[bright music] - [Male Announcer] "Shadow of a Wheel" is made possible in part by Explore Asheville.

- [Female Announcer] Here in Asheville, we're a mix of genres, a hybrid of styles, settling for nothing, hungry for everything.

All drawn together to stand out.

You are welcome.

Always Asheville.

- [Male Announcer] Additional support is made possible by The Charles Engelhard Foundation and by these contributors: - Kind of thought he was crazy.

- [Narrator] 31 teenagers from across North Carolina rise through the challenge to ride their bikes coast to coast for multiple sclerosis.

- I was game.

You know, why not?

- [Narrator] Starting in Long Beach, California, the group hit the mountains and deserts of California, heading east towards their final destination of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and the challenges came fast and hard.

- The groans from the pain of saddle soreness.

["Back on the Chain Gang" by The Pretenders plays] ♪ - [Paul] I realize now how bicycles have always been part of my life.

They were everything to a kid.

[gears clicking] First, it was around the cul-de-sac in Tulsa, New Orleans, and then the mountains of North Carolina.

Me and my 10 speed were all over town.

It was freedom to go where I wanted.

[singing in Italian] - [Paul] Then, in 1979, the movie "Breaking Away" came out, and I wanted to be a bike racer.

- Faster.

- His poor parents.

- I did race a little, and I loved it, but more than anything, I just loved being in motion.

And then, out on the trip, my Trek bike became almost a part of my body.

I knew the feeling of every gear and every pound of pressure in the tires.

With these fantastic machines, we shared the adventure, the intense joy and suffering.

There was sweat and tears, wrecks and some blood.

And through these same struggles, we bonded to each other, at least most of the time.

♪ [image whooshes] [funky music] ♪ "June 26th, I'm in Vegas.

"We rode over 100 miles last night and into this morning.

"We got to the Mardi Gras Best Western and slept all day."

What did you think of Vegas?

- Honestly, the first thing that comes to my mind when somebody says Vegas is the buffets.

- "We went to the casino called Circus Circus "and ate a great buffet."

- "Went to Circus Circus in Vegas "and had a buffet breakfast.

"It wasn't bad for $1.99."

- Vegas at night.

Wow, that was special.

- I do remember being excited riding into Vegas.

And I think that's what kept us going is that I had never been to Las Vegas.

- And then, you're going to all these places.

Even though I was only 17, they didn't know, and I stuck money in a slot machine, and I won 50 cents.

Boy, was I a happy camper.

Actually, it was at a 7-Eleven.

- Obviously, Las Vegas stood out in my mind.

So many folks want to go to Las Vegas and party, and I was just like, ah, you know.

I remember being sketchy at that point, I guess.

It was so funny at that age.

I was like, I don't want to go to Las Vegas again after that.

[funky music] - We were in Las Vegas, and I'd left my bike outside of the room.

It was propped up on the rail.

Chuck walked by.

He picked up my bike.

He carried it down a few doors and dropped it off, just being playful.

And I said something to him, and I'm sure it was something smart.

And we were back and forth, kind of ribbing each other, and it was fun.

That was the first real time I had interacted with Chuck.

It felt good, because I'd seen him have that relationship with some of the other riders that they could talk and they could joke and have fun together and then, all of a sudden, I don't know what was said or what was done, but it was like a Jekyll and Hyde.

And then, he was cussing me out over something.

And I'm like, what the?

- Everyone became more comfortable riding and more confident riding.

But Chuck began to show some signs that this thing was bigger than he could handle.

- He had a lot of weight on his shoulders for such a young man.

What was he, 27, 28?

You know, I looked at the guy, 14, I looked at 20, you know, I'm thinking this guy is an old man.

[Randall laughing] You know?

And then, you know, you think about it, and you're like, he's only 27, 28.

You know, you take a lot of responsibilities.

- When you do something like this, the amount of emotional energy you are expending is exorbitant.

I mean, this was just a lot to handle.

[Judy chuckling] It was a whole lot for everybody to handle.

[somber piano music] - You know, I mean, it just seems incredibly young to be putting this together and doing that.

But he did so with a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm, and when he started recruiting, he wanted 80.

I can't imagine us trying to put 80 people across.

- Imagine having that weight on your shoulders, and it would, perhaps, reflect poorly on how you relate to people.

I mean, that amount of stress and planning and all the things that he was responsible for.

- He was a tough taskmaster.

And I have notes in here about him being tough, you know, having really knocking heads with a lot of y'all across the way.

This was, evidently, his version of being the leader.

And what he brought to it was his personality, his insecurities, his demons.

I think he was hard on himself too.

But we all had our days, for sure.

- You know, he didn't have a great relationship with his dad while he was living with him.

I think the whole idea of leading kids in a positive direction was very important to him, especially ones that maybe were like him in high school that felt lost with their parents and didn't feel like they were getting any kind of, you know, guidance or support.

- And so, at that point, I kind of stayed shy of Chuck.

