A 111-mile sprint took him from the outskirts of Wilmington, Delaware to Freehold, New Jersey Tuesday.

Elmer Jackson just wanted to be home after pedaling his way across America.

Elmer, in white, and Jeff Jackson, in red, surrounded by admirers on their ceremonial ride home; Elmer’s wife, Doris, helps unfurl a map showing the coast-to-coast route; and Elmer tells a crowd how he whooped each time he crossed a state line. (Click to enlarge)

He made it, too — a day early. Which meant that yesterday’s “homecoming,” complete with an escort up Shrewsbury and Bridge avenues by kids and adults on bikes, police and a blaring Liberty Hose Co. firetruck, was something more of a staged event than planned.

But it couldn’t be avoided, Jackson said, noting that he rode hard when he could to offset the downtime caused by unpredictable sprinkles and showers that would make it impossible to ride.

“When the roads are wet, this little bike’s going to slide around,” he said. “My wife said to me, ‘don’t you come home broken!’ “

Far from broken, Jackson was about 40 pounds lighter and “in the best shape I’ve been in in several years,” said the former open-heart surgery patient. “I think this is a new start for me physically.”

The ten-week journey from San Francisco, covering 4,200-plus miles, was a fundraiser for the West Side Christian Academy, where the father-and-son Jacksons are teachers and administrators. They’re still seeking donations, hoping to raise $100,000.

Jeff only rode the first four weeks, taking the wheel of their sag wagon after the original driver, Tim Hathaway, left the tour.

“I wanted to do the whole ride, but I promised to take care of him,” Jeff said of Elmer as he addressed about 50 people who’d gathered in the parking lot of the Calvary Baptist Church, where the school is housed. “And taking care of him is a lot of work,” he added.

Before recounting tales of near-miss catastrophes with wild dogs and spectacular landscapes and lessons learned on the road, Elmer — all but refusing to remove his helmet — spoke of the yearning that compelled him homeward.

“One thing I know is that I really did miss being home,” he said. “The familiar faces, my racquetball partners. I missed all the students. So I never thought about quitting.”

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redbankgreen will have more pix and info Friday. Meantime, if you’re new to this saga, check out our special No Regrets archive of stories and photos.

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Two months and countless pedal strokes later, the No Regrets cross-country bike tour arrives in New Jersey this morning.

Father-and-son sojourners Elmer and Jeff Jackson are expected to reach Red Bank between 2 and 4p on Thursday, when they’ll be met by representatives of the Red Bank police and fire departments for an escort to the West Side Christian Academy, the private school they run with other family members on Bridge Avenue.

The ride, which we’ve chronicled on redbankgreen, was a fundraiser for the school.

We reached Jeff, who traded his bike for the steering wheel of their sag wagon about a third of the way, this morning just as he and his father were about to cross the Delaware River into New Jersey on the Commodore John Barry Bridge.

“He can’t cross the bridge on bike — it’s against the law,” Jeff said of Elmer. “So I’m looking for a place where I can pick him up and drive him across.”

“We’re very excited,” Jeff said. “We’re glad to be close to home. It’s been a long trip.”

He didn’t have a mileage total; the new Honda they bought in San Francisco for the journey showed 6,571 miles on he odometer, but that involved a lot of backing-and-forthing as the vehicle was used to support Elmer’s ride.

“I’m most looking forward to seeing my wife, Charlene,” he said. “For me and my dad, to have all this time together has been special. But we miss all the family events. It’s time to be home.”

The pair will travel diagonally across the state, first following a path of many turns before settling on Route 537 for the long final approach.

The idea of riding all the way to Sandy Hook has been scrapped. Now, the plan is for the escort to meet the two-man caravan at Newman Springs Road and Shrewsbury Avenue and lead them to the school. A reception that’s open to the public will follow at the school.

