Dordt College in Iowa

Here we are at Dordt College in Iowa. Its a very nice place and we get to sleep in beds. I cant wait! Its going to be great! Speaking of which, I should get some rest. 182 KM to ride tomorrow. I'll leave y'all with a bunch of random pictures..... and yes, i wont have any more gun pictures! Sorry but holding a real antique handgun that was used back in the day was really neat!

Me trying out some funky bike
An over the shoulder shot

i think this one will be in the banner

yup, gun culture

dont fall

over the head shot

um hi!

going down hills is much better than going up... that's alot of hills to go! glad we're done em for a bit

hehe...

Nebraska!

Hello Everyone! Thanks for stopping in and checking out my blog. Your support seems more crutial at this stage. I am a person who should definitely be Canadian... I dont do these 100 degree plus days in the beating sun well and it sucks the life out of me. Other than that it's been a great experience this week.

We've been out and about in all these communities talking to all the locals and telling them about the cause and hopefully leaving a trail of good behind us. The people of Colorado and Nebraska are terrific! Very warm and welcoming.

At the beginning of the week we started out in Colorado, then I think on monday we crossed into Nebraska... I'm not sure though. Every day has been drifting into one another. Mostly because the heat.

On Wednesday, my riding partener Mark took a big fall. No broken bones but he ripped his skin off nearly to the bone. It was pretty sick. Really deep. He was pulling into a driveway in front of me and some loose sand just ripped his bike out from under him and bango, he hit the ground on his hip, elbow and knee.

The rest of the week was corn, corn, corn and more corn and a great diner on the border of Nebraska and Colorado. It had the most wonderful coffee and so I had 4 of them... hehe... oh, and trains that go for 2 miles. 120 cars was the longest.

For all the Americans reading this... I'm a canuck so, guns are something very foreign to me and they're neat to see in real life!

and one of Mark holding the old Colt cowboy gun.

This weekend we are in a town called Fremont. We are currently stationed at the YMCA, which also has the only hockey rink within a 400 mile radius! And the ice is in. And its hard and olympic sized. Its great being in this good of shape. I think when I get back i'm going to join a church league hockey thing or something. Its great going for 4 hours on the ice continuous without loosing my breath at all, even after a 20 min rush. CRAZY! Im still not the best hockey player, but it was sure fun! Played shinny with a bunch of locals.

This week we're heading through Iowa. Another state I can knock off my list! I'm getting through them pretty good. I should buy a map and start colouring in the places I've been.

As we're going its pretty amazing how much poverty there is locally in all these small towns. Alot of them are ghost towns with people struggling to find jobs. I cant imagine my life after this trip. I dont think I'll be able to not do anything to help people when I get back. Georgetown, and the entire southern Ontario is so rich though. Anways, I'm glad I'm helping... well my sponsors are helping these strangers as well as neighbors. Thank you again to all the people who gave to this amazing cause. After doing the DRS (disaster response services) in mississippi, i have seen first hand the peoples lives that this touchs and how worthy a cause the CRWRC is and how efficiently the money is used to touch peoples lives.

I have to hit the sack... another night.. another town.. another hundred or so miles again tomorrow! Maybe one of these days i'll wake up early and leave early. rather than sleeping in! lol.

Finest Regards to all my readers,

Bryan Flikkema

Weekend in Denver

Hi everyone! Its Monday today and I’ve had a horrible day. I had to get up for sweep at 5:30 this morning. I woke up in a wonderful place. A family in Denver let my friend Mark and I sleep in their basement and it was awesome! I guess I will

Sunday: Today was a wonderful day! Mark and I woke up this morning and we went to the service at the football field. It was a pretty good service but it was horribly hot so we volunteered with some local people to go to a lady named Nancys house to get some water for the crowd. After the service we were walking through the parking lot and some people asked if we needed to do laundry! So we were super excited and went to their place. They were a wonderful family. Very nice and sharing and we had a tonne of fun with the kids playing WII and watching movies. I don’t recall their last names but it was Jill and Troy and their kids Raleigh and Jameson. They had a great family, very polite kids even though they did not spare us with the games.
Monday: Aka – today… but yesterday when I post this. I was on sweep today. I was on final sweep and caught up to the last and slowest person within the first hour or so…. Zug zug… . talk about the making of a long day! Holy! I love helping out. I don’t mind doing sweep or even pushing people up hills but… wow! I’m exhausted! Anyways. Here is my whining! Enough said. Its time to go to bed. I got in at 7:30 ate dinner then went to the peleton meeting and did small group devotions. Its been a retarded day. Saturday, one of the really good and cool guys broke his collar bone, today a lady was rushed to the hospital with a broken pelvis and concussion and also today someone wiped out and broke two ribs…. Road safety is a pretty big thing out there right now.

Just a shorty

Hi everyone! This one is going to be short. We just had a nice service tonight and said goodbye to a number of cyclists who are only doing the western leg and i'm kinda bushed.
We finished off 3 almost hundred mile days over mountains and over the continental divide! It was 9500' up! 7 miles of a 8% grade.
If there is anyone out there that want to email me. Please feel free! My email address is flikkemabryan@hotmail.com
Tomorrow I hope to upload some photos and write a decent blog. We have a 17 mile climb then downhill for i think about 50 miles. I think over 12000' up! gunna be a grunt going up with the thin air.

