[media-credit name=’Courtesy of Eric Flanagan’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]

Two bicycles, 13 friends, and heading 1,000 miles south toward Mexico: the only things two University of Wisconsin students were thinking about this summer during one of the biggest adventures of their lives.

UW students and best friends Eric Flanagan and Michael Steward spent two weeks this summer cycling down the West Coast from Vancouver to San Francisco, in a 1,000-mile stretch of the Pan-American Cycle Test journey to raise ?200,000 — the equivalent of about $300,000 — for charity.

PACT is a 16,000-mile cycling fundraiser set up by five Irish college graduates who wanted to do something worthwhile after graduation, Flanagan said. It will take 10 months and follow the Pan-American Highway from the top of Alaska to the very bottom of South America in Argentina. The bicycle tour is raising money for the charity Aidlink to build homes and schools and support children in Kenya.

Flanagan, an Irish transfer student who has been at UW for two years, decided to join his friends from home six months ago in their long journey to raise money for children in Kenya and got Steward interested in the trip as well.

“We wanted to do something that wouldn’t be considered wasting the summer,” Steward said. “It definitely was for a great cause. … [It] really got us excited from the time we started talking about it. It was something new, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Through Aidlink, a Dublin-based charity that gives more than ?1,600,000 (around $2.4 million) a year to build up communities in Africa, PACT has chosen three separate projects for which to raise money.

Both Project KUAP Pandipieri, which runs an education program, and the Children Social Services Program in western Kenya work to teach and house young people and lost street children. The Girl Child Network helps street children in Kenya find shelter, reunites them with their families and provides education and health services.

The third project is to help the Missionary Community of St. Paul the Apostle and the Diocese of Lodwar, which work together to provide children with education, nutrition and health as well as improve agriculture and water quality and accessibility.

Helping the children of Kenya was an idea that came from one of the PACT cyclists, Flanagan said. One of the riders is from Kenya but went to boarding school in Ireland, and when the five men began planning the trip 18 months ago, they chose Kenya as the focus of their charity.

The Ups and Downs

The route PACT is taking follows the Pan-American Highway, a system of roads leading from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost point in South America. The highway stretches through various cities and countries and a range of climates and altitudes, making the trip not just rugged, but unpredictable.

The 13 cyclists woke up every day and started biking, stopped for lunch and decided, depending on how they were feeling, how much farther they would go that day before setting up camp. Flanagan said along with camping and being away from his cell phone and laptop, the unpredictability was a highlight for him.

“One of the coolest things on the trip was never knowing where you were going to be that night,” Flanagan said.

Steward and Flanagan knew what they were getting into before they left in July to meet the rest of the cyclists, but the physical challenge of riding 80 miles a day was the toughest part for Flanagan.

“Your body is just being banged up,” Flanagan said. “The first three days are really, really hard when you’re trying to get your body used to cycling 80 miles a day, and it’s not necessarily your legs, it’s your wrists, your neck, your ass.”

And some days of the trip were harder than others. It rained for almost 10 hours one day, they lost their support car for a while and a cyclist had to ride 20 miles with one pedal because of a broken bike.

“It just seemed like everyone was annoyed and just had a real tough day, but … you just keep pushing, and the next day ended up being the best day,” Steward said.

For Steward, the end result was well worth the minor obstacles, and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on the last day of their trip proved to be his most rewarding moment.

“Just going over that Golden Gate Bridge, it was a great feeling to … actually have accomplished something this summer as opposed to a lot of people that can say they worked or they just kind of sat around Madison,” he said. “It was great to have that feeling of accomplishment once we finally got into San Francisco.”

Back to the Bike

Two weeks and 1,000 miles were not enough for these guys, who are planning a repeat trip. They will be meeting up with the rest of the cyclists and joining them for another 1,000-mile stretch from Peru to Chile during the first two weeks of January.

“We had such a good time and it’s unbelievable, we thought two weeks and a thousand miles would have been enough for non-cyclists, and it wasn’t,” Flanagan said. “I didn’t feel fulfilled with the thousand miles, and we wanted to do it again.”

Deciding to do another leg of the trip was a no-brainer for Steward, too.

“If it weren’t for school, we’d both still be riding right now,” he said.

As unpredictable as their last trip was, the two expect their upcoming trip will be even more exciting. Much of the trip through South America will be in completely rural areas.

One thing both Flanagan and Steward are excited for is getting back to the rest of the group. Flanagan knew all of the cyclists in the group because they are his friends from home, but Steward was only acquainted with most of the guys through Flanagan.

Having Flanagan on the trip gave Steward a sense of home and made getting to know the rest of the group an easy transition. Now that he knows the rest of the cyclists, it makes the trip in January that much more exciting.

“The terrain will be tougher, but we will kind of know what we’re doing … and know all of the guys which will be a blast to get back for that,” Steward said.

Flanagan said he is glad he could merge his “two worlds between here and Ireland” by bringing Steward on this journey with his friends from home, and that the trip from Vancouver to San Francisco was one of his best experiences.

“This was the most rewarding thing I have ever done in terms of to get that physically fit and do an endurance thing to raise money for charity and to know that what you’re doing is for a better cause and to be with your friends, to be in such a good atmosphere,” he said.