We’re riding at 6700 feet today, and the air is noticeably thin, like someone cut the oxygen to separate the sheep from the mountain goats. As I poke through the sharp turns, the walls of the red canyon remind me I should have ridden more this spring. This week, I’m accompanying the Ride:Well Tour leaders on their way to deliver the support vehicle and trailer to our starting point in Long Beach, Calif.
We’ve stopped in southwestern Utah to rest and ride in the astonishingly beautiful Zion National Park. This is our shakedown: the first ride of the week, an equipment check and a much-needed break from the van. It should be cake…right? Yet, after a stiffening 30 hour road trip and a Spring spent at sea level, this modest canyon road feels more like the famed French climb le Alpe d’Huez.
After a night camped on the north fork of the Virgin River in Zion, we’ll head southwest to meet the rest of the team in Long Beach, including four tour leaders, and a total of eighteen riders. From all over the country, they’ll fly in to begin the ride of their lives.
You’ve got to give them props for even showing up. Getting to Long Beach is half the battle. Since February, the cyclists have been training and fundraising in earnest.
They’re raising $4895 a piece, amidst full-time work schedules, finals weeks and college graduations. From June 14-Aug. 6, they’ll pedal 3,172 miles, confronting deserts, mountains and life on the road with courage, humor and faith.
And so, we present to you the ‘09 Ride:Well Tour for Blood:Water Mission, an epic bike trek with community-wide events in Phoenix, Dallas and Baltimore. Last year’s inaugural Tour raised $201,000 for wells and medical supplies.
Blood:Water Mission, called “Blood:Water” or “B:WM” for short, launched in 2004 after Christian artists Jars of Clay visited Africa. Moved by the great needs of people who lack access to clean drinking water and basic medical care, they began a journey resulting in the funding of 617 wells and HIV/AIDS relief in the sub-Saharan Africa.
The Purpose
This year’s Tour exists to support specifically the people of Marsabit, Kenya. The goal is to raise $150,000 to develop wells, sanitation projects, clinics, HIV/AIDS support through the work of Blood:Water Mission.
Theologically, they are a body of believers on wheels. Their sanctuary is the road; their service is physical; their calling is justice. They’ll speak at churches of all streams and sizes. They’ll pray and be prayed for at every step of the journey. They are representatives of Jesus, his Church and their friends in Africa.
Practically, they’re living on a bicycle for two months. For a Ride:Well jersey and shorts, they’ve traded comfort, privacy and the right to be apathetic. They’ll lose sleep and gain friends. They’ll receive crumpled $20 bills from amazed strangers who first hear what they’re doing. They’ll laugh, and they’ll cry. They’ll go through the mountains and the valleys. They’ll try not to crash. They’ll live in a perpetual state of wonder and fatigue.
This year’s Tour features a new cast of characters and a fresh look, but the message is the same. The team will tell it at benefit concerts, churches, restaurants, pool parties, backyard barbecues, gas stations, roadside monuments, and random places between Long Beach and Baltimore.
“One dollar provides clean water for one African for one year,”
you’ll hear them say, and it’s not a fundraising gimmick. It’s great news.
It requires a $9000 and upwards of $40,000 dollar investment to fund a well, and a well transforms gulches into oasis. People who once walked miles to get water, or who had to choose between drinking dirty water or none at all, will discover a way of living the western world has taken for granted. By supporting the Ride:Well Tour, ordinary people can empower Africans “to become heroes in their communities,” as Jars’ frontman Dan Haseltine puts it.
Back in April, a few Ride:Well staffers caught up with Dan and his band—Charlie Lowell, Matt and Steve— on their Minneapolis “Long Fall Back to Earth” tour stop. During the concert, Dan spent a few minutes telling the Blood:Water story. Haseltine appears humbled by the four years he spent working alongside the non-profit he founded. He says he has as much to learn from Africans as they have to learn from him. His words rang true, because to him, it’s not a pitch. It’s a story.
But Blood:Water is more than a well giver.
The History
The Ride:Well Tour is the product of Venture Expeditions, a community of adventurers inspired to sacrifice for justice in the world. Venture began spontaneously in 2002, when three North Central University students made a bold decision to ride across the United States to help others.
Though knowing nothing about fundraising or road cycling, they completed a cross-country journey from Anacortes, Wash., to Montauk, N.Y. Thanks in part to $10,000 pledge received the day they left Minneapolis for Washington, the three students raised $17,000 for a church plant in Argentina.
It all looks great on paper, but the truth is that the mountains never get any shorter. It is we who grow to confront their challenge, and it is we who shrink to allow the love of Christ to work miracles on bicycles. Welcome to the ’09 Ride:Well Tour.
Here are a few sites if you would like to read more or even donate to the cause…
Ride:Well Tour
Venture Expeditions
Blood:Water Mission
Follow on Twitter: RideWellTour
UPDATE!! New Video
Find more videos like this on Ride:Well Tour
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