I mean, I still respected what he was doing.

I mean, to take on that challenge.

But from a personal level, I didn't get close to him.

["Town Called Malice" by The Jam plays] - [Paul] After a day in Vegas, we were all ready to move on, but we were only able to get to Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam.

- We ended up getting stuck at Lake Mead because we had a lot of headwinds.

- I remember swimming in the lake, and it was like crystal clear.

Swim out 20 feet and see the bottom.

- It was like ice water.

Water was 52 degrees.

Oh my god.

- Lake Mead was beautiful.

- I remember touring the dam, and that was really spectacular.

- A friend of mine had given me his hat.

He said, "Take this across the country."

So, I had the hat on.

I leaned out over.

[electronic sound] And when I did, my hat just lifted, and it floated up, and it went out.

[video game sound effect] And I watched it the whole way down.

♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ - We camped that night at Lake Mead.

I remember trying to sleep on a picnic table, and the mosquitoes were miserable.

So I pull the sleeping bag up over me, and then, the heat was miserable.

♪ [banjo music] ♪ - The one ride in the desert that just killed everybody was from Lake Mead to Kingman, Arizona.

- That was a really tough day.

- Worst ride ever.

- It was horrible.

- It was stifling.

- Hard.

- That was a 100-mile day.

- It was dangerous.

- That one will be hard to forget.

- We somehow survived it.

I don't know.

I wasn't sure we were gonna do it.

- There's no way around this.

- We were all complaining about the mountains until we got to the plateau, and once it leveled out, we realized the only stopping that 30 mile per hour-plus wind was those mountains we were complaining about behind us.

- The heat was so much that it was, you know, you get that shimmering.

- [Paul] Rick was dehydrated early in the morning and was hallucinating and throwing up.

I mean, he was in bad shape.

- It got so hot that the cyclers went down into the culverts where rattlesnakes hang out.

- I was riding with Zack.

A highway patrolman pulls up, and he's like, "What are you guys doing out here?

"It's 140 degrees on this pavement right here."

And he was like, "I'd advise you not to ride today.

"It's too hot."

["The Heat of the Moment" by Asia plays] ♪ - There wasn't enough water available.

For me and for anybody.

I had maybe one water bottle on my bike, which is pretty typical.

I mean, you just couldn't drink enough water.

- [Randall] Then, there was a call for us to get in the van and ride, and my ego didn't appreciate that.

- I can remember some of the real bikers, I will say, being very upset when they got pulled off the road and put in the sag wagon.

And as not a real biker at the time, I was not too upset to get in the sag wagon and get out of the gale force sandblasted winds.

♪ And we would scream together songs unsung ♪ - We saw the van go by a few times with bikes on top and people.

And they were like, oh, wow.

They're shuttling people to a hotel already.

It was a personal thing for me and Zack, and there were a handful of us who were adamant about not riding in the van ever.

♪ - Yeah, we didn't wanna get on the wagon.

That was a cop out.

And for me, nu-uh.

No, no.

We're gonna do the whole thing.

Go big or go home.

- And we kept riding, and we actually started racing because we did not want to be told get in the van.

- I remember them telling us, "No, we have to stop "because it's for your safety.

"We have to stop."

So we were stuck at an abandoned house just sitting there 'cause the van could only take so many of us at a time.

- [Craig Wolfe] Outside, there were rocks, just on trays, and it says "Rocks $1 per pound".

I was like, yeah, this is what the desert does to people.

Sun was beating down.

- [John Ballas] And after about three or four hours, they were picking rocks off of this thing that says that, and we're just throwing them at signs, just being knuckleheads.

- Now looking back on it, I mean, it was a life-threatening situation, you know?

You could die from heat like that, right?

- I think Chuck and Judy made the right decision to pull us off the road and carry us the rest of the way into Kingman.

- So Chuck pulls up and he's like, "Guys, the highway patrol told us we can't be riding, "and you guys gotta stay here at Grasshopper Junction."

And Grasshopper Junction was this little, closed gas station.

So Zack and I were going crazy.

If it was a week or two later, we would have mutinied and just ridden.

And we were pretty mad, and we were like, "We should be riding.

Do you wanna ride?

"Let's ride.

No, we can't ride.

"We should ride.

You feel good?

"I feel good."

We were having this debate the whole time.

We didn't ride.

We got to Kingman in the van.

It was the only 10 miles of the trip that I didn't ride.

[pencil scribbling] As we looked out at the road ahead, we could see a lot more desert, and we were nervous about that.

We took a day, re-hydrated, and worked on our bikes.

Mike Simone's journal remembered, "That we have drawn together as an emotional group.

"There are still some walls between people "and groups of people, but those too will disappear."

["I Melt with You" by Modern English plays] ♪ The altitude and the weather changed, and we had a few great days and nights riding up to the Grand Canyon.

♪ Moving forwards using ♪ - [Paul] And this is where we came upon a desert marvel, a huge pile of cactus seeds blown into a cut along the roadway.

