See,
life is an adventure made richer by the people
around you and those you meet on the road.
I'm Dominic.
And when I met Ernie Greenwald,
I wanted to help realize his dream to cycle across the USA.
I'm looking forward to seeing the country that I've lived
in for 70 plus years and never really seen.
But Ernie's adventurous hopes were destroyed.
It looks like maybe the cancer has got the better of
him. Had every reason to believe we'd be able to do it,
I suppose in a way, Ernie's left a legacy.
This is the story of how Ernie's impossible dream became possible
for 10 strangers that could never make this journey alone.
I
haven't been on a bicycle in 10 years.
We're riding cross country and we're loving it and living it and uh sharing it.
This is the last long bike
all around.
Everything is perfect right now. Everything
so far on our journey,
we had cycled over 1000 miles with two different companions from Los Angeles,
California
to Salt Lake City, Utah.
Our 3rd and 4th companions were brothers,
Warren and Chad who both suffered from the same genetic disease.
When I got the phone call from Splore. It felt magical, it felt,
um, I mean, they don't get to do the outdoor stuff, they don't get to,
um, camp or anything because of all the medical equipment they need at night. And
so this was kind of a fantasy to even have it, have happen.
Um, I have muscular dystrophy
which, um, causes me to have, uh, sleep apnea.
Uh,
it gives me a poor muscle tone.
Uh, I have muscles a lot, primarily my hands and my tongue.
I'm very bright so I haven't done it in years. Um,
I can't imagine
I would ever
have the opportunity to ride a bike as far as I'm going to be riding it again.
Warren was the first brother to take a seat
and pedal from Salt Lake City
65 miles north to Logan Utah.
During the first few miles of our only day together.
Warren wasted no time in telling me about one of the common
problems associated with muscular dystrophy that both he and his brother,
Chad suffer from
people have had sleep apnea forever.
Um,
the elephant man actually had sleep apnea
because of the size of his head and his neck.
Um,
it would cause his throat to close when he would lie down.
And
I mean,
you know, they didn't have CPAP at the time,
so he had to actually sleep sitting up.
Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes pauses
in breathing or abnormally shallow breaths during sleep.
Both Warren and Chad use CPAP machines to help them breathe through the night.
But while Chad's machine is relatively simple
and can be powered with our solar battery,
Warren needs more equipment that we cannot power overnight.
Limiting his journey with us to just one day.
Warren's doing. Uh
Warren's doing really well, has to stop every so often,
regain his breath. But
what do you expect?
And the fatigue is one of the big symptoms of muscular dystrophy
on our next break.
I made the worrying discovery that the Utah heat was degrading our entire outfit.
I'm gonna
take off your
shoes
while I begrudgingly left the support crew to sleep it off.
I forced Warren back onto the road
after talking to Warren in the saddle.
I was worried about his brother's ability to complete
the next 700 mile leg of this journey.
Enlarge on whether you think that your brother Chad,
how do you think you'll,
how do you think he'll do whether this will be a shock to him or not?
Because he doesn't look the most physical of guys? No, he's not.
Yeah, you'll be peddling a lot more than
why do you think that,
uh, oh, you mean I will be peddling a lot,
right? Yeah, I'll be taking a lot more of the weight. Yes, I think you're right.
But Alison weighs, you know, £30 less than me too. Sure.
After 65 miles of pedaling
Warren had made it through one of the most physically demanding
days of his life to reach a well deserved rest.
I think I put Warren to the test.
I think his, uh,
muscular dystrophy induced fatigue now has got the better of him
all credit to him because he made it,
made it through a 60 plus mile day on a bicycle and
not sure he's done that.
Uh,
so, well, I don't think he's ever done that
after a night's camping with newfound friends and with
Warren having warmed up the seat for him,
it was Chad's turn to help pedal us into Idaho through Wyoming
and over the Rockies into South Dakota.
I hope
not.
Uh Nervous.
Well,
excited, definitely.
And he doesn't get excited.
So that's awesome that he's excited with a condition known as flat affect.
Chad finds it difficult to show emotional expression and make decisions.
And as I thought about the road ahead
and the time we would spend together in the saddle,
I realized it was something I was going to have to get used to
for the first day of Chad and my 730 mile journey to Rapid City, South Dakota.
