Lady Gazelle

They call her"Lady Gazelle." Her profile on the road is distinctive: more upright than most of the other Big Riders, and a steady, measured, unstoppable pace. Marjolein de Wit of Canton, Massachusetts, has an unusual bike and an even more unusual life story that brought her to the ride.

Lady Gazelle

Marjolein was just two years old when she was first hospitalized with an asthma attack in her native Holland. The attacks grew more severe. At age 10, she was in the hospital eight times, including several visits to the intensive care unit. Her fear of being short of breath was so strong that even eating was difficult, and she weighed just 40 pounds. She was at home more than at school. Finally, her parents decided to send her to a facility called Heideheuvel in Hilversum, Holland, that specialized in treating asthmatic children. She stayed there for three years.

"I loved it there," said Marjolein."We slept there, ate there, played there." But the 84 children in the facility went to regular schools in town. Heideheuvel "changed my life," said Marjolein, because whenever she had an asthma attack, someone was always there to reassure her that everything would be all right. "It made me free," added Marjolein. "It taught me to live with asthma and overcome my disability."

Now, years later, Marjolein is giving back to the medical profession that saved her life. She herself has become a doctor and has become a specialist in pulmonary and critical care medicine at New England Medical Center in Boston. "It has come full circle," she noted. And what more fitting way to pay tribute to those in the field of pulmonary health care than to take part in the 2000 RadioShack Big Ride Across America. "I am riding for those people who stood by me in difficult times and to confirm my own commitment to my own patients with lung disease," said Marjolein. She has also dedicated her ride to the memory of a boy from Heideheuvel, Bert Sterenborg, who did not make it and died at age 17.

Which brings us to Marjolein's bicycle and her nickname. Shunning the traditional road bike, she went back to her roots and bought a Gazelle bike in Holland. It's easy to spot on the ride and Marjolein is quick to point out its many unusual features. There's the tilting handlebars that can be adjusted to various positions at the flick of a lever. Then there are the full fenders and sidesplash guards, the built-in lock and luggage rack complete with bungee cords, not to mention the halogen headlight, the rear light that automatically comes on at dusk and the seat with built-in suspension. All this comes at a weight cost, bringing the bike to more than 40 pounds, but that doesn't faze Marjolein. The only feature that doesn't seem to work as advertised is the puncture-resistant tires; she's had half a dozen flats over the past 19 days.

A Straight-Forward Ride

Sunrise glow on wildflowers

"This state is sure beautiful, but it's beating me down," noted one rider. "The roads are so straight in these parts, they have names for the curves," joked a woman tending bar outside Osage.

But the hospitality made up for the wind and the long roads. In Newcastle, mayor Mike Mills shuttled riders for hours from camp to various places in town, such as the post office, the Laundromat, and the beautiful, new high school pool, home of the girls' state champs last year. "You just got a little taste of the best-kept secret in the state of Wyoming," a proud Mills told riders after dinner.

Mind the Mines

Wyoming's mineral wealth has been on display in a variety of ways in the last two days. Open-pit coalmines ran along the huge coal seam between Sheridan and Gillette. Wyoming produces one-quarter of the nation's coal — it's a high grade of nearly sulfur-free coal — used for generating electricity. One pit mine that riders passed yields 43,000 tons of coal every day, which is transported by giant trucks out of the pit then loaded on to moving train cars and shipped to the Midwest. Long strings of coal cars clacked along the tracks or waited to be loaded, like giant dragons waiting to feed.

"It can all end right now . . ."

Where there's coal, there's also methane gas and oil, as evidenced by the refinery across the street from the camp in Newcastle, and a new oil strike just outside town that promises continued prosperity. The region is also rich in bentonite, a mineral used for many different purposes including as a binding agent, in slurries, and as a liner for irrigation ditches.

The Old Days

One retired bentonite worker, Elmer Ellis, 82, was mowing clover on the roadside with his 1950's John Deere tractor when riders came by. Holding out a huge weathered hand and smiling a huge toothless grin, Elmer spoke easily about the old days, like the bad winter of '49 and how it just doesn't seem to snow as much these days. He recalled with a laugh how he and his brothers and sisters used to ride their horses to school on many a frosty morning. One time, he recalled, "This ol' pony humped his back and threw me in a snowbank. It didn't hurt or nothing. I led him around for awhile, and he got it out of his system and then we rode on."

Come to think of it, that kind of describes Big Riders and the wind in Wyoming.

By Clem Work, riding reporter.

For more information about today's ride, check out the GORP Big Ride Log.