Oelwein man completes bike ride across the country

Oelwein native Tyler Weig has reached his goal of riding his bicycle coast to coast, raising money for the American Cancer Society. Weig started his journey last month (June 4th) in Oregon, and he arrived yesterday in Virginia Beach, as scheduled. Riding through Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia, he says there was a lot of rain, probably from the remnants of Hurricane Dennis. Though it wasn’t super hot he says on some days, “the heat index was probably 100 if not a ‘tich’ over.” Still he says they didn’t hit the worst of the heat the Midwest is having right now. Weig estimated he would be traveling about four-thousand miles and says despite several broken odometers it looks like the total’s right on. He pulled in to Virginia Beach about noon yesterday (Sunday) and says it was a “beautiful day” in the low 90s. Now in the D.C. area, he says he’ll spend the night and head back to Iowa tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. Weig had a lofty goal of collecting 100-thousand dollars for the American Cancer Society. So far he says they’ve collected about fifteen-thousand. “We had a nice fundraiser in the DC area that sure did help our fundraising.” Weig chose July 24th to finish his endeavor, which coincided with the final day of the Tour de France. Cancer survivor Lance Armstrong won the bike race in France again this year. In January when he started planning he’d thought it would be neat if Armstrong won his 7th in a row. While he admits not being “super surprised” that the American champ won, he’s still glad. And now both the Tour de France and Weig’s ride are over? He says after he pulls back into Iowa there’ll be a week or two of work closing up things for Cycling for a Cure.” Also, he plans to pedal along with RAGBRAI on its final day from West Union to Guttenberg. ‘That’ll be probably the last bit of riding I do for a while, as far as organized rides.” Anyone who wants to help can still make a donation to Weig’s efforts and the American Cancer Society. Log onto his website at www.cyclingforacure2005.com