Rough road to ride

The summer sun knows nothing of John McCormack's ride. It does not care that he must wear a 15-pound jacket of armor to protect him against falls. It simply follows him as he trudges ever westward, across hundreds of miles of Arkansas forests and on to the red dirt trails in Oklahoma.

In spite of the merciless sun, there's a reason for the timing. McCormack selected July for his cross-country motorcycle ride because some of the mountain passes in Colorado are almost always snowed in, except for now, in peak sunshine. But there's the element of perseverance, too. McCormack, who owns a plumbing company in North Little Rock, wanted this to be tough.

"We chose the hardest and hottest month," he said between bites of a hamburger and a slice of butter-pecan pie from the Oark Cafe in Oark, a popular stop for riders passing through rural Johnson County.

A difficult journey is the daily experience of McCormack's 9-year-old daughter, Haven. A congenital heart defect required several surgeries just after her birth. During one of those surgeries, Haven's heart stopped beating. She was resuscitated after nearly an hour, but the ordeal left her with brain damage which manifested as cerebral palsy. McCormack's challenge of riding a motorcycle across the United States pales in comparison to Haven's daily challenges, he said. It took her a year to learn how to drink from a straw, for instance.

But she's learning and growing and gaining. And so that became the final element of McCormack's trip. The journey is a fundraising and awareness campaign for Easter Seals, and particularly Easter Seals Arkansas in Little Rock, where Haven gets weekly therapy sessions.

When he gets tired, which happens often on the daylong rides, he remembers why he rides.

"I'm challenged by folks in motorized wheelchairs," he said. "We can get off the motorcycles and go home. And that's not an option for them."

So he rides, now past the wooded, difficult trails of Northwest Arkansas, the flat plains of Oklahoma and somewhere east of the Grand Canyon, where he's expected to meet Haven, his wife Deana McCormack and another daughter, Eden.

A Bucket List Ride

Deana McCormack has been listening to her husband talk about this trip for a long time. McCormack grew up riding motorcycles. He owned a bike off and on for years. But more recently, he started joining a group of adventure riders in Central Arkansas for trips. He also watched the documentary series "Long Way Round," which chronicles the nearly 19,000 mile motorcycle trip actor Ewan McGregor and a friend took through Europe, Asia and North America.

McCormack started planning his own ride last fall. Central to the idea is the Trans America Trail, a 5,000-mile westbound-only path that crosses the United States with only minimal use of paved roads. In Arkansas, the TAT enters near West Helena and moves west through the central parts of the state, eventually exiting west of Lincoln. This part of the country is familiar territory for him. McCormack graduated from Fort Smith Southside High School, and he also lived in Tulsa, Okla., for a time.

Many other parts of the trail are part of the great unknown. The plans to conquer the trail are meticulous; a spreadsheet documents McCormack's intended stopping point each night. The trip is expected to take the whole of July, starting in New York City -- actually inside the city -- and ending July 30 near Los Angeles. McCormack blocked out a month in part because he offers a month sabbatical to employees who hit the five-year mark at Sanders Plumbing. No one had taken him up on the offer for fear of reprisal, he said. He wanted to let them know he was serious.

"I wanted to lead by example," he said.

When McCormack got serious about this particular project, he also raised money for both the ride and to pay the film crew members following him across the country. Their task will be to turn their video and footage collected from McCormack's helmet-mounted camera into a documentary highlighting the importance of Easter Seals and the layout of the trail. Raising money in advance meant that any additional money raised during the course of the ride will go directly to Easter Seals Arkansas. As of press time, more than $57,000 had been collected for the cause.

Each day of the trip is plotted beyond just the miles involved. McCormack's day starts with breakfast and the filming of a video tribute to a beneficiary of Easter Seals services. He rides for a different Easter Seals client each day. He's also visited several Easter Seals locations in other states, including a stop at a facility in rural Tennessee. Footage obtained there will be part of the film project, too. He rides approximately 100 miles each day, and considering the twisting dirt roads, it means a full day of riding. He calls home each night cell phone service allows and speaks to Haven, Deana and Eden. If all goes according to plan, he'll reach a western terminus of the trail in Los Angeles on July 30. His family will be there to greet him.

