Norman Torkelson, director of facilities for the Hopewell Regional school district, had wanted to participate in the Anchor House Ride for Runaways for a long time. The annual charity bike ride raises funds for the Trenton-based social services agency. Finally, when his kids were old enough, he signed up and was ready to go — he had done long training rides, raised his $750, and was totally psyched. 
Then, a couple of weeks before the bike race, he crashed and broke his wrist and three ribs. Luckily his physician, a sports medicine specialist, did not rule out the ride but instead fitted him with an adjustable cast that could be loosened when his muscles swelled.
Working with one arm and broken ribs that prevented deep breaths, Mr. Torkelson had to make some adjustments but he completed the entire 500-mile route. Of course, you have to understand that Mr. Torkelson is a dyed-in-the-wool biker who once dreamed of racing competitively — that is, until he and some biking friends traveled to Europe to “chase” the Tour de France by carefully plotting the riders’ starting and stopping points each day.
Mr. Torkelson’s “French connection” caught up with him during that first ride. Toward the end of the second 80-mile day, Mr. Torkelson faced a very steep, four-mile-long hill. “I was having a hard time hanging on to the bike with one hand and feeling really sorry for myself,” he recalls.

Knowing that the ride is not about racing but about endurance, he decided to get off and start walking but noticed that a couple dozen people behind him immediately got off their bikes too. He had no idea why until Trenton Times reporter Krystal Knapp confessed a couple of years later that she had inadvertently spread a rumor that Mr. Torkelson had actually competed in the Tour de France. 
Unaware of this whole dynamic, Mr. Torkelson was cheering the few remaining bikers up the long hill when he saw a man without an arm riding next to another missing a leg from the knee down. He immediately got back on his bike. 
One thing that really amazes the bikers is how engaged people are along the way. Mr. Torkelson recalls a barefoot Mennonite teenager in Amish country, dressed in a black skirt, white apron, nice blouse, and hair bonnet, who jumped on an adult scooter and announced that she would ride with him to the next farm. He responded, “Gee, if you had a gear bike, you could keep up with me.” She replied with confidence, “Oh, I can go faster,” and she kept up a speed of 20 miles per hour, as she kicked her way down the road. 
People along the way also love to help the riders out. One couple from Oswego invited a dozen bikers back to their house for dinner, and when the bikers collected money to pay for the food, the couple turned it back to Anchor House as a donation. 
In a similar story, Mr. Torkelson’s brother, who lived near one of the bike routes, asked a local brewpub to donate 5 percent of its proceeds for the evening if he sent over lots of hungry riders. The owner replied, “I can’t do that, but I will do 10 percent, on food and on drinks as well.” That night he turned over a check for more than $800.
Riders also interact with locals at eating spots along the way, when huge numbers may converge on the same breakfast establishment. “It’s not uncommon to come in and see overwhelmed diner staff,” says Marti Moseley, who manages Henderson-Sotheby’s Princeton real estate office and will be doing her 14th bike ride this year. “Before you know it we’re pouring coffee and helping them out.” 
The race has also created its own little language and subculture. The Sag (support and gear) stops every 25 miles or so, for example, have evolved from mere necessity to opportunities for fun and amusement. Aside from providing food and drink, the crews offer themed entertainment through games, dancing, jump rope, music, costumes and contests. For two years running, Ms. Moseley was the watermelon seed spitting champion. “I spat a seed 26-feet-and-something one time to win,” she says, then adds modestly, “I had a tailwind on that spit.” 
Ms. Moseley also remembers a Sag stop with a ballroom dancing theme where the whole Sag committee dressed up — one man even wore a tux — and served Gatorade in cocktail cups and crackers on a tray. Another carved a frog out of a watermelon, and a third ran mini-NCAA finals, where teams shot baskets with Nerf basketballs.
Within the strong community that the bikers create each year, personal experiences may be shared with the larger community by capturing them in humorous language. Trenton firefighter Frank Fanning and his now-wife Karen, who met and started to date on the bike ride, went out together one evening during the ride to a little restaurant on the Chesapeake Bay where they split two pounds of fresh shrimp. It turned out she was allergic to shellfish, and the next day Karen broke out in hives and ended up in the hospital. When it was clear she would be OK, their biking friends dubbed the incident “the Fanning Funk.” As Mr. Fanning explains, “she started to date me and ends up with hives all over everywhere.”
Any community eventually has its share of tragedy, and for the Anchor House bike ride, this was the 1998 death of 15-year-old Cory Golis, who was struck fatally by a car on the last day of the ride. After he died, Ms. Moseley’s connection to Anchor House deepened as she herself experienced the counseling and support Anchor House is so adept at providing for runaway, homeless, abused and at-risk youth and their families. “I feel like I really became a witness to what it does and how good it is at it,” she says, “and I was able to focus on the difference that Anchor House makes in the lives of all these kids and the significant role it plays in the community.” 
In an event like the Anchor House ride, where people come together to accomplish an important goal and spend so much time together — doing what Mr. Torkelson calls “adult sleep-away camp” — the inevitable result is a tight community. As Ms. Moseley says about the group she rides with, “These people have now become family and are near and dear to me, and very important in my life.”

The 32nd annual Anchor House Ride for Runaways will begin July 10 in Charlottesville, Va., and end in Pennington. To make a pledge, call 609-278-9495 or visit anchorhouseride.org