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Two weeks after the sudden departure of their one-man support crew, Elmer and Jeff Jackson’s pedalthon from San Francisco to Sandy Hook has picked up steam.

redbankgreen caught up with the Jacksons by phone on Sunday, our first contact with them since sagmobile driver and documentarist Tim Hathaway flew home to Red Bank late last month, deliberately forcing an ailing Jeff off his bike and into the car.

They were in Hutchinson, Kansas, just about halfway home on their ‘No Regrets‘ tour and they were about to catch a matinee of ‘Hancock‘ following an easy 50-ride by Elmer that morning.

“”He could be getting faster,” Jeff says of his father. “He’s definitely gotten much stronger the farther we’ve gone.”

With the tough peaks of the Sierras and the even tougher Rockies behind him, Elmer’s been racking up the flatland mileage, logging daily totals of 105, 75, 65 and 103, 50-plus and 50 miles on consecutive days last week, Jeff says.

“I’m turning from a fat man into a bicyclist,” Elmer chimes in.

Jeff, who’s now his father’s sagman, says Hathaway’s departure was regrettable, but amicable.

“We wish Tim had stayed, because he was doing so much,” including keeping a blog of the tour, he says. “But one thing he was concerned about was that I kept have these heat exhaustion events and wasn’t taking good enough care of myself.”

Hathaway’s move forced Jeff from his handlebars to the steering wheel of the Honda the Jacksons bought on arrival in San Francisco.

His new role is bittersweet, Jeff says.

“I would have rather have been riding. I would have enjoyed growing up in that way and being part of what my dad is doing in an more intimate and personal way,” he says.

Still, the tour, a fundraiser for the West Side Christian Academy, which Elmer founded and they both teach in, goes on, and he’s part of it, he says.

The Jackson’s now anticipate reaching Sandy Hook in mid-August; Elmer’s shooting for Aug. 12.

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Tim Hathaway, the journalist who was serving as driver and documentarian for the ‘No Regrets’ cross-country bike ride of fellow Red Bankers Elmer and Jeff Jackson, suddenly left the tour late last week.

From his blog posting dated Saturday, June 28:

On Friday, June 27 I returned to New Jersey. It was not an easy decision, but after considering my options and much prayer, I left the road because I felt that it was the best decision for the success of the trip.

From this point forward, Jeff will take over the duties of sag driver and Rev. Jackson will continue riding. The No Regrets Bike Ride will go on without me, but I will do my best to keep everyone posted on their progress.

The ride — a 4,244-mile fundraiser for the West Side Christian Academy, which Elmer Jackson founded and where his son, Jeff, is a teacher — began June 3 in San Francisco and is to continue to Sandy Hook. Last we heard, the riders were in central Utah, facing tall mountains with steep grades and temperatures frequently above 100 degrees.

The tour has been marked by repeated cases of heat stroke and fatigue on Jeff’s part.

Hathaway tells redbankgreen via email that he left “not because I think they can’t finish but rather in order that they may finish in the safest manner.”

A celebratory moment on June 24.

The major issue was safety. Neither of them prepared for this trip well enough, and they are painfully aware of that now. Jeff was pushing himself so hard that he got heat exhaustion several times. He had dry heaves and came down with the shivers in the desert heat, but didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with his approach to the trip. I confronted him about it two weeks ago, but nothing much changed…

Last Wednesday, on a leg from Escalante to Torrey, Utah, Jeff biked for one hour before climbing into the sagwagon “to rest for the day,” Hathaway wrote in his blog. Elmer, a 59-year-old former Marine who had triple bypass surgery two years ago, went on.

And on. Over the course of the day, Elmer climbed “a 9,600-foot beast with 8-14 percent grades,” staying with it even after Hathaway suggested he pack it in for the night and resume in the same spot the next day.

The restaurants in these small towns tend to close early, I said.

“If you guys don’t get your dinner tonight, well, I’m sorry,” Elmer said, and continued on his way…

The whole day took over 12 hours, but it revealed more about the character of mountains and men then perhaps I care to know.

