Pastor bicycling 1,200 miles, helping communities along the way

From April 17 to May 1, Knoxville Lutheran Pastor Bill Ondracka will bicycle from Bentonville, Ark., to Knoxville, passing through Memphis, Paducah, Ky. and Nashville on the way.
From April 17 to May 1, Knoxville Lutheran Pastor Bill Ondracka will bicycle from Bentonville, Ark., to Knoxville, passing through Memphis, Paducah, Ky. and Nashville on the way.
photo This is Ondracka's route for his 1,200-mile trip.

Circuit-riding preachers were bold frontiersmen, traveling by horse - with a Bible in the saddlebag - through the 19th-century wilds of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Arkansas. They paused in isolated towns along the circuit to offer a sermon and sometimes help with a barn-raising or harvest.

Bill Ondracka, pastor at Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Knoxville, will do his own 1,200-mile version of a circuit ride across those very states, but on a bike instead of a horse. His doctor estimates he will burn about 6,000 calories per day.

"I've been practicing with some longer and longer distances," Ondracka says. "On my bike, I'll bring along water, Gatorade and some Paleo protein bars with raisins and cranberries in them."

His ride, known as the Cycle & Serve Tour, is designed to honor the 123 Lutheran congregations that are part of the regional Mid-South District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It's also a celebration of the district's 50th anniversary.

Starting last Sunday, Ondracka will pedal the countryside until May 1, stopping in 10 cities along the way, including Chattanooga. In each city along his tour, he will help with local churches' community service projects.

"In addition to churches, the Mid-South District also contains 11 schools, 27 early childhood centers and hundreds of workers across Arkansas, Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky," Chattanooga tour spokesperson Elaine Burns says.

Ondracka modestly describes himself as "in pretty good shape." Actually, he's been a cycling enthusiast for more than eight years and sticks to the Paleo diet, which focuses on food that humans in the Paleolithic Era would have eaten. The list includes meat, seafood, vegetables, fruits, nuts and roots but no dairy products, salt or sugar.

The only fears he can imagine on his trek are the occasional big, aggressive dog or possibly an overly curious brown bear; a bit of pepper spray should fend off both, he thinks.

"My wife and father-in-law will be driving a small camper a few miles away from me, so if there is an emergency, they will be there to help me out."

His friend and fellow Christian Cycling group member Mike Carroll also will ride beside him on the entire tour. Carroll's house was crushed when a big tree fell on it this month but, in spite of that disaster, he will be on his bike and on the road from the get-go to the finish line.

Ondracka will start in Bentonville - home to Walmart - in Northwest Arkansas' Ozark Mountains. He will slip into Southern Kentucky then back into Northeast Tennessee with an overnight stay in Chattanooga on April 30, where he will help plant flowers in Alton Park. During his stop here, he also will receive a free bicycle tune-up by Suck Creek Cycle Shop owner Mike Skiles.

After leaving Bentonville, Ondracka rode through Arkansas' Fort Smith, Mountain Home and Conway, where he spent Earth Day on Friday helping churches clean up trash along a busy highway. From there he's heading for Stuttgart, Ark., then crossing the stateline into Tennessee, hitting Memphis before pedaling north to Paducah, Ky., then turning south again and traveling through Nashville, Murfreesboro and Chattanooga before finishing in Knoxville.

"The individual Lutheran churches in each town chose the projects that they wanted me to help with," Ondracka says.

He has set up a Facebook page so people can follow his adventures, see photos and videos he posts and, if interested, help out with the volunteer work. Cycling enthusiasts also are welcome to ride along with him for whatever portions of the tour are convenient.

And Ondracka will be riding those hundreds of miles without earbuds or a playlist on his iPod.

"I'd really rather listen to the birds, the breeze in the trees and conversation with people around me - if we aren't too winded to talk," he says.

Contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6391.

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