Steely figures on skeletal bicycle frames glide past closed storefronts and sleepy exteriors of on-campus dormitories in the post-dawn stillness. It’s just past 7 on a Saturday morning, but the cyclists are already decked out in full riding gear, sweating, stretching and warming up for the five or so hours ahead of them.
This is just another weekend of training for members of the Sense Corp Texas 4000 for Cancer cycling team, which seeks to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. The real ride begins June 5, when the team’s 56 members set out from Cedar Park with 4,500-plus miles ahead of them. They’ll cover between 30 and 113 miles per day, depending on the terrain, which alternates from oceanside causeways to grueling mountain climbs.
The riders battle all sorts of conditions, and they don’t stop for rain. The two teams — one heading to Alaska via the West Coast, the other traveling through the Rocky Mountains — will spend some days in 100-degree heat, cross deserts in California and Nevada and encounter sub-zero temperatures in the Yukon Territory.
To make it to their destination on time, they’ll have to cover a pre-determined distance every day. For instance, the team taking the Rocky Mountain route will travel approximately 4,734 miles in 62 days, with eight days of rest interspersed throughout the trip. That’s an average of 76 miles per riding day. Riding from Cedar Park to Anchorage, Alaska, would be the same as completing the entire Tour de France twice — plus an extra couple hundred miles.
The team has no fitness requirements for incoming riders. While some of them could pass as elite-level athletes by the end of the trip, many begin the journey having never run more than a mile in their lives.
“No riding experience necessary,” says David Santino, one of the ride directors and a structural engineering graduate student. “Some of [the riders] haven’t been on bikes since training wheels. The majority of us are just your average college student.”
By 7:15 a.m. Saturday, some of the riders began to congregate in the parking lot behind the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Building on Dean Keeton Street. They form small groups, chatting about their weekends as well as the day ahead. There is no social hierarchy. They are nothing less than a family at this point, having spent the better part of the past year and a half together.
“Everyone here has a tie to cancer,” Santino says.
His mother was diagnosed with leukemia in 2008; she has since undergone a bone marrow transplant and is now making a strong recovery.
“We are our own support group in the sense that we all battle with it,” he says. “We all draw strength from each other.”
At 7:50 a.m., the riders gather in a small circle, leaning on one another. The team’s fitness director, John Fitch, goes over the day’s route and offers some motivation.
“Pace yourself. Push yourself,” Fitch says. “We’ve all been through training camp together. We can all do this. Sometimes your muscles have more in them than you know.”
Then they all take turns dedicating the morning’s ride to someone — cancer survivors, those who have fought the disease and lost, their parents, their coaches and one another. It is one of the team’s pre-ride rituals and is as important as the riders’ lightweight Trek bicycles.
“I want to ride today for a few people,” nursing sophomore Kristen Hattaway says. “For my grandmother first of all ... She passed away yesterday morning, but I just want to ride for her because her husband, my grandfather, passed away about 15 years ago from brain cancer, and so she’s been surviving on her own since then. She’s really an amazing lady.”
The riders closest to Hattaway comfort her with a few pats on the back. Everyone is silent for a moment, as if they all know how fortunate they are to be able to ride this morning.
“I think that you guys are a wonderful team, and I’m unbelievably excited for the challenge of this summer,” biomedical engineering senior Daniel Walk says. “I know that without you guys, it would be insurmountable, but with y’all, it is so possible. I just want to thank you all for an awesome year and encourage y’all to finish strong. This is the home stretch. Four more weeks, starting today.”
After a few more dedications and the team’s final instructions, the riders mount their expensive wheels and pedal out of the parking lot. Fitch stays behind, watching the individual groups form and depart.
“I’m looking forward to it as an amazing 80-day vacation,” says Fitch, who graduated in the fall with a bachelor’s degree in radio-television-film and business foundations and now works for a commercial insurance company. “The most incredible part is the people who are involved. This thing is so important to them that they perform regardless of their fitness level. I am more proud of them than I am of myself.”
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It’s 9 a.m., and riders pass Akins High School on South First Street in clumps. The entire operation functions on the classic buddy system — each person chooses a partner or two with whom they will cover the entire 68.4 miles that day. Later, partners will bunch together with other groups and sometimes form mini-pantheons, columns of riders five- to 10-deep, floating along the narrow country roadways that lead out of town.
Safety and convenience bring the groups together, but they also benefit when traveling in a mini-pantheon because of the principle known as drafting. The riders intermittently rotate their order, pulling the farthest back up to the front to block the wind and keep those behind well-rested.
“The payoff is in the long run, just because you don’t have to deal with the wind all day,” Santino says. “It leads to a much faster ride.”
Luckily, there aren’t many hills on this morning’s route, just gently rolling plains. When the riders reach the southern outskirts of Austin’s suburbs, they open the throttle, ease off the breaks and pick up some speed. It’s here that the cycling also takes on an aesthetic value; with no MP3 players or other distractions to speak of, all the riders have on this Saturday morning are the scenic views of the Hill Country and each other.
They travel through Buda, then turn west and ride out to Driftwood before looping around and heading back toward Buda by a southern route. When they reach Akins again, they make a rest stop, their second of the trip, to refill on peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and fruit.
Then it’s back on the bikes for another 11.25 miles to campus. It’s a long morning, to be sure, but nothing compared to the physical struggles they can expect this summer.
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“The cycling is just a means to an end,” Santino says. “Don’t get me wrong. I love cycling, but the main objective is to get the message out.”
Many of the other riders echo Santino’s sentiment. They may be setting out on a journey few can ever hope to experience, but the athletic achievement is still second to the goal of raising cancer awareness. In less than four weeks, they’ll be on the road to Alaska, beginning the world’s longest charity ride. But their sense of accomplishment comes from their belief in one another. And over 4,500 miles and three months, that’s what they’ll have to derive their strength from.
“This is above and beyond what I ever expected from grad school,” Santino says. “I think you could ask any one of us and get the same answer.”
