Bucks
Dan Ryan, Gracie Sorbello Unicycle
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Last week, I wrote about Dan Ryan, the New Hope area, Duke University student. It was he who introduced me to an amazing young woman who completed a coast-to-coast ride for the cure to cancer on a…UNICYCLE!
Can you imagine toughing it out over the Rocky Mountains on a unicycle? Decades ago, I tried to ride our daughter’s unicycle and landed on my nose.
Friends, meet Gracie (not Grace) Sorbello who just graduated from Duke. She’s not certain whether she’s related to the Sorbello clan from the Quakertown area. I remember Josephine Sorbello as a beautiful, bright, athlete several years ahead of me at the Quakertown schools. My friend John Moyer reminded me that Josephine Sorbello went on to Hollywood stardom as actress Jan Shepard.
Anyway, Gracie Sorbello decided to ride coast to coast to raise money and awareness for the leukemia and lymphoma society. People contributed $7,500 for her efforts. “I thought of biking cross country but I like unicycles better,” Gracie began.
She rode 3,600 miles in a trip that took 66 riding days. Gracie had several “centuries” or 100-mile days…one in Kansas and one in Missouri. “I averaged 60 miles per day,” she told me.
Gracie began her odyssey in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina in June, but first detoured to Duke University to pick up her sheepskin. After graduation day, she started the trip through North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and finally Long Beach, Washington. Gracie actually rode interstate highways in Wyoming and Montana where cycling is legal.
“I met countless, fascinating people along the way,” Gracie continued, “dozens every day.” I asked her how much weight she’d lost? “I’m five pounds lighter,” she replied, “but the clothes I wore before the trip are a lot looser now.”
Gracie Sorbello must have been in super shape prior to the ride. The five foot ten inch woman played defense on an excellent Duke field hockey team. Today, Gracie is a horse wrangler in the Colorado Rockies. On horseback, she escorts tourists on trail rides over the mountains. She’ll return to Duke this fall to train for the national field hockey team.
“I was in so much pain at first,” she said. “It took me 150 miles to find the correct seat.” Her mother accompanied her for the first week of the trip…her father and boyfriend on the last week. Matt Burney is a lucky young man to have a friend like Gracie. He had ridden his bicycle cross-country to meet her for the last leg.
I asked Gracie for the most frightening and most fun moments along the way. “Being chased by big dogs was the scariest,” she laughed. “But on a 36 inch unicycle…and I’m tall…I looked seven feet tall. I yelled barbaric sounds, waved my arms, and made myself as large as possible.” And it worked.
“There were so many fun moments,” Gracie added. “I rode with another unicyclist over a mountain pass. But the most memorable day was seeing the snow capped peaks of the Rockies.
“The funniest time was on the last week of the trip,” she said. “I passed a kayak paddle by the side of the road. I stopped, picked it up and pretended to paddle as I rode along. But the paddle caught an air draft, which threw my balance off. I landed in the ditch.”…With a few brush burns but her humor in tact.
A unicycle has no gears and no breaks. There’s no coasting down hills. Riders have to use their legs to peddle slower while descending. “It’s hard on your joints going downhill,” Gracie explained, “Harder on your muscles going uphill.”
Dan Ryan told me that Gracie was one of six students featured in the Duke alumni magazine. And the title of the piece? “Duke Dare Devilry.” No surprise. Maybe one day, Dan and I will take her out on the Schuylkill for a row on the river.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith