BRAN spirit is going strong

LINCOLN — Who are you, and what do you want with my horse tank?

For the first couple of years, people on the Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska had some explaining to do when they rolled into town.

Dispatch, we've got a colorful mass of flesh descending on Main Street. They're eating everything in sight. They have these weird outfits on and walk kinda funny. They also need a place to stay.

Bike riding never looked so good. That was 1981.

“After that we didn't do much explaining,” said Ray Weinberg, founder of BRAN, which will celebrate its 30th year this spring with another jaunt across the state.

Several hundred volunteers, 600 riders and enough vehicles to drain a gas station will shoot west starting June 6. Overnight towns will be painted in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple tents.

“It's a celebration of humanity,” said Al Roeder, the only person to participate in BRAN every year since it began.

The first year, BRAN riders went east to west, against prevailing winds with no plans for a ride home once they finished in Scottsbluff. It was a challenge of strength and endurance, a mystery, spontaneous and uncivilized.

“The first year was a lot of fun, then I rode the second year and got to thinking … eventually (I'd) get bored,” Roeder said. “Turns out I never did.”

The overarching spirit remains as fresh as ever, bringing people back year after year like a family reunion, creating stories and sharing laughs to last a lifetime.

Fred Jalass, a rider who has been planning the routes since 1991, remembers the feeling of being completely by himself on the road, with no cars in front or behind. No bike riders either.

“It takes you back 150 years, to people going across by horseback,” he said. “But now you have a bike.''

The people who ride in BRAN enjoy its small, intimate size.

Compared to the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, boasting 10,000-plus people, BRAN's 600-person limit makes more sense for those who crave a relaxed, family-oriented ride.

To date, BRAN has covered 8.7 million miles. The group has awarded $319,000 in scholarships to high school graduates attending Nebraska universities. And if the organization died today, it could still pay out over $27,000 a year for 10 years.

It isn't a fundraiser or pledge ride, it's just an organization that watches its expenses, Weinberg said.

The big skies and open beauty of Nebraska are obvious reasons to go on BRAN, but the stories that melt your heart and give you chills come from someplace else, in a small town maybe you haven't heard of.

Hyannis has a population of less than 300 people. Back in 1987, BRAN riders coming down the road were greeted by locals on horseback handing them water and lemonade.

A few years back, riders passed a pair of police officers outside Lexington. That usually spells trouble for events like BRAN, because police often require parade permits. Instead, the police officers hopped on their bikes and rode with them 20 miles.

After meeting on BRAN and riding in tandem for a couple of years, Ray and Alice Smith brought their minister to Syracuse and got married on BRAN.

After running a gantlet of hundreds of riders hoisting bike pumps in the air, they mounted their tandem bike and rode off into the sunset, cans and strings dangling from the rear.

Weinberg's 77-year-old mother-in-law goes on the ride every year.

Two decades ago, she left her wallet at a diner in Grant. A young boy found it, called and got it back to her. They became friends. She went to his graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy. She attended his wedding.

A lot of people think it's just a bike ride, but it's so much more, Weinberg said.

Millionaires ride next to the unemployed, some have beer guts and no one looks like Lance Armstrong.

“It's the two-fingered wave from the steering wheel, engaging in meaningful conversation at the gas station,'' he added. “It brings rural and urban people together.”

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