In a posting on his own MySpace blog — also dated June 25, but apparently before the ride Hathaway describes above — Jeff says he has been “overwhelmed with the work I have been doing [and] despondent at my lack of success on the bike.” He was upbeat, though, at having completed the prior day’s ride.

I have not quit. I have fallen, but I keep getting up. I may fall again, but I will keep on fighting.

In the email, Hathaway explains his rationale for flying home:

By removing myself, Jeff must get off the bike and behind the wheel of the car, which is the safest place for him to be. As far as Rev. Jackson is concerned, I have no doubt that he has the constitution and will to finish the journey.

Though they did not want me to leave, it was an amicable parting. I considered staying, but I felt like we had been through this two weeks ago and I had no reason to believe there would be long term improvement to the situation this time. I left with a heavy heart but also with the conviction that I was doing what was in their best interest.

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Last week saw some ups and downs for Red Bank’s intrepid cross-country bikers, Elmer and Jeff Jackson.

Both father and son had some serious battles with uncertainty. But Jeff’s were more manifest: while Elmer was notching one day’s ride after another, Jeff spent almost as much time in the car with sagman/blogmeister Tim Hathaway as he did in the saddle.

At his doctor’s suggestion, Jeff had stopped taking a medication that made him sweat, and thus more prone to heat exhaustion. But coming off it left him lethargic.

Still, they managed to rack up some decent mileage.

On Monday, June 16, they did 67 miles, from Austin, Nev. to Eureka, Nev. That was followed by a 55-miler from Eureka to Ely, Nev.; Ely to Majors Junction, Nev. (56 miles), which included “the two highest summits on US 50 in all of Nevada,” writes Hathaway; Majors Junction to Mormon Gap, Utah., another 55 miles; Mormon Gap to Milford, Utah, another 55 miles (for Elmer, that is; Jeff had to Honda it again); and then, on Saturday, another 56 miles to Cedar City, Utah, with Jeff again riding shotgun in the car due to fatigue.

This week, they’re off to a better start. Yesterday, they climbed 4,400 feet, to 10,000 feet above sea level, as they pedaled from Cedar City to Tropic, Utah — a total of 63 miles.

From Hathaway’s blog:

The climb took about five hours, and after a leisurely lunch at the summit the guys continued their way on a plateau, ending near Tropic at an elevation of nearly 7000 feet. The plateau is actually the geological descendant of a family of volcanoes. The guys bikes past jagged lava flows (over 1000 years old), lush meadows and verdant pine and cedar forests. Jeff ended his day a little early in the hopes of reserving himself for tomorrow. We have the longest day coming up yet: 84 miles.

If all goes well tomorrow, we will be in a good position to finish Utah by Friday. This would mean that after three weeks of grueling mountains and desert heat, the guys finally have their legs and can sustain 80 plus mile days.

This, of course, was the original plan. But we have yet to enter Colorado.

In an effort to keep expenses down on their fundraising effort for Red Bank’s West Side Christian Academy, the trio is hoping to identify readers who know of people living along their route who might be able to put them up for a night.

Here’s the list of towns they expect to travel through:

UTAH (June 19-25)