♪ I saw the world crashing all around your face ♪ - [Paul] It was really pretty last night.

At the beginning, we were singing and having a good time.

All the stars were out, and I've never seen stars like last night.

The last 20 miles were really fun.

Me, Gina, Mike, and Zack, and Peter started sprinting, and we got here in about an hour and a half.

- The transition, just from the desert and when we got to the Grand Canyon and I got to see a tree, I thought that was just the most amazing thing in the world.

Not that there was anything particularly wonderful about this tree, it was just taller than, you know, a tumbleweed or a cactus.

- [Paul] The desert had turned from a hell on earth to a spectacle that amazed and humbled us all.

♪ Imaginary grace ♪ - I'd never been to the Grand Canyon.

I just remember it being beautiful and riding around the perimeter of the canyon, I think, for half the day.

- [Scott] I remember camping at the Grand Canyon.

We stayed an extra day.

- [Zack] I recall it being much more massive than anything I ever could imagine from the pictures.

That was one of the highlights.

♪ ♪ You've seen the difference ♪ ♪ And it's getting better all the time ♪ - [Randall] "The view from the ledge "on which I am sitting is spectacular.

"The land, seemingly untouched by human hands, "is rugged, jagged, yet in its own dimension, "a beauty to behold.

"There's no possible way for me to describe the canyon "with the written or spoken word.

"It is only fully appreciated by the first full look "while sitting on the rim, its beauty unmatched.

Mike Uhrich.

- [Paul] And Michael Simone recorded, "Last night, before dinner, John Patterson "said the most beautiful blessing.

"It was a wonderful idea."

♪ I'll stop the world and melt with you ♪ [eagle screeching] ["Learning from the Wheel" by Chief Seattle & Paul Bonesteel plays] - When we got to the Grand Canyon and we all sat upon that Grand Canyon sign, we were climbing it together, I remember people seeing us and they were like, "Uh-huh, yeah, a bunch of kids on bicycles.

"Oh, where are you riding to?"

"North Carolina."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha.

"Where'd you come from?"

"Long Beach, California."

"What?"

You know, and that's when we started getting that reaction.

I think it became real to all of us, you know, right around that time.

♪ - There were a lot of special rides.

One that stands out is riding out of the Grand Canyon in the evening.

♪ Sunset on the Painted Desert ♪ - [Peter] It was a nice loss of elevation.

So we were going downhill, and it was just a beautiful, beautiful ride.

The desert was amazing.

♪ Somehow out of place ♪ - [Peter] Getting an appreciation for the size and diversity of the United States.

Some of the Navajo country was just wide open with the mountains all around you.

♪ Desert sky ♪ ["Learning from the Wheel" continues] ♪ - I remember hearing the coyotes, and a group of us pulled off on the side and just listened to these coyotes howling back and forth to one another.

And I'd never heard anything like that.

♪ On an asphalt desert trail ♪ - "Last night was another really great ride.

"It was really pretty across the desert.

"Now I know why they call this the Painted Desert.

"It's a lot like the Mojave, but it's green all over."

- [Randall] I very clearly remember the lunar eclipse.

First of all, we're seeing stars the way that people don't see stars, not only because you're in the desert, but second because all the moon's been blocked out.

- We rode singing the national anthem last night.

As the sun was setting, it was incredible.

It was the Fourth of July.

We crossed into the Navajo Nation.

It was a bit of a revelation for me.

I was like, wait a minute.

We're actually not in the United States right now.

This is their land.

♪ On the Navajo Nation ♪ - There were no fireworks.

Independence Day didn't mean the same thing there.

I knew, at that moment, that the United States wasn't quite the history lesson that I had been taught.

♪ And the clear blue ♪ - Why didn't I know that?

Why didn't I really know that?

♪ Sky ♪ - [Paul] Where the hell is Kayenta?

- Kayenta?

- [Paul] You don't remember that?

- I do.

Was it a bumper sticker or something?

- [Paul] It was a shirt.

- A shirt.

- [Rider] How far we got left?

- I remember.

Where the hell is Kayenta?

We went there, didn't we?

Oh my god.

You're right.

- [Paul] And you had a shirt that you wore the rest of the trip.

- I don't know where that shirt went.

That's weird.

Thanks, Paul.

[laughs] ["Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by The Police plays] ♪ ♪ Though I've tried before to tell her ♪ ♪ Of the feelings I have for her in my heart ♪ - [Paul] And Four Corners, you also did what?

- Oh yeah, I did a panorama of everybody.

I took a still picture, moving over, trying to make them lap up all the way around, 360.

I never had it quite all put together, but I'm gonna try to do it this year.

♪ Every little thing she does is magic ♪ - [Paul] The negatives from Rick's panoramic experiment had sat unprinted for years.

So, with Darlene visiting from nearby Washington DC, the two of them set out to finally put it all together.