We weren't the only ones on the road on a strange looking bicycle,
common ground,
an organization that provided outdoor adventure for people
with special needs had come to join us.
So it's gonna be fun
for the first time. I think on this trip, we've got a kind of happy
caravan of cyclists
uh for 25 miles as we head into Logan.
Definitely a slow day today, but
everyone seems to be just about
keeping up doing it, getting on with it,
which is great.
Quite a struggle though.
The relaxed pace and short distance with the common ground crew
served as a good orientation day for Chad
with another rest awaiting us in Logan along with some TLC for the bike.
It's only about two days since we stopped in Salt Lake City, but
just stopping again at my friend's house in
Logan.
Chad's getting involved in uh helping fixing the bike a little bit,
taking advantage of a nice workshop while we've got one.
Before we head up into Wyoming,
it didn't take much to have the bike back in perfect shape.
But before we headed out into the toughest stretch of our trip,
our host assured us that we needed to fuel up on the ultimate Utah experience.
Apparently
we're going on a mass plinking trip. It's a
blinking is a must do activity in Utah.
It
involves shooting large caliber weapons at tin cans, targets,
really shooting anything you can
in the wilderness.
The Utah planking experience starts
uh with a perfect 10
in the Chevy Blazer.
Um
We get three gallons a minute. Uh in this, it's good fuel economy
and uh it's very comfortable. It's got carpeted interior, spare tire
and it's packed full of heavy armaments.
I was thinking, um, today that I was gonna shoot maybe a handgun, small
handgun.
I, I had a pretty good idea that we'd be giving charter
an experience that he'd never had before
in terms of cycling, but
I had absolutely no idea.
Well, I hadn't really thought about
the possibilities of introducing him to
the world of firearms.
It's another thing for Chad to tick off the bucket list
the following morning I got the feeling Chad had reached
a new level of cool thanks to the blinking experience.
But cycling long distance is an
effective way of questioning one's self-confidence.
So as we pedaled out of Logan, Utah to cross yet another state line,
I knew Chad would be put to the test. We've only just come over the Idaho border
and
we've had a massive turn of luck as if Lo
Logan wasn't friendly enough.
Almost every single person we've seen so far has given us at least
a,
you know, a
bit of a very friendly conversation or in this case, cheesecake
Idaho
has not only brought with it, the friendliest people
but also the biggest hills with he.
When the hills began to dominate the friendly faces thinned out
as we climbed.
There was nothing to distract from the reality that I was
peddling a bike with someone more used to sleeping than exercise.
You're beginning to wish you
weren't doing this yet.
That happened a long time ago, several times.
No, I didn't. I don't believe you.
Really?
Yes.
Really?
I wanna see a face of pain.
I'm gonna see you out of breath and half dead.
You can smile and talk,
you know, try hard enough.
Despite the fact that Chad only weighed about 100 and £15
the steep hills were a painful reminder that the Rockies weren't far away
and as the hills got bigger,
I would definitely need Chad's help
one
more hill in the next three miles.
Thousands more before New York.
After 70 miles on the road,
we woke from Chad's second night in a school field in rural Idaho.
Since leaving Los Angeles,
I'd not heard from 73 year old Ernie Greenwald, the inspiration for this journey.
But that morning,
I was disturbed to hear from a doctor in California.
I got a message from a physician in
a
hospital in Santa Barbara
asking for
Ernie's next of kin information.
It looks like
maybe the cancer has got the better of him,
which is very sad, the inspiration behind this entire project.
He's dying.
What I hate to think is that he kind of
after realizing you couldn't come on this journey gave up mentally.
I dunno.
This sad news was compounded by worries about Chad
who
easily fatigued by muscular dystrophy
had found the first two days physically grueling,
but uh
he's got another
minimum
12 days of cycling ahead of him.
I'm wondering if he can go the distance
anyway.
I guess we'll get on the road
with the news of Ernie and doubts about Chad.
I didn't have to wait long for a third worrying sign.
I guess we're about 100 miles, 100 and 50 miles away from Yellowstone.
I guess
we can really expect some mountain weather from now on thunderstorms.
Bit of rain,
uh,
hot days, a little colder at night.