Miles of Plans

But already, the best laid plans haven't always produced their intended results. McCormack does not know exactly when it happened, but he reached back to put his cell phone away in a rain storm to discover the bag where he stored it is was gone. Problematically, that's also the bag where he stored his wallet. Backtracking on the trail did not produce the wallet, so he traveled on, planning to renew his driver's license when he passed through Little Rock a few days later. Instead, the Bland County Sheriff's Department in Virginia mailed him the wallet after someone turned it in unharmed. It arrived just before McCormack planned to head to the driver control office and apply for a new license.

Other pitfalls await at every turn. His motorcycle, a Kawasaki KLR 650, takes a beating just like he does. And his riding partner Greg Hale's bike got it even worse. Repairs sidelined them in Tennessee for several hours.

McCormack's motorcycle has a range of about 250 miles on a full tank of gas. The TAT suggests where to stop each day for fuel, but many of the shops are so remote, and so small, they may not have consistent hours. McCormack and Hale, a firefighter in Cabot, waited for one station to open. McCormack also had a close call in Tennessee, when his reserve fuel light came on with several miles to go after a particularly grueling ride. McCormack came upon a paved road, turned onto it and hoped a fuel station was close. He guessed right.

The toughest stretch of the ride so far happened in Northwest Arkansas. The River Valley area was particularly affected by recent floodwaters, and many of the trails were impassable. When McCormack tried to leave the trail and find access on a paved road, he selected Arkansas 23, only to find it too had been closed. It took him five hours to ride from Oark to Lincoln. As the crow flies, that distance is only about 55 miles.

Had he bought a motorcycle just for the trail, he might have selected a different model. His Kawasaki is heavy and not as nimble as some. But it was what he had and what he knew. Even with his riding experience, the trip is unforgiving. Loose dirt often gives way underneath the tires. McCormack anticipated falling over about once ever 1,000 miles. He's currently well ahead of that pace. The worst of those times came after he stopped to take photos of a pair of foxes. The motorcycle tipped over, and in his exhausted state, McCormack, who did strength training in advance of the ride for just such occasions, was still unable to right the bike, which weighs about 500 pounds when burdened with gear. He stripped off all the saddlebags, lessening the load, then got the bike upright again.

He rode on.

The 'Goodness in America'

The theme of the ride, if there is one, is moving forward. McCormack, if he is to meet his time, must keep moving. The rest of his family, if they are to meet him at the Grand Canyon, must start moving west. They left Tuesday.

It helps Easter Seals Arkansas move forward, too. Chief executive officer Elaine Eubank said the money donated via McCormack and the Haven's Road project will go to the organization's general operating fund. Perhaps just as important, however, is the awareness that comes along with the ride. News of McCormack's journey has been spreading. Phone calls have been coming in to the Little Rock office. And when Easter Seals went to pick up doughnuts from a Little Rock store for a meeting with McCormack and his entourage, a mention of giving the food to a motorcycle crew elicited a mention of the Haven's Road project by name. McCormack's energy and tenacity show, and that's something people are responding to, Eubank said.

"It's just a really inspiring thing," she added.

"He's always been sincere with Easter Seals," says his mother, T.G. Carroll, who has lived in Bella Vista since 2002. "That's his true self. He's very caring."

McCormack said he's been taken aback by just how people are responding. A stranger they met in New York put them up for a night at his home and took them to an Italian dinner, too. Strangers in adjacent hotel rooms along the way have written out checks for the cause.

"I found goodness in America," he said.

McCormack surprised himself with how emotional he's become along the way. He thinks of Haven. He thinks of the strangers who have helped him. He prays a lot, as the long rides on empty roads provide him with what he calls "window time."

As he pulled away from the Oark Cafe, McCormack had a follower. A man from Kentucky, also riding the length of the Trans America Trail, had wrecked the day before. He wanted company while he healed. He trailed McCormack on the way west. The challenges of a cross-country ride are real. But so is the power of determination.

NAN Our Town on 07/23/2015