A year ago, Will Mathiasen made a promise to finish a journey.
This week, the 21-year-old Gilroyan will start it.
Gilroy – A year ago, Will Mathiasen made a promise to finish a journey.
This week, the 21-year-old Gilroyan will start it.
Mathiasen’s father, Mike Mathiasen, set out last June on a cross-country bike ride with his best friend Bill Pritchard to help raise awareness for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the disease from which his wife and Will’s mother, Kathy, suffers.
But Mike never finished the ride. The 59-year-old died from a heart attack July 5 climbing Sam Tiam Pass in Sweet Home, Ore., just five days into the trip.
Immediately after the loss, long before the family’s shock and devastation began to lessen, Will Mathiasen said he would one day finish the trip that his father never did.
On Sunday – Father’s Day – 21-year-old Will, his 19-year-old cousin Jed Duerr of Morgan Hill, Pritchard and family friends Adrian Villapando and Mark Buggy of Tucscon, Ariz., set out for the trip, which started in Coos Bay, Ore., and will end months from now in Quoddy Head, Maine. The fivesome will travel a northern route through the Cascades (Oregon), the Blue Mountains (Washington), the Bitterroots (Idaho) and Rocky Mountains (Montana) to the Midwest before heading up toward the East Coast.
“There was no doubt we were going to do it,” said Will last Thursday, two days before he, Duerr and his mother left for Oregon.
The trip will be nearly 4,000 miles long and follow along the same route Mike Mathiasen and Pritchard mapped out for last year’s trip.
Will Mathiasen and Duerr are taking a more relaxed approach to the trip than did Mike Mathiasen, who was known for his meticulous planning. The duo is aiming to build up to traveling 50 to 60 miles a day as they get stronger during the trip. Will Mathiasen will be riding the navy blue Novara bike his father rode, which Gilroy’s Sunshine Bicycles prepared free of charge for the ride.
In the first week, the group will encounter the same mountain pass where Mathiasen died. In the past year, the family has visited the spot.
But instead of approaching the the site of her husband’s death with apprehension, Kathy – who will travel by car with the group for the first week before heading back to Gilroy – is looking forward to experiencing the return trip.
“I feel a lot more confident (about this trip),” said Kathy, 59. “I didn’t feel good the last time.”
A month before the trip, Mike landed in the hospital with a chipped tooth and badly injured lower lip when he took a spill over the handle bars of his bike. On top of that, Pritchard’s own pre-ride heart problems required him to have a heart rate monitor and mini defibrillator implanted in his chest.
But Pritchard, who recently finished a tune-up bike trip in New Zealand, is in better shape and more prepared for this trip.
“This time there’s a lot of positive energy around it,” Kathy Mathiasen said. “I feel it’s going to be a good trip.”
Nevertheless, Kathy Mathiasen said the last few weeks have been hard, with the anniversary of Mike’s death coming up.
“It’s funny. I’ll be going along doing OK and it will just hit out of the blue,” she said.
Will Mathiasen said the cyclists will also try to spread the word about non-Hodgkins lymphoma – a type of incurable cancer that affects the lymph nodes and other organs – just like his father did. They will be passing out cards with a message about the purpose of the trip and Mike Mathiasen’s picture to people they meet.
The trip will also be chronicled via the Internet, thanks to Duerr’s younger sister and Web master, Abby Duerr, who will maintain the Web site created for last year’s trip, www.bikingvikingsforacure.com.
Kathy Mathiasen’s own remission story should be a source of inspiration for others with the disease. After her husband’s death, she worried the stress of the loss would undo her three-year period of remission.
“I thought all the shock might knock me out of remission,” Kathy Mathiasen said.
But a recent MRI scan showed a clean bill of health. Kathy, a registered nurse for Kaiser Permanente, believes the antibody treatment Retuxin she’s received is the cause.
“I’ve gotten a very good remission from it,” she said.
The group, which will set up camp every night, will carry all it needs for the trip in pannier bags on the bikes. That includes food, sleeping bags and clothing. Duerr, a banjo and guitar player, also plans on bringing a fiddle so he’ll have music during the trip.
Kathy Mathiasen said it will be interesting to hear about what the crew will be eating during the trip since Mike was always in charge of the food.
“A lot of oatmeal,” Duerr predicts.
Even with all of the unknown ahead, Will Mathiasen and Duerr expressed readiness to just get the trip started.
“I don’t think they have any reservations at all,” Kathy observed, sitting at the family’s kitchen table, “Do you?” she asked.
“No,” they replied.
Ana Patejdl covers sports for South Valley Newspapers. Reach her at (408) 842-1694 or at
ap******@gi************.com
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