- There's Chuck.

I didn't like Chuck.

He looks too much like he was in the military to me.

- I know.

- That's Chris Hernan.

Yeah, we see him.

He's a regular.

He's a really nice guy, I would say.

All right.

Let's start putting these bad boys out.

We're gonna do it facing us, though.

- Okay.

- Line 'em up.

Everybody and their ride, except me.

This is a puzzle, for sure.

Here.

- Yup.

- Put Bobby there.

- [Darlene] See, Randy goes there.

- There's multiple Randys.

- Expensive shirt.

- Oh yeah, the shirt.

- Oh.

- That's, yeah, I've got him here somewhere.

There he is.

- There he is.

Right here.

- Eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16.

Tricky idea, that.

This is a 360-degree panorama from Four Corners.

Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.

360.

- Ta-da.

- Ta-da.

Thanks, Darlene.

- Way to go, Rick.

We did it.

- We did it, yay.

- Here's our group.

- Yeah.

- Coast to coast, all 35.

- Coast to coast.

Yeah.

♪ Long before I reach the phone ♪ ♪ Long before my tongue has tripped me ♪ ♪ Must I always be alone ♪ - [Paul] We clasped hands and stood in a circle, covering four states at the same time, having only the smallest sense of what the experience was creating in us.

- [Peter] Coming out of that with some foundational security was pretty profound.

That 16-year-old trying to make sense of the world, understanding and belief in who I was and what I could do, and it's one of those experiences and accomplishments that you can never take from you.

["Save It for Later" by The English Beat plays] ♪ - Driving out of Arizona into Colorado was almost like flipping the switch.

You went from desert to green.

I mean, it seemed like instantly.

♪ - I was biking with John, and coming down this hill and barely nicked the back of his pack and went flipping over.

A truck pulled up right behind, and so other truckers coming this way thought the truck hit me.

A trucker told Judy that, you know, a biker's been hit.

Chuck gets the message.

He's four miles behind me, and I guess he biked, he said the fastest two miles he's ever biked, got to the sag wagon, took his entire bike with all of the packs, threw it on top of the van, hopped in the sag wagon, and came down to me.

The ambulance, and the fire, and the police came.

And they hauled me off.

Chuck was fine once he saw me, that I wasn't hit by a car.

So off I went and had a big abrasion on my side, and thank goodness the next day was a rest day in Durango.

[acoustic guitar music] - So, Durango?

Are we talking about Durango now?

- Durango was wonderful to me.

- Durango really made an impression on me.

- I pictured it as the western movies, like the shootout at the O.K.

Corral.

Some of those towns.

They reminded me of the westerns you would see.

- The owners of the hotel were really cool, and they ended up getting us tickets to go to the Bar D Ranch.

It was just a big western.

You had foods on trays, on the metal trays, and you know, and they're just slopping it on your tray, and we're eating.

And one of the things I remember of that was one of the guys serving, little guy, but had this huge baritone voice, and he had these big pitchers of coffee, and he's just yelling, "Coffee!"

And we're all like, who is this mountain.

And you turn around and the guy's five foot six.

- Being younger, I remember some of the older folks would split off.

I seem to remember that started happening more as we got into those Colorado-type towns.

And I don't know if it was to go have your first beer.

- There was, how much of this is gonna be...

I have children, you know, now.

I can't let... - I loved Durango.

It was my favorite town on the whole trip.

- [Paul] We were beginning to get a little rebellious.

- So, this part can't be, yeah.

- Oh come on, John Ballas was larger than life, John Ballas.

- Hey, man, I turned 18 years old.

So I'm like, I'm going to buy beer, because beer was legal.

It was 3.2% alcohol beer, 'cause they had three-two and five-oh.

But you can get three-two at 18 years old.

- And I loved hanging out with him.

I mean, he was this, you know, older, incredible man.

And he always had his shirt off, and his big muscles, you know?

- So I get that Coors, and the guy doesn't card me.

I was like, what a letdown.

This sucks.

And I'm like, what the hell, I'll get two six-packs.

So I got a couple of six-packs.

Hey, guys, I got a bunch of brews here.

Let's all have some beer.

- We hid in our hotel room.

We had a little party, drinking some Coors beer.

Tasted so good.

- And which of those leaders were doing that with us?

Yeah, don't put that in there.

- I'd like to know what it's all about, then I might could tell whether it's really worth it.

- [Chuck] Well, they're going to coast to coast.

Each of these kids have raised over $5,000 for multiple sclerosis.

- Oh, yeah, well that's a wonderful idea because it shows that they got a lot of energy and courage to get out there and ride, ride for it.

- One of the things that I think is really powerful about being on a bike is how approachable you are to people.

People want to talk to you.

They want to ask you questions about where are you going, what are you doing.

- When we come into cities, you know, we all had to wear our shirts.

You know, a bunch of teenagers trying to do something good and to help others.

- I always wanted to help people that couldn't help themselves.