Milford

Cedar City

Tropic

Escalante

Boulder

Torrey

Caineville

Hanksville

Hite Recreation Area

Blanding

Monticello

COLORADO

Dove Creek

Dolores

Durango

Pagosa Springs

Del Norte

Salida

Cotopaxi

Westcliffe

Wetmore

Pueblo

Boone

Olney Springs

Ordway

Eads

KANSAS

Tribune

Leoti

Scott City

Dighton

Ness City

Alexander

Rush Center

Larned

Nickerson

Hutchinson

Heston

Newton

Cassoday

Eureka

Toronto

Chanute

Walnut

Grand

MISSOURI

Golden City

Everton

Ash Grove

Walnut Grove

Fair Grove

Marshfield

Hartfield

Hartville

Houston

Summersville

Eminence

Ellington

Centerville

Pilot Knob

Farmington

Ozora

St. Mary

ILLINOIS

Chester

Murphysboro

Carbondale

Goreville

Elizabethtown

Cave In Rock

KENTUCKY

Marion

Clay

Dixon

Sebree

Beech Grove

Whitesville

Falls of Rough

McDaniels

Sonora

Buffalo

Howardstown

Bardstown

Springfield

Harrodsburg

Berea

Booneville

Hazard

Hindman

Bypro

Elkhorn City

VIRGINIA

Breaks

Haysi

Rosedale

Meadowview

Damascus

Sugar Grove

Wytheville

Radford

Christiansburg

Catawba

Daleville

Buchanan

Lexington

Rockfish Gap

Charlottesville

Palmyra

Bumpass

Ashland

Mechanicsville

Richmond

Ashland

Fredricksbug

Dale City

Alexandria

Arlington

WASHINGTON D.C.

MARYLAND

Chevy Chase

Bethesda

Rockville

Glenelg

Jarretsville

PENNSYLVANIA

Delta

Maritta

Columbia

Manheim

Reamstown

Norristown

Please email Tim Hathaway with the name, address and contact information.

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After a two-day layover forced by illness, father and son Elmer and Jeff Jackson were back in the saddle this week, topping their first mountain and crossing their first state border.

Tuesday saw the Red Bank educators climb 3,000 feet while traveling 33.5 miles from Cook’s Station, Calif. to Carson Pass, a leg sagman/journalist/blogger Tim Hathaway called “the most brutal climb of their lives.”

Heat exhaustion got the better of Jeff last week, leading to the tourist-interruptus. But after Tuesday’s leg, he was clearly feeling better. From Tim’s blog:

After conquering their first mountain, I pointed my camera at them, and instead of exulting in the pride of accomplishment, Jeff, the head teacher of the boys’ classroom at [West Side Christian Academy], used the moment to speak to his students.

“If we can climb a mountain, you can do whatever is in front of you,” he said hunched over his handled bars, searching for breath. “If we can climb a mountain, whatever mountain you have in your life, climb it.”

Yesterday, they clocked 39 more miles, reaching Carson City, Nev. “The ride was fast and smooth,” Tim writes. “The reward for a mountain climb is many miles downhill.”

The bout of illness was doubly trying for Jeff. He writes in his remarkably confessional MySpace blog that he sometimes feels as though he’s

the poster boy for weakness… For two days I had to watch from he sidelines as my Dad struggled for every foot of elevation, and every mile of road, as he climbed a mountain alone. I had to sit and watch while I wondered if I had tried hard enough… Could it be that I was never strong enough to stand, to ride, by my father’s side?

But after a restless night of anticipation in which he prayed, he says he “realized I am no stronger or weaker than God made me in the ways that matter.” And that made the resumption of the ride the next morning all the easier, he wrote.

OK, the next 10 hours weren’t exactly easy, he admits. But he toughed it out. Afterward,

I told my daughter that I had climbed over a mountain, and she said, ‘You are a mountain man, Daddy.’ Today, I am not the poster boy for weakness. I am a mountain man, and no one can tell me different.

Thus far, the Jacksons have covered 257 miles of what they expect will be a 4,244-mile ride from San Fancisco to Sandy Hook. Today, they venture into the desert on US 50, also known as the Loneliest Road in America, says Tim.

Want to donate to the No Regrets Bike Challenge? Please contact Doris Jackson here or call 732. 693.4336. Click here for the full archive of redbankgreen stories about the journey.

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Elmer and Jeff Jackson’s ‘No Regrets’ fundraising bike ride across America was slowed late last week when Jeff suffered heat exhaustion on day three and couldn’t shake it over the next two days, leading to a couple of days rest for him and his father back in San Francisco.

Beset by “dizziness, nausea, and terrible pain. I wanted to quit,” Jeff writes in his tour blog. “But my dad got me through it. He kept talking to me, encouraging me, pushing me to keep going on.”

That was Thursday, day three of the tour. The Jacksons, raising money for Red Bank’s West Side Christian Academy, completed just 46.5 miles of a planned 75-mile jaunt (most of it uphill) that day. Jeff walked the last mile, but “then it got worse. I started cramping in both calves and my right thigh.”

He took Friday off after an hour of riding left him dizzy and worried he’d fall. Elmer logged 30 miles (and another 1,300 feet of elevation), taking them to Fair Play, Calif. at 2,300 feet above sea level.

The next day, Jeff lasted just 45 minutes. Elmer added another 20 miles (and 2,300 vertical feet). After consulting with someone back home who has a medical background, they decided to drive back to San Francisco, where Jeff would be able to rest up for a day or two at Elmer’s sister’s place and Elmer could get a warped wheel rim fixed.

Here’s a snippet from the blog of Red Bank’s Tim Hathaway, who’s serving as sag man, photographer, videographer and blogger for the 4,244-mile effort:

Just before reaching Cooks Station, standing in pine scented breezes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, over 4,000 from home, Jeff aired his fears.

“What if I can’t make it?” he said.

I was not sure if he was talking about the next 30-mile segment to Carson Pass or the entire journey. Rev. Jackson gave him some fatherly advice.

“I’ve never been prouder of you than when you decided to stop the other day,” he said. “You didn’t let your ego come before your safety or mine.”

He was still wrestling with conflicting emotions: feeling like he is disappointing his father and the very real possibility of failure. He has not been able to bike the past two days and the Rocky Mountains still loom large in their imaginations.

“What would you say to one of your students if he were in a similar situation?” I asked.

“You can do it,” he said weakly. He looked down, grinned, and spoke like the teacher he is. “Just try.”

Rev. Jackson began walking up the steep slope with his bike and a Gatorade, and Jeff joined him. I sat in the car listening to the forest. Snatches over conversation carried in the wind.

“I’m going to give you a run for you money when we get to the Rockies,” Jeff said.

The Jacksonss are seeing America, the beautiful and the ugly. They’ve crossed paths with a rattlesnake, a skunk, some deer and spectacular scenery. They’ve met lots of people, man of them fellow cyclists, and one woman slipped Tim a $50 bill as a donation for school.

But there was also this, as recounted by Tim:

“I heard a news report on the radio yesterday,” I said, “where a black woman said that Barak Obama’s nomination is a symbol of a change in race relations in America. Do you think it is a symbol of change or that it may serve to catalyze change?”

The guys chuckled and paused, as if they were thinking about the same thing.

“You remember yesterday when you came back to give us water by that shopping center?” Rev. [Elmer] Jackson said. “Before you came, a guy in a pick-up truck rolled down his window and made clucking sounds like a chicken. He was heckling us. And then he made a gun with his fingers and pretended to shoot.” He demonstrated the gesture, as his voice strained between anger and resignation.

Rev. Jackson says he often is a victim of a tug-of-war between two emotions at times like this. As a former Marine, he knows he could defend himself physically and would like to do so. He is also a husband a father who wants to remain that way. So he lets it go. Every time he manages to let it go. Yesterday he and Jeff ignored it together.

Next milestone: Carson Pass, 8,573 feet above sea level.

If you want to make a donation to the No Regrets Bike Challenge, please contact Doris Jackson here or call 732. 693.4336. redbankgreen has set up a separate archive for the No Regrets articles for readers who’d like to see them all.

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The father-and-son pair Elmer and Jeff Jackson completed the first 20 miles yesterday of what we’re now told will be a 4,244-mile bike ride.

