From a blustery spot near the entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge, a clutch of family and friends with homemade signs reading "Congratulations!" and "We Missed You!" awaited the arrival of 28 yellow-clad bicyclists. The riders were finishing the 4,000-mile Habitat Bicycle Challenge (HBC), a cross-country trek organized by Yale undergrads for Habitat for Humanity, the international organization that builds homes with and for low-income people.
All told 90 cyclists, about half of them Yalies, raised more than $430,000 for Habitat during this year's Challenge, the 13th since Antony Brydon '95 founded the ride in 1994. The cyclists set out from New Haven on June 2 and then split into three groups. One group finished in Seattle, another in Portland. This pack of riders, the South Group, would cross the Golden Gate into San Francisco on August 9.
Those waiting were excited and joyful. But they also appeared to be holding their breath. One month before, on July 7, group member Dan Lewis '09 was hit by a car while biking through rural Kansas. Andy Wagner '09, a South Group leader and Lewis's roommate, heard of the accident at a church in Lucas, Kansas, after finishing that day's ride. Lewis, they learned, was being flown by helicopter 140 miles to a hospital in Wichita.
At the crash scene, Wagner says, the strangest thing happened -- something typical of the hospitality they encountered throughout their ride: a fireman gave his car keys to South Group leader Liz Herring so she could drive to Wichita. "He didn't give her a date or time to return," says Wagner, who got a ride to the hospital from the church pastor's wife.
The South Group took an extra one-day break from their journey in Boulder, Colorado, where a Habitat representative flew out to join them. Habitat personnel also flew out to be with Lewis and his family. Currently, Lewis is being treated in Denver, where he is still unconscious but making slow progress.
The accident comes on the heels of two other HBC-associated accidents. Last spring, Alexander Capelluto '08 died after being hit by a truck in West Haven while training for the trip. And in 2005, Rachel Speight '06 was killed when a car hit her in western Kentucky during the Challenge.
Bill Casey, Habitat's New Haven executive director, was on hand at the Golden Gate Bridge to greet the South Group. (Habitat provided oversight for the trip.) Casey said that after the earlier accidents, HBC had instituted a number of new safety training requirements, including a first-aid course, a test-run bike trip, and a bicycle leadership class. It hadn't been enough to prevent Lewis's accident. "I don't know that any training could have prevented that," said Casey.
The South Group cyclists, wearing their bright yellow jerseys, came into sharper and sharper focus. Cheers went up, champagne sprayed, and there were lots of hugs and a few tears.
Asked if he was happy to have participated in this year's Challenge,
Andy Wagner smiled proudly and said, "Absolutely!" Then he was silent for a
moment. "It was a long ride through Kansas," he said finally. "We were a bit
low in Kansas." 