I don't know how anybody could go out and speak to all the people that we spoke with and not care.

There was caring in every one of us.

- We were spokesmen, and so in every little town that we came to, the newspapers would show up.

- It was fun to go to a town and get attention.

We were riding for the multiple sclerosis society and we were trying to get the word out.

- I had called ahead for some of the MS chapters along the way that wanted to feed us or greet us.

- [Randall] For instance, in Durango, meeting up with the MS society group or whatever that was there, it was eye-opening to see how much an effect our fundraising and what we were doing was for them.

- And it was just wonderful to be recognized at that point.

- I had no real understanding about really what it meant until we met that group in Durango.

And that resonated.

- Today, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is very different than it was in 1982.

Thanks to decades of funding and research, great progress has been made in early diagnosis and treatments.

People with multiple sclerosis can live very different lives today.

In Durango, something strange happened, and we don't fully understand.

He just went crazy.

- I remember the day we left, we had our morning gathering as we always did, and- - Chuck called a meeting of all of us out in the parking lot.

And he had a red track suit in his hands, and he was waving it around, and he was obviously really upset, ranting and raving about who this tracksuit belonged to.

- He just seemed to be having a little tissy fit or something, to us.

I was just like, okay, enough.

So we need to straighten up.

We get it.

Thank you, Chuck.

- You know it's bad when the teenagers were all like, holy crap, he's a little baby.

- So we stood there and took it from him, and nobody admitted having lost a red tracksuit.

I certainly knew where mine was.

And did I mention that I didn't have room for that in my belongings?

And so, what I did with mine was, I didn't tell anybody I was gonna do this because I didn't wanna get in trouble, obviously, but I just rolled it into my sleeping bag and put it on the U-Haul.

I immediately went into the U-Haul to make sure that my tracksuit was still tucked into my sleeping bag, and of course it wasn't.

So I immediately figured out that he was talking about me the whole time, which was very embarrassing.

So that's my memory of Durango.

[video game music] - [Bobby] So that just set the tone for the day, you know?

Nobody was happy to be riding that day.

Let's just get out of Durango and get to the next place.

["Don't Talk to Strangers" by Rick Springfield plays] - We were mad at him.

It was Amy and Shannon, again.

I think we were supposed to be there by a certain time.

You're supposed to always stay in front of the sag wagon.

We didn't.

- Three of the girls went AWOL one morning when we were in Durango.

No one knew where they were.

That might not have helped the situation.

- There was illegal drinking that happened.

I don't know how we did that.

♪ You're seeing some slick continental dude ♪ - And then, we realized we were way behind, like three hours behind.

So we flagged down some boys and put our bikes in the back of their truck so they could drive us, I think, 20 miles, for us to get caught up.

And then we said, "Stop here."

And we took out our bikes.

And then, Chuck went ballistic on us again.

- He thought we were at the mall.

We might've gone by the mall for a second, but basically, we hitchhiked out.

- I think I did feel bad then.

I felt bad that time.

- He should've scolded us every day, probably.

To keep herding kittens all the way across the United States had to have been just insane.

- I mean, I can't imagine what that was like for him, to take all these teenagers, and we were mischievous.

- [Paul] But on this day, Chuck seemed to hit a new wall, one that he didn't really know how to handle, and it was puzzling.

- He just let us have it, and that's when he was threatening about going back.

I mean cussing.

"Just get me a #*#*#*#*#*#*#* airline ticket, "and I'm tired of all these #*#*#*#*#*#*#* little kids."

This and that.

"This is #*#*#*#* #*#*#*#*."

And so on.

And just yelling.

- He was flying home that night.

Trip was over.

It was over.

He had ended it all.

- And I remember us looking at each other almost laughing because it was comical.

'Cause you're like, is he being serious.

- And he had a temper.

And it also could've been a bluff.

- So we started plan B immediately.

Well, if this is happening, I'm not going home.

You know?

I'm riding home.

Are you game?

We started strategizing about how to still ride home.

- Dude, get outta here.

You're the biggest buzzkill of the trip right now.

We're having a great time.

We're having fun.

We're having the experience of our lives.

- We were worried Chuck was actually gonna follow through with that.

He didn't, but it was a sign of how the stress was getting to him.

It's clear to me now that he was struggling with this out on the ride.

What I know now is that Chuck's childhood was rough.

He would find ways to be away from home and moved out of the house when he was in high school.

He found mentors in coaches and successful businessmen, but he was still a composite of them and his father.

- I think Chuck's personality is a narcissist, and my mother was a narcissist.

So nothing I did was enough.

I think you become who you are in life because you emulate somebody or in spite of somebody.

[soft music] - [Cameraman] Profile, Craig Chiofalo.

- [Woman] Okay, Craig.

What have you learned so far on this trip?

- Don't get sunburned.

[all laughing] ♪ Shot ♪ ["Big Country" by Big Country plays] - I never went through this kind of experience before with anyone.

