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Cycling ThroughBy Claire St. Amant
This summer, The Alive Campaign, a team of five Baylor students, is biking from Waco, Texas, to Anchorage, Alaska,
 to raise awareness about suicide prevention. The team--Justin Brown, Alyson Erickson, Kyle Ferguson, Nathan Lloyd, and Andi Nakasone--left May 15, and at the time of this interview had progressed as far as Yosemite National Park in California. In addition to biking 4,500 miles, the team is making a documentary along the way. Erickson, the only female rider, took a break from the road to answer a few questions about the journey so far.
BETWEEN THE LINES: What's it like being the only female rider?
I don't think it's any different than what I'm used to. Normally, I'm just one of the guys. But it is different in that I'm taking on more of a mom role on the team. I'm actually about to go do some laundry, and it isn't the first time. The guys are great and gentlemen. They let me have my own room.
BTL: I read on your blog that you passed the 1,000-mile mark. What did that feel like? How far have you gone now?
We've probably gone about 1,500 miles (a third of the way there). I haven't checked exactly in a while. The 1,000-mile mark was shocking. Looking back on it, sometimes we can't even remember all the places we've been.
 BTL: What has been the best part about the trip? The hardest?
The best part is definitely at the end of the day when we've done our mileage. Crossing state lines is a really fun part of it. Day to day, you don't always feel like you're going anywhere, but once you hit a state line it feels great. We get out and take pictures every time.
The hardest part is just learning how to be a team. We're kind of like a family. All five of us are so different, and we even have different goals about how much we want to bike and how we want to do it. Learning how to relate to each other has been a big challenge. Even though we've more or less all known each other since freshman year, now we are spending every waking moment together.
BTL: How is the team holding up physically? What is your riding schedule like?
Physically, the team is okay. We're definitely not in peak physical condition. Kyle has a pulled muscle, and a couple of the guys are kind of sick, so I think we're all kind of struggling. We've covered so much terrain and been on the road for almost a month. We've found that when we get out there and bike we feel so much better, that adrenalin kicks in.
How much mileage we cover really depends on where we are and what kind of terrain we are facing. When we have eighty miles or more for the day, we do singles, which are somewhat of a relay, with two riders going at the same time but one ahead of the other. For seventy-five miles or less, we have doubles where we ride the miles together. Lately we've been doing more singles to conserve energy. Yesterday was terrible because it was all hills. We could only do ten to fifteen miles at a time.
BTL: Was the initial fundraising enough or are you still pursuing funds?
We're always raising funds. We have shirts to sell. We sell them in the towns we visit and online. Justin's parents are collecting donations through Word of Life Church in El Paso. We don't know what we're going to be doing after this; we might try to charter it and make it a university organization or cash out and give what's left to a national suicide prevention organization. Things happen all the time on the road, and we have to dip into our funding unexpectedly. We've had some bike maintenance. We don't really have a housing budget. It's the kindness of strangers and alumni that has gotten us by. The budget that we have is mostly gas and food. Gas in Yosemite is $4.98. We kinda thought it would be bad, but holy cow!
BTL: Tell us about your support on the road. I understand your parents and alumni have played a role?
We'll run into people at a restaurant of something, and someone will ask us what we're doing because we kind of stand out, and they will share their stories about their family. One guy paid for our meal, and some people give us gas money. It's just amazing. Sonya Brown and Martina Lloyd, Justin's and Nathan's moms, are pretty much the people behind the scenes for us. They have connected us to people from their churches and Baylor alumni, and they are making it possible for us to stay with people. A couple of alums, Mark and Sharon Hamsen, are coming more than an hour out of their way to give us a meal today in the park. Other alums, the McWilliams in Snyder, were great. They gave us a meal at night and stayed up with us past midnight and then woke up to fix breakfast in the morning. It was top-notch.
BTL: What's it been like making a documentary about the trip?
Andi is primarily in charge, but we are all helping a bit with the footage. The Baylor film department let us check out two cameras, a smaller one and a bigger one, so we use the smaller one when biking and use the larger one for time-lapse shots and other things. We have a lot of beautiful scenery. We're working on getting more of our interaction when we're not biking. We are realizing the difficulties of making a documentary because we'll be doing something cool and then be like "Oh wait, we should be filming this!"
 BTL: What's your favorite place that you've been?
I think Rachel, Nevada, was one of the coolest. It was supposed to be weird, so you felt relaxed and knew you wouldn't be the weirdest person there. And the people were really nice. The owner of the hotel gave us free lunch, dinner, and breakfast—every meal while we were there. Their gift shop was all aliens and stuff. We stayed in a mobile home, and a sonic boom from the jets that fly there went off and shook the whole area. There wasn't a dull moment. I guess that's why we liked it.
BTL: What do you miss most about the comforts of home?
I miss my family, and I miss sleeping in. We get up on average about 7 a.m., and that's pretty early for a college student. Even when we try to sleep in, we are so used to it that we wake up around 8. I guess that's a good thing, but I still miss sleeping late.
BTL: Is the team on track to reach Anchorage on July 27?
We are perfectly on track for Anchorage. We're motivated to get there. If we feel like we're behind, we kick it into double time. We have a ninety-nine-mile day tomorrow to Manteca, California. We stay on track pretty well because we cherish our rest days. We don't want those to go away.
You can track the team's trip from the schedule on their website at Alive Campaign.
If you would like to respond to this story, send an e-mail to Between the Lines Editor.
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