Looks like they did some sightseeing at San Francisco’s Presidio before they got very far. Advance man and sag driver Tim Hathaway reports on his blog:

There is a veterans cemetery with thousands of headstones dating back through the mid 1800s. Over 450 of them are that of Buffalo Soldiers, an appellation native American Indians gave black regiments during the Indian Wars.

Then the Jacksons ferried north to Vallejo, where they started their fundraising trek in earnest.

Elmer charges by, followed by Jeff, somewhere between Vallejo and West Sacramento.

From there, they rode onto West Sacramento, Hathaway reports.

We don’t have a detailed itinerary, but hope to get one. Tim reports that on arriving at the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday, the trio realized they’d forgotten their map.

Jeff’s blog says they’re heading to Point Pleasant; Tim’s says Sandy Hook.

At this point, of course, it doesn’t much matter: they’ve got plenty of time, and many miles, to figure it out.

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In photo above, that’s Jeff Jackson in foreground with, from left, Ron (no last name available), Elmer, Elmer’s sister, Joyce Tanaka, and brother Rudy, a former Oakland Raiders lineman. (Photos by Tim Hathaway)

Just over four months ago, redbankgreen told you about Elmer and Jeff Jackson, the father-son pair who run the West Side Christian Academy, and their plan to bike across the U.S.

Well, they’re finally on the road. After a UPS mixup delayed the arrival of their bikes by a couple of days, the Jacksons were at the Golden Gate Bridge just about to shove off when redbankgreen reached them by phone this afternoon.

And what’s on Jeff’s mind as he stands with his bike beneath that glorious piece of engineering? Mountains, he says.

“Mountains, mountains, and more mountains,” he says. “It’s exhilarating, but it’s also just a huge endeavor.”

The Jacksons training at WOW in Middletown earlier this year.

The pair’s destination is Sandy Hook, roughly 3,500 miles to the east. Their goal, besides proving they can do it, is to raise $100,000 for a new home for the 25-student K-8 academy Elmer founded and runs with his son, wife and daughter. It’s now housed at Calvary Baptist Church on Bridge Avenue.

Accompanying them is journalist Tim Hathaway of Red Bank, who met the Jacksons when he wrote that feature story for redbankgreen in January; he started volunteering at their school soon afterward.

Hathaway is driving the sag wagon: a brand-new Honda Civic hybrid the Jacksons bought immediately on arrival (they needed a new car anyway, Tim tells us).

“I’m going to be the driver for the next two months,” Tim wrote in a blogpost over the weekend.

As the start of the trip neared, each of the three was feeling a bit philosophical.

In a podcast he recorded this morning, Elmer said he was

“nervous but excited. We got to California and found mountains that I’m not quite ready for, but Tim tells me we’re going to be able to skirt the mountains and get to destination and still save legs. So in a couple of days we’ll starting hitting real mountains, but for now we’re going to have some fun.”

Here’s an excerpt from a blogpost by Tim late last week, before they headed west:

Needless to say there’s more to it that dollars and bikes. I could just as easily say this is about Rev. Jackson’s health, because he had triple bypass surgery about two years ago. Perhaps it’s about a son and his relationship with his father, who has always dreamed dreams bigger than himself. Maybe it’s about a reporter looking for a story, an adventure, any change so he can stop spinning the wheels of his life.

The only theme that has been consistent in my interaction with Rev. Jackson and Jeff so far is Providence. I think we all have a sense that there is a spiritual logic to our fellowship. There’s simply more to this trip than any of us can guess.

And here’s Jeff’s post from Tuesday morning, shortly before they left the West Side of America:

So today I awake to the reality that I am starting something amazing. I will head down to the Golden Gate Bridge, and start my journey Home, and maybe to a new me.

redbankgreen will be checking in periodically on the trio’s progress. Readers needing a more immediate fix can check in on:

Jeff’s MySpace page

Tim’s personal blog

To make a pledge or donation, call the West Side Christian Academy at 732.741.7900 or e-mail here.

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