Dan O'Rourke knows the ride will get difficult. The sun will beat down and his muscles will ache, and he will wonder how many more of the 70 miles per day he can make it through before giving himself a rest.
There will be flat tires and weather complications and 4:30 a.m. wakeups.
But he also knows what he will think about at those times.
O'Rourke, who is set to begin a bike ride along Route 66 from Santa Monica, Calif., to Chicago, Ill., on July 27, will let his mind drift back to the kid peeking at the map of Route 66, tracing out the road that O'Rourke would soon be riding. The kid was at the National Federation of the Blind's BELL (Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning) Academy, a summer program of Braille and nonvisual skills that helps low-vision children with the skills and confidence to live independent lives.
"They sent me a little video of them all sitting on the front step and like, hey, let's go, let's kill it, Mr. O'Rourke on your ride," he recalled. "I know I'm going to have some tough days on this ride, but those are the things I can pull from and go, 'You know what, I can get this done today.'"
The longtime NHL referee -- he has been officiating for the League since 1999 -- will spend 45 days on his bike, pausing along the way for pit-stop parties that will serve as meet-and-greets, arriving in Chicago on Sept. 8. The 50-year-old will be documenting the ride with check-ins on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as he raises money for NFB, for those kids, for a cause that has impacted him as far back as he can remember. (https://nfb.org/route66)
O'Rourke's father, Tom, and his grandfather both suffered vision loss, with his father diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a rare eye disease that affects the retina, breaking it down slowly over time and causing blindness. They believe his grandfather, who O'Rourke never met, had the same.
"One of the reasons I'm doing this is to raise money for the kids to get to go to those camps and learn Braille and learn the technologies and things that may assist them in fulfilling whatever goals they may have," O'Rourke said. "And it's neat because those camps are run by blind people.
"The peer group is phenomenal for them to let them know they're not alone, that there's other people that can help them and are doing the same things they're doing. That part of it is very near and dear to my heart."
NFB, as O'Rourke is quick to point out, is the National Federation of the Blind, not for the Blind. The organization is run primarily by people who are blind, and which believes and supports the full potential and capacity of blind people.
Like his father.
"The majority of people that suffer from RP, by the time they're early 20s, they're legally blind," O'Rourke said. "My dad lasted quite a bit longer than I think he expected."
Not that he was ever quite ready to accept it.
For a long time, Tom O'Rourke would try to fake it, as far back as when he was a child and couldn't always make out something on the ground when playing outside. A football, maybe. Or a tree root in the way at hide-and-seek. And as he got older, the denial became strong, preventing him at times from taking steps that might ultimately have made his life easier -- using a cane, learning Braille.
But he also didn't make excuses. He didn't let his condition stop him from teaching his kids to waterski or to do backflips on a trampoline.
There was no hesitation.
"He never once told me or my brother, 'No, I can't do that because I can't see.' He would do it," O'Rourke said. "It may not be pretty. We'd go golfing and Dad would take a mighty lash at the ball and he'd look at you and say, 'Well, where'd it go?'"
At this point, Tom O'Rourke has little peripheral vision, though he can still see just enough to play his beloved cribbage if the cards are inches from his eyes and the room is well lit. (He does need help with his pegs, though.)
It's as if a paper was held up to his eyes with a single pinhole, representing all that he can see, given his combination of RP, night blindness and cataracts. The 75-year-old has gotten himself banged up, his shins scraped and bruised, or worse, as the time when he took an alternate route out of a doctor's appointment in Red Deer, Alberta, trying to make a bus and found a concrete park bench out of the exit he chose.
He smashed his nose, his orbital bone, a few ribs.
"That's his stubborn side," O'Rourke said.
And within that stubborn side is the resilience that his father has always had, the independence, that is what NFB tries to instill in the people they help.
"NFB has that same mentality," he said. "Like, hey, everybody wants a cure for blindness, but until that day comes, don't let blindness be the characteristic that holds you back."
O'Rourke, a CrossFit junkie, had started with a goal of raising $50,000. But the NFB told him to think bigger.
They said they believed he could raise $250,000. He was all in.
As of July 20, they were already nearing the $30,000-mark and he had not yet started riding.
O'Rourke left his home near Canton, Ga., northwest of Atlanta, on July 19 with his wife, April and dog, Beiley, in the RV that April will drive along the route, carrying the equipment that he'll need on the way. He will be doing the ride itself alone, though there's the possibility of a person from one of the meet-and-greets jumping in alongside him, maybe even a tandem bike with sighted and low-vision riders, maybe a fellow official.
He has gotten equipment sponsored, including a bike from Alchemy Bikes in Denver, one designed to temper the road vibrations and allow him to ride longer. Woho has provided saddle bags for food and extra supplies on the extra-early morning rides that April might not join him on. The NHL Officials Association has helped out with funds for gas.
He will set out on July 27, the date his grandfather was born in 1891. He will ride three days in a row, then take a day off to recover, and then head back out on the road, with six stops in areas where NFB has satellite chapters.
Waiting to greet him on Sept. 8 will be his family, his parents Tom and Janis, the latter of whom he credits with doing so much for his dad -- "Mom's been his guide dog her whole life" -- along with his just-married son Austin who is training to potentially follow in his father's footsteps as an NHL official, daughter Gracie, and friends.
It will not be easy, not with riding through the Southwest in the middle of the summer, not with the early wakeups and the searing temperatures and the pitfalls of such a long solo ride.
But he believes he can do it. And that comes straight from Tom.
"That's how I came about knowing that I could do this, is the stubbornness that my dad instilled in us," he said. "Don't accept it just because somebody tells you you can't."
