‘Big Deals on Wheels’

When we last left Ed Drouin, Neil Kempen and Tim Williams, all educators in their 50s, they were days away from pushing out of Spokane for their cross country bicycle journey. Forty-one days and 3,200 miles later, the three amigos joyfully report, they made it, And, somewhere between Chester, Mont., and Brooklyn, N.Y., they became ‘Big Deals on Wheels.’

“I think it’s because everybody has probably ridden a bike,” said Drouin, a teacher at Lakeside High School, who turned 57 on Wednesday. “I can pull into my car in Chester, Mont., or Cleveland, and nobody would talk to me. But when they saw us on bikes, it was ‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’ “

The men spent their summer stuck to their saddles, averaging 80 miles a day, through sun, wind and an immeasurable amount of rain. Dubbed RAA, for Ride Across America, the tour also had a soft side.

Days before they left, they granted the request of Spokane resident Nancy MacKerrow, who asked if they would carry some ashes of her late daughter, Susie Stephens. Stephens, an avid cyclist, died in March 2002 when she was hit by a tour bus in St. Louis.

They left June 16, Williams on his 1972 Mondia touring bike, and Drouin and Kempen on Novara Randonee touring bikes. At points, they were met by friends or family, who would ride a day or two with them. However, every day, they were hospitably greeted by strangers.

In Chester, 570 miles into the trip, the men planned to camp in the city park.

“Before we had everything put away, we were invited to a potluck sponsored by the Democrats of Chester,” said Kempen, 53, a supervisor at Gonzaga Prep.

Before anyone could say “pass the potato salad,” Drouin was giving a very impromptu stump speech.

“Ed said, ‘We were Cyclists for Kerry.’ He talked about the horrible price of gas and how we were protesting the price increases. He had the crowd eating out of his hand,” Kempen said.

Three weeks and too many bananas and peanut butter breakfasts to count later, a similar scene played out in Cleveland. This time it was a potluck in the park for a councilwoman. The crowd was so moved by Drouin’s “speech,” a picnicker wanted to alert the media about the cross country bikers from Spokane.

“That’s when Neil and I got nervous,” said Williams, 53, a teacher at Sacajawea Middle School.

Although the bikers escaped the Cleveland press, when they reached Narrowsburg, N.Y., Drouin and Williams agreed to an interview in a weekly newspaper called The River Reporter.

But the celebrity moment that will last more than 15 minutes (in their minds) happened in Brooklyn. The men were featured in the New York Daily News’ Boroughs section on Aug. 4. Drouin’s daughter, Erica, had some pull in the matter. She’s a member of Brooklyn Councilman Simcha Felder’s staff.

It also didn’t hurt that the men dipped the front wheels of their bikes into the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island as their final move.