I mean, we had a herculean task for kids our age.

We had our days.

Everybody had those days.

I don't care, you know, how good of a relationship you had with anybody else on the trip.

Summer is miserable.

- You know, sadly, there was quite a few of the group that I never really bonded well with just because, you know, we had our packs.

So we kind of hung with each other.

That's how we socialized, was the ride.

- There were some cliques of people kinda hanging out together.

There was the younger group that I fell into, and then this older group.

Some were more serious bikers, and then some were more ready to have fun before their college years.

So you had kind of a dichotomy of, you know, almost kids, and then almost adults.

- I remember Darlene really trying to get us all together and bond, which I thought was great of her to do that.

- [Zack] But whatever reason, Mike and I, we kind of rubbed each other raw.

He wanted to beat me with his bike pump one time.

- He and Mike, at that point, butted heads pretty hard.

Zack was pretty arrogant, and Mike didn't put up with anybody's [censored].

And Mike got in his face.

- Mike pulled his bike pump off his bike.

That was pretty intense.

- I don't think he ever hit anybody.

I don't know that I'd blame him if he did.

- I had a crush on Darlene.

- There were egos and attitudes that clashed, personalities that did not blend well.

- She was always trying to do some laundry, and so she would ask if I had dirty laundry to throw in, which I would do.

- There were some moments.

There were some moments.

- I mean, she was the most beautiful thing I had seen.

[John Patterson laughing] Plus, she was an elite athlete.

How could you not be attracted to her?

- [Paul] But the crush didn't play out.

- The crush did not play out, nor should it have.

[John laughing] I had a crush on Shannon too, but you know, she was, what, 13 years old?

That was not appropriate either.

[Paul laughing] Now, there is a picture of me giving- - Val.

- Val a massage, a leg massage, which I have no memory of at all.

- [Paul] That picture does look a little- - It does.

Yeah.

But believe me, there was nothing going on.

- "Well, Colorado is beautiful.

"We're at the base of some really big mountains "in Wolf Creek Pass.

"I was just hit by one of those feelings in life "that says, 'Look how old you are "'and look at all you're doing'.

"It's kind of an empty feeling.

"It's one of those moments in life "when you're forced into seeing what it's all about "and how great it really is."

Were you feeling stronger then, and had you figured out this biking thing?

- Well, we thought we did, but we still hadn't experienced mountains until Colorado.

Real mountains.

10,500-foot elevation mountains.

[bright music] - First of all, I remember the buildup to it.

We got more buildup to Wolf Creek Pass than anything.

- We're gonna go over Wolf Creek Pass.

We're gonna go over the Continental Divide.

You know, it's 10,850 feet.

- People were intimidated.

People weren't sure.

"Can we ride the sag wagon," you know?

- We literally rode all day long uphill.

- That was a challenge.

I absolutely could not ride up the mountain.

I pushed my bicycle up.

- My goal for Wolf Creek Pass was not to get off and walk, and I did not.

- I'm looking at all the riders and they're riding in the lowest gears, and they're just spinning for all their worth, and I'm walking along with 'em.

Keeping up.

- I mean, cars were driving up, and here we are riding a bicycle, you know?

- The grade was ridiculous.

It was just a steep grade.

And if you stopped pedaling, literally, you would roll back and fall off the mountain.

- And I remember a car pulling up next to me with a bunch of teenagers kind of goofy and rolling down their window and going, "You're never gonna make it."

And it just made me so much more determined.

"Oh yes I will."

- You're standing up on your pedals.

I mean, you're just grinding, trying to, you know, and then you take a break and then grind some more and take a break.

- Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal.

I mean, I just, uphill, uphill, uphill, uphill.

You know, just like, is it ever going to stop.

- I got bronchitis.

I struggled.

Altitude, not being well with the lungs and everything else.

And I made it maybe about 80% up.

- He was determined.

He's like, "I am gonna make this ride, and I don't care."

And you could hear Randy's dry-hacking bronchial cough there.

I wanted to make sure and ride with him, you know?

So I did ride with him, you know, most of the way up there 'cause I wanted to, you know, encourage him.

- Sag wagon's behind saying, you know, everybody's already definitely hanging out up there, but they're all starting to go down.

You need to up this.

And I was like, I couldn't do it.

You know, that's disappointing.

But do I look back on it and go, oh that was the worst day?

No.

I was riding in the mountains of Colorado.

That's awesome.

[Randall laughing] [acoustic guitar music] [acoustic guitar music continues] - We're toiling away going up this mountain pass, and I remember pulling over and wandering off into the woods to take pictures.

Probably not what I was supposed to be doing.

- How long and wonderful going up those mountains were.

How beautiful it was.

- I remember seeing all these little strings of waterfalls along the way, and then everybody was stopping and filling their water bottles.

So of course, I had to follow suit.

- I believe they called it beaver fever, I think 'cause of the dams up there.

- Next thing you know, we're all sick.

