For 10 weeks, nearly 4,000 miles, through the winds of Wyoming, the heat of Kansas, and the altitude of Colorado, seven Boy Scouts on bicycles rode 70 miles a day striving to reach one destination: Wrightsville Beach.
On Wednesday, the crew members of Bike Loud finished their cross-country journey at the Blockade Runner. They were greeted by a raucous crowd of friends, family and supporters, there to cheer their accomplishment and the $30,000 they raised for the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation, an organization that supports cancer patients and their families at University of North Carolina Hospitals.
“It was kind of surreal,” 15-year-old Brian Richardson said. “The whole trip we were talking about Wrightsville Beach, thinking we’d never get there. Like it was some magical place off in the distance.”
Lucy Steiner’s family started the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation after her 15-year-old daughter, Sophie, died of cancer in 2013. She said the efforts of these seven Scouts of Chapel Hill Troop 845 can have a very real impact on the lives of young cancer patients at UNC Hospitals.
“These resources are needed to help teenagers with cancer feel like who they are as individuals,” Steiner said.
The Bike Loud journey, believed to be the longest ever by a Boy Scout troop, began June 15 when Richardson, David Margolies, Andrew De Figueiredo , Max Morgan, Will Owen and Sam Billings dipped their back tires in the Pacific Ocean at Florence, Ore. It ended at 11:30 a.m. Aug. 19, when they splashed their front tires into the Atlantic Ocean, before taking a well-earned dip themselves. One rider left early due to other travel commitments.
The Boy Scouts made the entire journey themselves, accompanied by two adult riders who rotated in at intervals. While an undertaking of this nature would seem to lend itself to experienced, dedicated riders, the Scouts of Bike Loud only began their training about one year before the journey.
For 16-year-old Margolies, the first two weeks were the hardest.
“It was difficult getting into the motion of getting up at 5 a.m., cycling all day in the heat, then getting up the next day to do it all over again,” he said, while praising the adult leaders of the group. “There were times when we were struggling, but we knew we would make it.”
The riders said their journey took them through several difficult stretches across different terrain and weather conditions. They faced intense winds in Wyoming and a 111-degree heat wave in Kansas. But Missouri was perhaps the most challenging.
“We had trained for the Rockies, where we reached nearly 12,000 feet, and they weren’t too bad,” Richardson said. “But it was the Ozarks that was the hardest part of the trip, with the super steep rolling hills, at 28 percent grades, coming back-to-back-to-back.”
The Bike Loud cyclists solicited donations before they left and also received a grant from the Herman Goldman Foundation. Along the way, the “great people of this nation” would ask about their journey, with many making donations in person or through their fundraising website, Margolies said.
A crowd of several dozen gathered at the Blockade Runner to meet the riders. Evan Malinchock, a 16-year-old troop member and friend of the riders, was nearly brought to tears when they arrived.
“It’s really great that they did this,” he said. “But they were really, really confident before the trip. They knew they could do it.”
Ed Billings, the adult leader who made the entire 10-week journey, said the group faced many challenges, but “it was a pleasure to lead them.”
For Margolies, the real pleasure was the refreshing dive in the ocean to cap off the incredible journey.
“To go from the farthest point westward to the farthest point eastward,” he said. “It was a feeling like no other.”
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