Hi there and welcome to the 2026 edition of the Illini 4000 journals! I know there are many of you out there who have been waiting for this moment to read along once more to the stories from our cross-country ride and get to know who is on this new team. Who am “I” you ask? Cole Pawlak. Myself and Parker Bledsoe will be writing the check-ins on this page for the team and sharing perspectives that we and our wonderful, kind, and amazing teammates have throughout this journey.
Hello, Parker here! As Cole and I write the journals I just want to take a moment to acknowledge all of our fellow teammates, board members, beneficiaries, and many more who have helped us get to this point. It would be impossible to name everyone that has helped us get to this point or we would end up writing a whole book instead of a blog post. I cannot thank them enough and without all these people to support us, this whole trip would not be possible.
Today, everyone is arriving in New York City for the first stayover of the 2026 Bike America at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Manhattanville. First, however, let’s take just a brief look back at some of what has transpired to even make arrival at the starting line a possibility.
The team of 13 riders that you will all come to know was built throughout the academic year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It is a fun coincidence that the two of us writing this (Cole and Parker) ended up being in the same pairing for interviews back when we were all trying to work our way into this group for a good cause and good adventures. Enough about us though, the team has already had some major accomplishments to be proud of.
Our team so far has raised over $50,000, biked up to 90 miles at a time in training, and even biked for 24 hours straight on the quad to fundraise together as a team. Some of the most meaningful moments up to this point though have not been physical accomplishments, but rather firsthand stories that we have been told. Whether through Joe McDonough teaching us about the origins of the B+ foundation and how many families they help every single year, the Prairie Dragon Paddler’s firsthand experiences with cancer, learning about research from Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, and many others, all of these stories help us to understand the reason why we are doing this. It is amazing to see how important our fundraising is and how many lives we impact. As a team, we hope that throughout our ride we can continue to encourage others and bring more awareness to these causes.
For those of you who are new to the Illini 4000 journals or if you are returning and need a refresher here you go:
We will often be using terms and lingo that are relevant to cycling or that we may come up with during the ride to describe our riding and life situations that can be found in our I4K Dictionary. Everyday we will also take note of the day's mileage and elevation in a ride overview section to give you some kind of a sense for the physical effort being put in by the team that day. In the future posts, we will also have interviews with riders in a “cyclist corner” section of the journal. Last, but certainly not least, we will have a “tales of the trails” section detailing our many adventures. And who knows? Maybe the two of us will come up with some new fun content we don’t even predict at the moment as well!
A favorite of the team already is sharing quotes amongst each other. It is only fitting that we start this series with a message from Joe McDonough:
“You’re not asking for yourself, you are asking for someone who cannot ask for themselves”
This was a perspective that particularly resonated with us throughout our time fundraising and helped us to feel confident in any situation.
So what has the team been up to? Here are some photos of our training rides this spring:
