LIOTR Stage 1 Overview

June 17, 2013. Stage 1 departs Seaside, OR and meanders on to Portland via Astoria and the Helvetia and Scappoose highways. As we leave the coast we’ll encounter 80+ miles of beautiful rolling woodland hills that eventually lead to downtown Portland. After a brief coffee stop at Rapha HQ, we travel through eastern Portland and begin the long ascent to Government Camp, OR. We’ll stay there at the base of Mt Hood and rest up for another day of climbing.

Stage 1 Dedications

Jim Sunderland got to know Leave It On The Road through our social media outreach. He was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in March of 2011 at the age of 46, despite having no risk factors or family history. He pursued an aggressive treatment plan, and at the end of 10 months of treatment was disease free. The long-term chemo took a tool on his body, but he was back on his bike in January 2012. A routine scan in February 2013 found two very small and slow growing tumors in his right lung. They were removed in April and confirmed to be mets of the original colon cancer. Jim started chemo in May and will end in August. He looks forward to being back on the bike and hopefully racing cyclocross again in the fall. Every bike ride he has done since his diagnosis he views as a celebration of life and sticking his thumb in cancer’s eye.

Amy Melinda Ogmundson, age 26, died Feb. 6th, 2013 after an 8-year long fight with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Her bout with cancer began just after graduating high school at age 18. Amy was a gifted musician and athlete, and had a great love for children and all of God’s creatures. She had a beautiful singing voice and sang for many events that were benefits for Children’s Regional Medical Center in Seattle, where she received treatment.

LIOTR Custom Engraved Tudor Fastriders

We’d like to welcome Tudor Watches to the LIOTR family and say a huge thanks for their support of our mission and our fundraising goals. As the Tudor brand returns to the US this year, we’ll be putting these custom engraved Fastrider Chronos to the test on our journey across the country. We are insanely thrilled to be working with them to reach new audiences for the LIOTR message, thanks for all of your support!

Hotel coffee sucks!

Thanks to @grimpeurbros and Baratza we’re are PRO when it comes to mobile coffee. Inside this bad boy we’ve got a Baratza Virtuoso grinder, Bona Vita thermal 1800 coffee maker, scale & filters. And 5 lbs of special edition LIOTR coffee, which you can ORDER RIGHT NOW and help fight colon cancer with your purchase. Details at grimpeurbros.com.

Repetition

I’ve ridden this climb I don’t know how many of hundreds of times in the last two years. I’m tired of the climb, but I never get tired of the view that is earned. Looking down at Portland like this I realize how much I’ll miss my wife, my dogs, friends - even work. All this time training for LIOTR I knew it would be difficult, but I hadn’t fully understood all the ways in which it would be difficult until now. Less than 48 hours to go before the journey of a lifetime and I’m already looking forward to climbing this hill that I’m so sick of when I return.

Shop Visit: Sugar Wheelworks

We recently stopped by our awesome sponsor Sugar Wheelworks to drop off a pile of carbon Enve rims and gold Chris King hubs. Sugar is building up the wheelsets for our journey and there’s no one we’d trust more. From our first interaction with Jude, they have been super positive and supportive of our mission and we can’t thank them enough. We shot a few b/w medium format photos as Jude Jay and Isabelle worked on some upcoming builds for other customers. Check them out at www.sugarwheelworks.com

Sacha’s Balance Test

We’re doing an IG takeover with @bicyclingmag for the next few days. Follow them to check out the behind the scenes process of fitting, designing, manufacturing, painting & building the LIOTR Speedvagens at @thevanillaworkshop.

The Leave It On The Road Custom Speedvagen

It is an honor, a privilege and a responsibility to ride these bikes across the country. They are cancer fighters, pure and simple. These bikes will help us raise awareness and funds to fight colon cancer. They were crafted of steel by Sacha White and the Vanilla Workshop in Portland, OR. We would like to say a huge thank you to Sacha, the team at the Vanilla Workshop, Rapha and all of our component sponsors at Sugar Wheelworks, Enve, Chris King, SRAM, Continental and Quarq. We cannot wait to ride across the country on these machines.

Introducing LIOTR Coffee!

Ok, this is where things start to get really awesome. We have partnered with @grimpeurbros to make a special LIOTR single origin coffee. It’ll get us out of bed and rolling every day of LIOTR. Follow @grimpeurbros for ordering details. www.grimpeurbros.com

This will come in handy…

3500 miles worth of liquid gold. Stay tuned for photos later this week of the full @rapha_n_america support kit we’ll be taking across the US. 7 days to go! (at Grundleton, OR)

Sponsor Visit: Chris King Precision Components

My grandmother died from breast cancer, and after beating colon cancer, my father was diagnosed with it as well. I guess you could say it runs in the family. It’s very rare in men, but it happens, and it happened to my dad. Around that time I was getting in to cycling as a way to fight cancer when I first heard about Chris King Precision Components. They made a line of pink anodized products where a portion of the proceeds went to help fight breast cancer. I bought the simplest piece, but also the one that I would see the most on the bike. A pink headset cap that would serve as a powerful motivator for many thousands of miles.

That simple stem cap cemented my perception of this company that I knew relatively little about at the time: they were passionate enough to make their products symbols for the things they cared about, and I respected that. And I went on to buy more of their products over the years, always respecting their values and the quality of their products. So when it came time to organize this ride in my father’s honor, Chris King was one of the first sponsors I approached, and thankfully they said yes.

A few weeks ago when I went to pick up they components they generously donated, I was given a tour of their Portland headquarters. I got to meet some of the people who are helping to support our cause, and see where and how the components were made.  I found a company with beliefs not only in quality of product, but in improving quality of life for its employees, its partners in business, as well as the environment.

Inside the bike room. Employees earn credits for commuting to work by bicycle. Those credits can be used towards the in house restaurant, which is run by a top notch chef. Food + cycling go hand in hand here, as evidenced by the annual Chris King Gourmet Century which sold out in just a few minutes.

Many of the machines are reclaimed from other manufacturing shops and retrofitted to do new jobs. They do not make them like this anymore. 

The relationship with materials suppliers is an important one. By working closely with each supplier, they’re able to create new processes for manufacturing and recycling that not only improve quality of life at Chris King, but for the employees of the suppliers as well. 

Innovations that typically go unseen include processes to recycle aluminum chips, the oils that lubricate the machines, and even the steam that is created in the hardening process. The entire manufacturing process has been evaluated and streamlined to maximize efficiency and reduce environmental waste and impact.

Cielo bikes, fabricated, and painted and built in-house.

At the service course, hubs components are cleaned and returned to original factory spec.

At the end of the visit I picked up the components that will carry us across the country. Can’t wait to get these on the Speedvagen!