Big Mountain Time!!

First of all I would like to appoligise to everyone about not having updated my blog in a bit. It has been a busy week and my computer has been acting up. I think i've fixed the problem but it might be the satellite internet thats messing up things.

Things are going very well! Yesterday (saturday) we biked up two mountains... it was a good climb. I'm pretty wiped but am thrilled I made it. I never knew the top of a mountain could feel so good. Also, the downhill is pretty good! Made a new top speed of 87.5km/hr.

This past week went pretty well. We started off in Boise and worked our way to Mountain Home. When we got to town the Tour de France was on and we stopped at a restaurant and FILLED then entire place with yellow sea to sea jerseys. It was a blast! We played pool there and hung out for an hour or two and then carried on to the school to set up. That Mark Brouwer and I went to a Walmart and did some shopping and then went back to the school and went to bed.

The rest of the week Mark and I kinda hung back and just took our sweet time. Not alot exciting happened. Lots of amazing scenery. Met lots of nice people. Handed out lots of cards and talked to alot of strangers and told them about the cause. Its been a good week all in all.

I think the best way to tell the story is by me posting some photos.

Here is a fire that was just outside of the town we stayed in on Tuesday. We met a bunch of local kids watching the fire and treated them to Icecream and we took them swimming. They didnt have dads and didnt have enough money to even go to the local pool. It was a blast.

Ok... now the computer wont let me upload any more... yay! hehe gotta love technology!

For all the people who supported this tour. Its an amazing thing and I really really appreciate being able to represent our church and our area.

Thank you very very much!

Caution: Man in Spandex

Well here is my blog. I apologize for not having one of these up earlier. It is the first time I have ever done one and it has been one of those things that was kind of side tracked. The past week and a bit have been terrific! It has been rough at times climbing the cascade mountain range but at the end of the day the feeling of accomplishment was well worth the hard work out! Its amazing some of the people that have been doing this trip. A lot of retired avid cyclists and they’re quite good for their age! Just amazing.

I really wish I got this up a bit earlier. So many sights. So many stories that should be told. Although at the same time there has been a lot exhaustion and sleeping.

I can recap last week for a start. I flew into Seattle via Air Canada and in their abundant wisdom they sent my bike first to San Fransisco… So… I bit my nails all nervous wanting to start a bike tour without a bike…. It seems to be the most important thing to have on a bike tour… After much talking to customer service desk at Air Canada I got them to rush my bike along with the other 8 bikes they lost. It was a little nerve racking but it did add some excitement. Finally Sunday night at 8:30pm my bike showed up via courier.

The next day we rode with our “safety groups” which ranged in ages and abilities… so.. in other words we drove slow. Really slowly. We had our first taste that night of camping at a school soccer field. It was neat.

On day two we did the biggest day so far. We climbed to an elevation of 4200 feet… which is past the tree line and into the snow. It was a great climb. It really scared a lot of people and there were some that wanted to drop out but no one did. Some people were injured and a lot of people got rides with the van to the top of the pass.

Day three to the day seven were pretty easy days and have been blurred into one another. The excitement has been falling off and the people have been all settling down into their groups and we’re all getting used to living out of hockey bags. I have been working on mixing up with different groups and helping out as much as I can. Some days I am struggling as a young fit guy so I cant imagine how some of the other older people feel, or some of the people with injuries. I hope my helping takes some of the burden off. I truly believe the heros of this community are the ones that have the hardest time. Terry Fox is a hero because of the pain he put in… for the blood and effort. The heros are not the hot shots who have races to the finish lines. The heros are the ones that give 110% of all they have. Kinda like in the bible I suppose. The poor widow gives $5 when the rich man gives $50 but the $5 from the poor woman means she cant eat while the wealthy man has so so much left over… anyways… that’s a bit much on this subject.

Anyways, here we are. Well into week two. It’s been a great time! This morning we left Baker City Oregon, where we camped at the high school. Last night we found a nice river with a rope swing that dropped you into waste deep water into a river. It was great. From there I hitchhiked with my laundry basket to the laundromat. After the laundry and swim we were invited to join a volley ball drill session with the Baker girls high school team. Its amazing after your full time job becomes cycling how good shape you get into and how it affects the other sports you like to play. I found it so much more fun because of the body conditioning we’ve been doing. We have been taking over these small towns and people are very receptive and offer all sorts of stuff and give out lots of tips on what is fun in the area.

Right now we are staying in a little town… town of 900 or so people. Mostly back country ranchers, railroad workers or department of transport employees. Great people! There was even a sign on the way into town to welcome us. They have a general store, a post office and a pub/restaurant. The restaurant also doubles as the bait and tackle shop, beauty shop and liquor store! Hehe… one stop shopping for the average red neck housewife… all they need to do is sell ammo! The people are have been very good considering all the spandex people have been wearing!

I should get going. I must clean up some stuff and get ready for dinner. I seem to stay busy the entire day.