a very tired ten-year-old boy. Now, the thing is, the bottom of the hill is definitely Duluth. But, if you know Duluth, you know that Duluth is a crazy long city. It’s not wide – hemmed in by Lake Superior and the St. Louis River Bay on the east/south and the ridge that rises up from the lake on the north/west. It’s probably 30 miles long and averages about 2 miles wide. So arriving in Duluth is not the same as arriving at my grandparents’ place – which is another ten miles from the bottom of “five mile hill.” 

And this is where time has made lines fuzzy. What I recall is my dad finding a pay phone and calling my grandpa. In my recollection my grandpa drove the ten miles out to Fond Du Lac – a neighborhood in the far west/south of Duluth – and picked us up in his big Country Squire station wagon. (If you grew up in the 70s or early-80s you know the ones – with the faux wood paneling – and the “extra” seats that folded down in the far back. Pretty much the whole thing without seat belts. Probably got about 9 miles per gallon on the highway . . .)

But my dad thinks we made it all the way to the motel (my grandparents ran a motel, which was, at the time, named The Willard Motel). Doesn’t matter I guess. In fact, the lack of recollection on this point is probably part of the charm of the whole story. I came away from this experience feeling pretty cool. I had biked from Minneapolis to Duluth. Yes, I cried and was miserable. But the tears and the misery were short-lived. The pride I felt, the sense of accomplishment, the idea that I could conquer a difficult journey – those are feelings that I have carried with me my whole life.

I guess it’s that knowledge – that the greatest triumphs, the most happy and content feelings, the best days, come after the greatest trials and tribulations – that has motivated me and kept me moving forward through my life. I’ll end this philosophizing here lest I venture into preachiness – but suffice to say that the seeds of my desire to ride my bike around the world were sown when I was ten years old. 

But back to our story. Whether we made it to Fond du Lac or the motel, my dad decided that ordinary people could indeed ride their bicycles from Minneapolis to Duluth. With this knowledge he started the first MS 150 bike ride the next year. (See this article for the “official” history. Note that the “official” history has us riding from Duluth to Minneapolis. Again, doesn’t matter – but pretty darn sure that I’m right on the direction of the trip. For one thing, riding the other way would have taken more planning. Not my dad’s style. He was more of a think-of-idea-do-idea kind of guy . . .) That first year, the event raised $33,000 for MS. Since then the MS 150 idea has grown to include all 50 states and hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised. 

One more confirmation that out of misery good things can emerge . . . 🙂 Or, another way to put it, you have to risk some misery if you want to do something cool!