As part of a leadership-training program, a group of college students pedaled from Texas to the Canadian border. Left: Dr. Coleman Patterson, pictured with his sister, Marce Wood of Grand Marais, led them on their journey.
They beat the flooding in Texas, pedaled just in front of tornadoes going through Oklahoma, crossed the plains in fair weather and got all the way to Grand Marais before they hit a cold, hard rain.
“The last 40 miles to the Canadian border was the only real bad weather we experienced during the whole trip,” said a smiling Dr. Coleman Patterson, professor of management and leadership and the director of the Kelley College of Business at Hardin- Simmons University in Texas. Patterson and his crew were resting and celebrating the end of their two-week, 1,830-mile leadership training trip with a stop at Marce Wood’s residence in Grand Marais.
Marce is Coleman’s “big sister.”
Not every day was easy riding. “We did face some stiff winds in South Dakota, one day averaging 23 miles an hour when the wind was at our backs and the next day averaging ‘very few miles an hour when it was in our face,’” said Destiny Eaton, a sophomore psychology major who took part in the training. “That was really tough riding,” she added.
Dr. Coleman is in charge of the leadership program at Hardin-Simmons. This was the fourth bike ride in four years for the leadership program, but this was by far the most ambitious trip with the first three rides taking place across Texas.
Most of the 10 students and alumni were barely off of their bikes before they hit the beach to take a quick dip into chilly Lake Superior while Wood and friend Kay Costello busily prepared a meal for the kids.
Taking two vehicles and splitting into two groups, each group rode 15-mile segments before the second group would leap frog and take over. At the end of the trip most riders had cycled well over 700 miles each.
Along the way they stayed in churches or with family or friends. “The kids planned the trip. That was part of their leadership training, picking out stops, fund raising, and finding places for us to stay,” said Patterson.
Flat tires were common and only one person fell hard enough to go to the E.R. but he was cleared to ride after missing a day and finished with a smile. This wasn’t the Tour de France with highly paid professional riders touring on high performance bicycles. These (mostly) young men and women rode bikes that were made of aluminum, carbon fiber, or steel.
“We rode from about 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. every day,” said Eaton, who was somewhat alarmed by her friends plunging into Lake Superior. “Couldn’t they get hypothermia and die?” she asked.
“Probably not,” she was told, and then she was encouraged to take the plunge herself.
“Nope,” said a resolute Eaton. Two weeks of riding across the country was enough for her.
A half dozen or so fit young men and women came in shivering from the lake, all smiles. And hungry. Wood and Costello were ready for them. Patterson was chatting with some of his students, then greeted Wood’s son, Rain, and his wife and their daughter who had come to visit. The crew would sleep the night, then ride in vehicles for two days back to Abilene fueled by the adventure of a lifetime and some of Marce’s carrot cake, which, in itself, was reason enough to make the ride across the country.
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