It's a bit a blessing in some ways. But
the rain's gonna make this logistically a little bit more difficult.
Are you comfortable? More or less?
Yeah. There in the rain, I'm fine.
The rain, uncomfortable.
I just think rain,
it's getting heavier.
It's not a good day for child if he dislikes rain
and who likes the rain.
Ok. You can get off
just for a sec.
You
chickened out.
We're in a gas station,
gonna wait for this stuff to blow over.
It's the first serious rain we've seen all trip
and Chad got it. Ha,
I
don't think it's gonna last very long though,
but it lasted long enough to necessitate continuing.
Otherwise we wouldn't get to camp before nightfall.
Chad's dystrophy meant he was seriously thin.
He chilled easily. So we would have to make progress quickly.
Yeah,
ta da
the morning dawned clear and bright.
And once Chad had woken up
we set out, looking forward to crossing the state line into Wyoming
and pedaling ever closer to the famous Yellowstone National Park.
Absolutely stunning day.
Now, if it gets hot
it gets into the eighties, which is
so much nicer than a week or two ago when it was still topping 100.
This feels refreshing. Now,
this is where we're stopping for the day. It's just a day short of Jackson Hole.
Have a feeling
chad, however little he might be saying is absolutely shattered
and
hopefully quite enjoying this.
Chad was tired
and so he should have been,
he was pushing himself harder than ever before,
but there's nothing like an icy dip to wake up and keep the mosquitoes at bay
and very, very tall.
This goes,
huh?
This great.
I'm a little bit worried
about Chad
having a party night with us, but uh
he's in it for the whole hog. So
that includes
finding a bar and
abusing it
over 200 miles into Chad's leg of a 4000 mile journey.
We rolled away from alpine Wyoming,
some of us more tired than others.
Um,
Chad just divulged that
we've forgotten his medication this morning. So
his medication
helps him wake up.
He has been a little bit sleepy.
So the smart ones called the visual,
the house run daytime, sleepiness
or in our words, wake me up
with the medication in his system.
Chad was able to push a little harder,
but it's difficult for anyone on the front to know just how much effort to put in.
So
how much do I put in, out of
all the energy that
has this
bike?
Yeah.
Um,
what do you think?
But I'm actually
helping, instead of just rotating my legs,
I think maybe 20 or 40.
Ok. Um,
I know it's not anywhere,
as much as you put in because you huff and puff a lot more than I do.
But with a little effort from both of us,
we made it to Jackson for a well deserved rest before the challenge of the Rockies
while Chad took advantage of a comfortable bed.
Alonso was given no such respite.
Yeah, I can
paralyze a little right.
The
order
on the
way,
er,
before we got to the big hills,
Chad began to realize that he'd bitten off more than he'd ever chewed before
I ever decided to do this.
Is it hurting
o
somehow without my need to sound like a bastard.
I'm glad to hear it.
Yeah, I know.
Uh,
I asked him to
put in as much power as he had into the pedals.
He did
and I was actually amazed
how much power he'd, he'd had in reserve is as if he'd been holding himself back.
Ok.
Right now,
I'm not sure if I have a cough because I have a cough or because I'm out of breath.
I think Chad's getting better. He's sort of warming up into this trip.
But to start with,
I don't think he was even pushing up anywhere near the ceiling
of his personal,
uh,
strength and ability. Lewis Lake.
We arrived.
Thank
you.
Oh,
praise
after a day peddling in the shadow of Grand Teton,
we arrived on the edge of Yellowstone National Park
the following morning
in the tranquility of alpine surroundings.
I received more news about the man that had inspired this journey.
I
heard a little bit more news from Ernie's oncologist.
Seems like he's
suffering
more or less terminal
heart failure.
This was the man that was supposed to be on this journey with me.
It's gone from being reasonably fit and healthy
to, on death's door.
He'd love to have seen these places,
but I don't think he ever will
in the next episode.
More committed than ever to fulfill Ernie's legacy.
We pass through Yellowstone
and climb the highest mountain path of our journey.
They've had rolling hills and really bad wind. Did I mention I hate head wind.
I dump it in his earphones, which more or less means that he isn't happy.
Ah,
get off the bike.
I don't think this is what Chad signed up for at all.