Chris Brown about to depart on the last day of his bike ride across the country. (Port City Daily photo / COURTESY CHRIS BROWN)
WILMINGTON — For Wilmington resident Chris Brown, his grandchildren were a welcome sight. Standing in the sand of Wrightsville Beach, one held a sign reading, “52 DAYS 3082 MILES” memorializing the two-month cross-country bicycle trip his grandfather had just completed.
With the trip, the 30-year Navy veteran and retired engineer had raised about $3,500 for Snipes Academy of Arts and Design, a year-round elementary school on Chestnut Street in Wilmington located just behind Wilmington National Cemetery.
Brown got the idea after seeing something in the Wrightsville Beach United Methodist Church (WBUMC) bulletin about helping Snipes, a mission supported by the church. He’d always wanted to take on the challenge of a cross-country bike trip, and came up with the concept of turning his adventure into a fundraiser.
Kids in need
Snipes is a “Title 1” school, meaning it qualifies for special Federal funding assistance due to its high number of poor children. Of the 420 Snipes students, some come from nearby homeless shelters, and the vast majority of students — around 99 percent, according to the education research site StartClass — receive free or reduced lunch. To qualify for free lunch, a child’s family income must be under $15,444. Snipes’ average is higher than the average percentage for Wilmington, which is 50 percent.
The funds raised by Brown are being targeted for purchasing a Makerbot 3D printer, a state-of-the-art tool that can take a digital file and create a physical three-dimensional object. One of the most in-demand job skills in today’s workforce, 3D printing is used in careers such as industrial and mechanical engineering for creating things like medical equipment, automobile parts and even artificial organs.
Over 5,000 schools in the U.S. have Makerbot 3D printers, with educators using them as a new way to engage students with material. Students working with 3D printers combine creativity, problem solving, and computer skills to create objects with a purpose, helping to set the foundation for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics learning.
In addition to helping Snipes purchase the 3D printer, WBUMC will be adding some additional dollars to purchase more supplies for Snipes.
A long road ahead
Chris and Carol Brown (Port City Daily photo / COURTESY CHRIS BROWN)
Chris Brown, 64, and his wife Carol, 63, started their cross-country journey in San Diego at Torrey Pines State Beach, a familiar spot for the Browns and their three children many years ago when they lived in California. Plotting their course with the help of the Adventure Cycling Association, the couple found bike-friendly highways and byways, such as the famous Route 66. They made their way through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina, with Chris on his bike and Carol keeping tabs on him from the comfort of their 27-foot recreational vehicle.
For Carol, there was a learning curve for handling the big rig, with she and her husband taking some training runs up to Camp Lejeune and over to Asheville so Chris could get used to biking in higher altitudes and to practice climbing bigger hills.
During the fundraising trip, Carol would let Chris get a head start of about two hours, then drive to meet him halfway through his daily rides which went for up to 110 miles, averaging about 60 miles after you add in the occasional heavy climb up steep hills.
“Some days, we’d stop and have lunch, other days I’d just stop to make sure he was okay and give him a break from the heat in the air conditioning,” Carol said.
Chris Brown arrives in Wrightsville Beach after two months biking across the country. (Port City Daily photo / COURTESY CHRIS BROWN)
Chris rode a bike with a blinking red light facing the rear and wore a reflective vest, but he was still hard to spot on the roads, sometimes hidden by the massive double tractor trailers whipping past. Carol used a “find a friend” app on her phone to keep track of her husband in areas with cell service which helped during instances where she’d driven ahead and run into flooding or torn-up roads, then turned back to help Chris figure-out how to traverse the obstacles.
Other challenges Chris faced along the way included wind and rain; extremes of hot and cold weather; chunks of truck tires with pieces of steel sticking out; a plethora of flat tires (about 10 altogether); and accidentally driving over his bike with the RV.
The scariest thing Chris encountered on the trip?
“Dogs,” he said. “Loose dogs, running around by themselves or in packs. Lots of them. I’d be pedaling along and boom, there they are right at my back wheel, barking like crazy.”
Luckily, none of the dogs were able to clamp on, and Chris was able to maintain his composure and avoid crashing whenever he was chased.
Eventually, the ride began to wear on Chris and after one day with multiple flat tires, he became exasperated and thought about just driving home. Carol, the defacto trip manager, had other ideas.
“I had two surprises planned for Chris, his brother and his family were coming to meet him in Kentucky, and our youngest daughter was flying to Raleigh to meet him,” she said, adding, “I was like, you need to get up and get on the bike!”
The Damascus Trail in Virginia. (Port City Daily photo / COURTESY CHRIS BROWN)
He did, and the couple got to experience the natural beauty of America throughout the trip, staying at state and national parks — as well as RV parks — and meeting fellow bicycle adventurers from places like Boston, Arizona, the Bay area, Spain, England, the Netherlands and France.
Inspiring others
This month, Chris Brown will talk to Snipes students about his trip at a school assembly. He plans to equate his bike trip to living your life; you have a dream and that’s nice, but you need to plan for how to accomplish it, practice, and train, he explained.
“In a small way, I hope to get them to think about their future. It won’t always be easy, but even with troubles like wild dogs and flat tires, if you persevere, you’re going to see beautiful things,” he said.
As for future bike trips, Chris is open to the idea, with some caveats.
“I won’t go on anything quite as long, and I’d probably want to go with another person or two,” he said, adding, “There are lots of beautiful places left to explore.”