[Bobby laughing] - Which was no fun.

- Then, we realized, well, that cold water was coming from somewhere, and it was from the melting snow that was on top of the mountain.

- [John Ballas] It went from 80-something degrees to about 40 degrees, and we were getting sleet, and we're sitting there.

We're making snowballs.

- We had a snowball fight in June.

I'm like, when does that ever happen.

Not in North Carolina.

[Bobby laughing] Not in Eastern North Carolina anyway.

- I think I slept.

I know I did.

I crawled up on a rock and slept.

You learned to sleep anywhere, and I still am that way.

- We'd have our rain gear on and we're all cold, and we're all like, holy cow.

But we had to take a group picture.

- Just waiting for everybody to show up, and we go through three or four seasons of weather up there.

It rained.

It sleeted.

It snowed.

And then, it got really hot.

And then, it would just repeat itself.

[cheery music] - You're sitting up there like, we made it, we made it.

And then, all of a sudden, you're like, okay.

Let's roll.

["Whip It" by Devo plays] And then, you start going downhill.

- It was a well-rewarded downhill for sure.

- So, Judy put me in the van.

Got to the top of Wolf Creek Pass.

And she says, "All right, well, you can get out and ride down."

And I said to her that, this is a 14-year-old kid, right?

I said, "You know, I don't deserve to go down.

"I didn't make it all the way up."

And she's like, "You can't be serious."

I said, "I'm serious."

And she goes, "You're not gonna ride down?"

I said, "Yeah, no.

"Not gonna do it."

- We all let loose.

I was a little worried 'cause some of you guys were just really letting loose and going very fast.

- We were just zooming around 18-wheelers 'cause they have those hairpin turns.

We were hauling around 'em.

- Oh, that was fun.

[Bobby laughing] - [Paul] What do you remember from your perspective?

- 18-wheelers passing y'all [chuckling] with an inch to spare.

♪ Whip it good!

♪ - I remember those skinny tires, flying down that hill faster than I've ever gone in my life.

- Just as much as I didn't want to get off and walk going up Wolf Creek Pass, I didn't wanna use my brakes going down.

- [Bobby] I have no idea how fast we were going, but fast enough that the bikes were actually rattling going down the hill.

- That was like the pinnacle of the trip in terms of this is what I've been told to be excited about.

And you know those are always gonna disappoint you.

It did not.

["More Than This" by Roxy Music plays] - [Paul] So would you let your kids do what we did?

What's your philosophy on that?

- It's scary as hell, you know, having kids myself, but every kid in their teenage years should get out of the house and do something big.

♪ There's gotta be some risk involved.

- Raising my children helped me realize the importance of doing hard things.

Sometimes, financially, you can do that.

As a parent, you can make it easier.

You can, you know, get someone else to mow the lawn or something.

But I feel like I wanted my children to do some hard things so they'd know who they are.

- I think it's one of those things where you just grab hold of life and when you have an opportunity like that and you can take advantage of an opportunity like that, it can be life-changing.

We've always encouraged that with our kids.

- I have a 14-year-old son.

I talked to him.

"What do you wanna do?"

He's like, "I wanna go do this."

"Well, go do it."

"I don't know if I can."

"Go do it.

"If you can't, you can't.

Just go."

- Step outside of the box.

Don't be afraid.

If you are afraid, okay.

Go forth with fear.

Don't be an idiot.

But a little bit of risk is the spice of life, and, man, we were doing it, and we did it.

♪ It was fun for a while ♪ - [Paul] When do you think about the trip?

When does it come up for you?

Or through the years, when has it come up?

- It really comes up almost every day.

I just see something and it triggers a memory, like the overpasses.

- [Paul] Why do you think that is?

- I guess 'cause it was such an impact in my life, and I didn't think at that time as a 16, 17-year-old that I was learning any lessons in my life.

But looking back, I know that I did.

I did.

[tractor engine revving] [tractor engine revving continues] [wind thrumming] - [Paul] There it is.

- This is the beast.

In all her glory.

[soft music] Grew up coming here to this campground.

My grandfather and my dad built it, and this was property owned by my great-grandparents.

They farmed here, had a store and a post office right here on this property.

It's a lot of work, but it's just a good place to stop and get your breath.

It's just very peaceful to me.

Come here, kitty.

There was a connection.

On a trip like that, you become one with the bike, and you learn the feel of it.

You learn how far you can push it.

How far to lean in a curve.

I don't know.

You just learn its limits and your limits with it, and at 17, I think I felt pretty limitless.

[soft music] On the trip, I don't ever remember thinking [gasping] we have this far to go.

It was like, okay, today, this is what we have to do.

So it was always small, little chunks.

It was one push of the pedal, or one hill at a time, or one mountain at a time.

And I think that has helped me get through a lot of, you know, struggles.

[soft music] I had four children right after college, and then, went through a divorce.

And there I was with four kids, ages seven to zero.

