On the road with Mike-

It has been a great week, the only week I did not bike by myself. I had dozens of people promise to bike with me and in a year only one took the challenge. But maybe they knew something that Mike did not, biking on these roads is hardcore. My style is fast, cheap and pushes the body to its limits. My goal for the week of Mike biking with me was to change things up a little. One, I have been biking for almost a year and Mike had only taken a few rides on a stationary bike before joining me, so on my list of goals for our time covering a certain distance was not my goal, but primarily to get Mike back safe and the second make sure he really gets to see Chile and has a great time. I knew that for anyone to survive a week with me I would have to try to make my life as luxurious as possible, no 150 km days, and no biking the whole day without eating. The weeks before I had gone 18 days without a shower. This would have to change. So I knew that if I made this week as luxurious as possible it would still be one of Mikes greatest challenges in his life, dry deserts, wind speeds that can knock a person off a bike, semi trucks and buses that drive at wreckless speeds at distances that would crush every bone in a body if they came within arms' reach.

Our first night on the road we camped on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, but this was after Rage, Mike's bike, had just about fallen apart. After I bought Rage, I knew Mike was going to be in trouble and it would be a miracle of God if the bike made it to the end of the week. I had a real hard time finding a good bike, and I must confess now that Rage is one of the worst bikes I have ever seen in my life. After 25 km on the bike, the whole gearing system gave out, and somehow by the grace of God, there was a little shop that had the right parts and a guy standing in front of the shop to help us put it on and the shop loaned us tools. I did not know how to fix the Rage nor did I have the tools and like almost every moment of desperation God provides. And on the road we were again, this would be only one of the dozens of repairs that I would make to Rage in the week of biking, but she got us to Santiago Chile.

There were greater challenges than Rage for Mike, like head wind and dry deserts, but the greatest challenge he faced was a sinus infection brought him almost to his knees. After the first day of riding, we had biked 75 km, then we spent the next few days fighting illness and Mike biked as much as he could, which was still more than anyone else could have biked. We stayed as close to the coast as we could and dined mostly on fish for the week. But during the week with Mike, he saw just how much I can eat, because I ate all of my meals and most of the time I ate half of his and then would finish a meal and a half off with a package of cookies. I told him it was my secret for being able to bike the distance, which, if I do not eat the caloric intake of 2 grown men, I will lose so much weight and it will be hard to bike the distances I do.

Rage continues on! On our last day in Santiago we saw a church set up on the street. They were worshiping and Mike told me that he felt like he should give them his bike, so he waved over one of the guys and the man walked up sheepishly. Mike told him that he would like to give him his bike and the man broke out in tears and laid his head on Mike's shoulder and then after a few minutes of tears and not saying anything he looked up at Mike and said that he had been praying that the Lord would give him a mode to get to the church that he was pastoring because it was a long distance from his house. So the Rage lives on and is used to bless the people of Santiago.