Hopkins 4K for Cancer

July 29, 2003

We're Here!!!!!!
Day 59

San Pablo, CA to San Francisco, CA



In what has become a Hopkins 4K tradition, I awoke to the sound of Scott McKenzie singing the song entitled “San Francisco.” This was the same song that I woke up to exactly one year ago. I was lying in the exact wrestling room and in the same sleeping bag that I was in exactly a year ago. It has been 59 days since we left from Baltimore on our bikes. I thought back to the day we left. When we left, people asked me why I was participating in the trip again, and I responded by saying that I didn’t know. Why did I take part in the trip again? I had much more responsibility this time around because I had a leadership position and that made me a little nervous. I didn’t know whether I would live up to these responsibilities. There was the possibility that I would not like this trip as much as the previous one, and I was concerned that if this happened it would ruin my memory of the first trip. Despite my apprehensions, I was here in San Pablo on the last day of the trip.



“If you’re goin’ to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in you’re hair…” the song instructed. San Francisco. We were almost there, and yet, as I knew better than anyone else in the room, we were so far away. Having come so far last year only to fly down a steep, serpentine road and crash a mere six miles from crossing our symbol of victory, the Golden Gate Bridge, I wanted nothing more than to actually finish the ride this year. Every time I told someone that I didn’t complete the ride last year, he or she would reply, “Well, six miles left to go, that’s nothing compared the distance that you biked. That’s close enough to completing the trip.” I would think, true, I was close to completing the trip, but being close to finishing and actually finishing are two different things. Judging from this reaction, I convinced myself that my main reason for participating in the trip again was to complete the ride in order to prove that I could do it and so that I could legitimately say “I rode my bike across the country,” without having to add a disclaimer.



In some ways, today appeared to be like any other day of the trip. In the morning, we went through the motions of packing up. We rolled up our sleeping bags and ground pads, ate breakfast, brushed our teeth, and loaded up the vehicles. In other ways, today was not at all an ordinary day of biking. For example, we didn’t have a moment of silence before our ride. Instead, we saved that daily reminder of the person for whom we were riding until after we crossed the bridge, and instead of having just one person volunteer to dedicate his or her ride, we went around one last time and had everyone announce to whom they dedicated their ride. Also, we all rode together today instead of splitting up into smaller groups like we usually did.



There was no way that I was going to crash today. During the ride, I was mindful of keeping at least two bike lengths of space between me and whoever was ahead of me. We made our way towards San Francisco on a bike path that somehow took us around the hills of Sausalito where last year I failed to, as the saying on my water bottle goes, “keep the rubber side down.” As we neared our destination, we biked past a shopping area and frivolously shouted, “We’re going to San Francisco, whooo!!!” To the pedestrians and shoppers there was nothing special about biking to San Francisco because it was only a mile away. They must have thought we were nuts, but we didn’t care because we rode our bikes here from Baltimore.



The last half-mile to the bridge was tough because the wind started to blow really hard. Actually, it was quite fitting that we biked this last stretch into the wind because we had been riding against the wind for almost the whole trip. People tell us that we are biking the wrong way, that we should start west and head east so that the wind is at our backs, but if we are doing a ride to fight cancer, we should make it symbolic of the battle that cancer patients face. People with cancer are fighting a tough battle against the disease and rarely do they have a figurative tailwind to make their respective battles easier. Certainly, the pain that cancer patients feel is certainly greater than the pain that we feel by biking into the wind, but that fact does not mean that our experience is irrelevant. Actually, the two situations have their similarities. The most pertinent similarity is that whether you are biking into the wind or fighting cancer, the outlook does not always look so good and the only thing that you can do is dig deep and face that challenge. Because of this similarity, biking into the wind helps us to put the suffering that cancer patients go through into terms that we can understand. Thus, I think it is only appropriate that we brave the wind and ride from east to west.



The wind hadn’t stopped us before, and this time was no exception. We slowly made our way to the Golden Gate Bridge. What a site it was! Its magnificent red towers rose into a thick fog. We gathered in the northeast parking lot before crossing the bridge where we took lots of pictures and met with friends and family. I pulled up into the parking lot next to all the other riders, and an animated stranger asked me, “Are you Rajeev?” I said yes, and she proceeded to hug me. It turns out that this stranger was Mrs. Snow, and she was delivering a hug from my mom. Mrs. Snow had just finished her last chemotherapy for breast cancer about a week ago and flew out to San Francisco to surprise Travis and Eric! It meant a lot to Travis and Eric that she was there since they both dedicated their respective rides to her. It meant a lot to the rest of the group to see her there as well. Mrs. Snow was as jubilant as we were. She was grinning, talking with the other parents, snapping pictures, and doing everything else that a proud parent would do.



Alas, there was no way we would be able to cross the bridge without first having some bike trouble. Coming up the last hill before the bridge, Josh’s chain fell off and got hopelessly tangled in his gears. There was a chance that he would not be able to ride his bike across the bridge, but our group of aspiring bike mechanics, affectionately referred to as the Bootleg Bike Shop, went into action and freed the chain. While I helped fix the chain, a couple of guys dug up a jersey that was solid yellow, the color of the jersey worn by the leader of the Tour de France. As a gesture of appreciation, they gathered the whole group around and had me wear it to lead them across the bridge. At this moment, I realized that compared to this display of camaraderie and friendship, crossing the bridge was nothing special. Crossing the bridge was like a bow on a gift in that it was nice, but it had no substance, no real value. The real value of the trip was the bond that we riders forged with each other by riding side by side and by going through good times and bad times together as well as the bond that we established with the people we met along the way who supported us and were always with us in spirit. It was a desire to be part of a close-knit team with people who share my motivation, optimism, slight mental imbalance, and need for unity with others, not a desire to cross the bridge, that caused me to ride again this year.



We stood at the edge of the water after dipping our front wheels in the San Francisco Bay to commemorate the end of our ride. I was in Chrissy Field, just like I was exactly one year ago, except this time I was uninjured and I rode my bike across the bridge. In the midst of the celebration, one of the parents came up to me and asked, “So, are you glad that you participated in the trip again?” I though for a moment about the interesting people we met along the way like Randy the biking hobo, and Travis’s friend, Lenny. I thought of all the people who fed us, gave us shelter, and prayed for our safety—people like the Crossets of Benkelman, NE, who treated us like their own sons and daughters and welcomed us into Strikers, their 50’s themed diner, like Jamie and Joel of Tonopah, NV, who opened up the local elementary school to us and made breakfast the next morning, like Margie Heubner of Naturita, CO, who held one of our water stops in her front yard, and like all of the others whose names I cannot list because it would take far too long. I thought about the cancer survivors that we met, like John Johnson, a mountain biker who we met just outside of Bryce Canyon, and Deforia Lane, who taught us about music therapy when we did a service project at the Cleveland Clinic. I though of a cancer patient at the Hope Lodge in Cleveland who, as we were told, used to isolate herself from others before our visit but, as a result of talking to one of our riders, began to interact with caregivers and other patients, causing her prognosis to improve. Last, but not least, I thought of my fellow riders, with whom I spent twenty four hours a day for nearly two months. I turned to the gentleman and answered, “Absolutely.”



Rajeev Mahajan