And I can do this.

I can do anything just a little bit at a time.

[soft acoustic guitar music] [soft acoustic guitar music continues] Suddenly, you look back and you think, wow, I've come a long way.

[acoustic guitar music] [gears clicking] - [Paul] Back in 1982, out on the ride, I quit thinking about those 20 miles outside Kingman.

I had to move on, and I buried it away for decades, or at least I thought so.

But then, I realized the ride was not really finished for me, or I wanted to, as best as I could, go back to being that kid again.

So here I am, to get it done on a bike from 1982, and it's amazing how it feels.

The same.

Yeah, I'm thinking about finishing that ride to Kingman.

[Zack laughing] - I mean, what are you gonna do, go rent a bike from Grasshopper Junction?

["Give a Little Bit" by Supertramp plays] ♪ All right ♪ ♪ Here we go again ♪ ♪ ♪ Na-Na, whoa, no, da-na, hey, hey, yeah ♪ - And it never really bugged me that much that I hadn't ridden it until I started thinking about it this year, you know?

Making the film.

And then, it started to bug me.

And then, I started thinking, let's go back to the desert.

♪ Let's see if you can do that.

♪ There's so much that we need to share ♪ - [Paul] I'm a little nervous, because I don't know if I'm gonna hold up.

I don't know if the bike's gonna hold up or how hot it's gonna be.

♪ I'll give a little bit ♪ - This road kicked our ass 40 years ago.

♪ I should be able to handle 20 miles in the desert.

I sure hope so.

♪ Oh, give a little bit of your time to me ♪ - [Paul] I'm gonna be wearing a helmet that John Ballas wore.

I'm gonna be wearing a shirt that Tracy rode with.

♪ What a long ride ♪ ♪ Come a long way ♪ ♪ Oh, sing it, tonight ♪ ♪ Ooh, yeah ♪ [bike gears clicking] - We're at Grasshopper Junction.

And it is just as desolate as it ever was.

[engine revving] ["Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne plays] ♪ ♪ It takes courage, because it's a bit sketchy.

[Paul laughing] It's dangerous.

♪ You felt that wind push, and it was a force.

If Zack and I had done that that day, I'm not sure we woulda made it.

♪ I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on ♪ - The first 10 miles of this 20, 22 miles that I just rode was downhill with the wind behind me and it was awesome.

Moving fast, it was beautiful.

The second 10 miles was two different grades coming up over a pass.

That woulda been a lot to pull off that day.

♪ Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive ♪ - This would've hurt Zack and I, after what we'd been through that day.

We might've had some problems on this hill.

♪ Running on ♪ ♪ Running on empty ♪ ♪ Running on ♪ ♪ Running blind ♪ ♪ Running into the sun ♪ - Topping it off here.

♪ I just passed.

♪ That felt amazing.

To be out in the desert again, to just finish this thing.

I mean, I felt complete in my journey, don't get me wrong, but there was a little missing segment, and this was it.

That is why this is special to me.

♪ If it takes all night ♪ ♪ That'll be all right ♪ ♪ If I can get you to smile before I leave ♪ ♪ Looking out at the road ♪ - That was cool.

It was reaffirming a little bit.

I don't ride that much, but when I get on my bike, it feels good.

♪ Look around for the friends that I used to turn to ♪ - So, I got more miles in me.

I got more miles in me.

♪ Looking into their eyes, I see them running too ♪ ♪ Running on ♪ ♪ Running on empty ♪ ♪ Running on ♪ ♪ Running blind ♪ ♪ Running on ♪ ♪ Running into the sun ♪ - [Paul] As we took a rest in Lamar, Colorado, we had clearly exited the Rocky Mountains.

The land was very flat.

Many people were sick from the water at the waterfall, and we took a day to recoup.

But another ailment was floating in the air, and it was not from the stockyards we began passing.

It was homesickness, and it hit hard out on the Great Plains.

["Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen plays] ♪ ♪ In the day we sweat it out on the streets ♪ ♪ Of a runaway American dream ♪ ♪ At night we ride through the mansions of glory ♪ ♪ In suicide machines ♪ ♪ Sprung from cages on Highway 9 ♪ ♪ Chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected ♪ ♪ And stepping out over the line ♪ ♪ Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back ♪ ♪ It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap ♪ ♪ We gotta get out while we're young ♪ ♪ 'Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run ♪ ♪ ♪ Yes, girl, we were ♪ ♪ ♪ Wendy, let me in, I wanna be your friend ♪ ♪ I wanna guard your dreams and visions ♪ ♪ Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims ♪ - [Male Announcer] "Shadow of a Wheel" is made possible in part by Explore Asheville.

- [Female Announcer] Here in Asheville, we're a mix of genres, a hybrid of styles, settling for nothing, hungry for everything.

All drawn together to stand out.

You are welcome.

Always Asheville.

- [Male Announcer] Additional support is made possible by The Charles Engelhard Foundation and by these contributors: