Wheels for Warriors
Bryce Nurding didn’t start riding a bike until about six years ago. Learning to ride was challenging because his family lives on a hilly street in the coastal community of Astoria, Ore. But one day his parents took him to a flatter area to practice, where Bryce was “too scared to start out on my own.”
Nurding’s dad tied a rope around both of their waists and had Bryce learn without training wheels. “When I was finally confident enough to go without the rope, he sent me off, and I ran into a sticker (blackberry) bush,” he recalls.
Now the 16-year-old Nurding is leading a group of six Boy Scouts and adults on a cross-country ride to raise funds in support of The American Legion’s Operation Comfort Warriors (OCW) program. Bike Trip America launches in Astoria on June 18 and will end in New York City on Aug. 15. Along the way, the riders will be supported by Legion posts, churches and other organizations that have volunteered to provide meals and/or places to sleep.
Nurding planned the entire route, using online maps and other tools. The daily rides range from 30 to 111 miles, with some single-day trips accounting for 4,000 feet or more of elevation climb.
“Last summer I wanted to have a better idea of what I was doing with organizing this trip, so I rode with a group called Eagle Scout Cycling Across America,” he says. “There were 10 kids my age going from San Francisco to Virginia Beach, and I decided to join them from San Francisco to Colorado just to get some experience.”
Afterward, Nurding knew he wanted his ride to go all the way to the East Coast. The next step: find a charity to support. He met with members of American Legion Post 12 in Astoria and was impressed by OCW.
“It’s a good cause, and the more I realized how important it is and how many times our veterans have kind of been forgotten, it made me want to help out,” he says. “Operation Comfort Warriors is different from other charities in a lot of ways because all the money that is donated actually goes to the veterans.”
Nurding’s group has been completing long training rides to prepare for the 59-day journey. And he knows the challenges will be mental as well as physical. For instance, temperatures hit 111 degrees during last summer’s ride. On another day, they faced a 30-mph headwind while trying to finish a 100-mile leg.
“No matter how prepared you are, something will happen that is unexpected and you just have to be ready,” he says. “You have to be flexible.”
When this year’s crew concludes the 12-state journey, they won’t soon forget the experience.
Before his San Francisco-Colorado journey last year, Nurding didn’t know any of the other riders. But they bonded quickly. “Once we got to Colorado, I almost cried from having to leave them all,” he says. “We felt like family.”
– Henry Howard