By CHRIS CHANCELLOR
SEATTLE — There is no textbook preparation for his conquest.
As he sat in a friend’s living room, awaiting the arrival of his bicycle, 30-year-old New Yorker Dmitry Solominsky was aware of just that.
Within days, he would embark upon a journey that would take him from the shores of the Pacific through the Great Plains before finishing in Yorktown, Va. The impetus behind the trip is to raise funds and awareness of the effects of PTSD.
In early April, Solominsky pedaled his mid-1980s Lotus Éclair from Seattle to Astoria, Ore., where he will begin his route on the TransAmerican Trail. He is raising proceeds for Hope For The Warriors, a national nonprofit organization that assists post-9/11 service members, their families, and relatives of those stricken with physical and psychological issues sustained during active duty.
A member of the National Guard from 2001-2009, Solominsky will not be joined by a cadre of veterans. He has dubbed his trip “rideSolo.”
“The reason behind that is a lot of guys and gals that do have PTSD feel like they’re alone in their battle,” he said, adding that is the reason behind taking the trip alone. “They feel like they’re alone in their battle, they feel like no one is around, no one can help them, no one understands and no one cares.”
I am grateful beyond belief to have the opportunity to change the norm. If I can assist even one person into … taking strides they never thought possible, I will consider this trip a success.”
While Solominsky did not suffer from PTSD upon his return home, he said his time in Iraq, where he was first stationed in Taji and then Baghdad and its surrounding areas, was difficult. Solominsky’s role was to help protect the main road between the airport and the Green Zone. The day before his arrival in one area, he said a Bradley Fighting Vehicle was hit by a daisy-chain round of explosives, which killed eight people.
“I had a very eventful tour,” Solominsky said. “I lost 19 of my friends. However I managed to avoid it, I am not sure. I knew every day could potentially be my last.”
An avid reader, Solominsky also was impacted last year when he read a Department of Veterans Affairs investigation revealing that 22 veterans — one every 65 minutes — commit suicide each day.
“I just have no words for how disgusting, how horrible, how tragic that is,” Solominsky said. “I’m not saying all of those people can be saved. I’m just saying with more and proper outreach, that number can be petered down.”
He hopes those numbers can be pared down as he shares his story along the more than 4,300-mile TransAmerican Trail. Solominsky, who said his mother is a psychiatrist who had several colleagues check on him after his service ended, has a simple message for those struggling with the aftermath of combat.
“It will have long-lasting impacts, but it’s something you can work through,” he said. “You just need a strong support system.”
That includes inspiration from friends. Solominsky said his peers have conquered goals ranging from hiking the Appalachian trail to climbing the southern portion of Mount Kilimanjaro.
“I have nothing tying me down to the city and I really want to give back to the veteran community in a grand way,” he said. “I wanted to bring outreach and more notoriety for this very, very important issue that is not getting the coverage it deserves.”
That does not mean the trip will not result in sacrifice for Solominsky. He is a contractor for TaskRabbit, an online and mobile marketplace that allows users to outsource small jobs and tasks locally. The website has gained notoriety for paying people to hold places in lines, but Solominsky handles handyman and carpentry work. He said he is ranked No. 7 on TaskRabbit for his services in New York City. The biking tour will take him out of work for three months, though — without compensation.
“Everything that I’m raising is for [Hope For The Warriors],” Solominsky said. “I don’t want to see a benefit from it.”
He believes his regular job, where he regularly carries a 40-pound backpack up several flights of stairs, will help him prepare for the journey. Solominsky, who said he was inspired to cycle two years ago when he and friends saw the Five Boro Bike Tour pass by on the highway after brunch, said his longest previous bike ride was about 150 miles about 18 months ago. During his ride on the TransAmerican Trail, he hopes to average 60 to 80 miles of cycling per day “depending on weather conditions and morale.”
“If I want to take a day off, I will take a day off,” he said, adding that meeting his goal will require him to pedal six to eight hours a day beginning at 8 a.m.
Solominsky said the physical nature of the ride will be difficult for the first two weeks as his body acclimates. That is not his greatest concern, though.
“One of the toughest things about this ride is the route is for all intents and purposes is doable by anyone in somewhat decent shape,” Solominsky said. “There’s nothing severely extraneous about it. It’s the psychological nature of it. Your body can take more than most people think. It’s your head that will give out first.”
He said that was part of the reason behind him selecting the steel Lotus Éclair, which was transported via mail while he was staying in Seattle, to make the trip. The well-used bike, Solominsky said, previously has made a trip between each coast in addition to another from Mexico to north Texas.
“It’s nice to have a traveling partner the same age as you,” he said, laughing.
There will be plenty of time to become acquainted. Solominsky said he might stay in a hotel on occasion and utilize “Warm Showers,” an organization that finds places for cyclists to rest overnight. But those will be the exceptions.
“I plan on camping a lot,” Solominsky said. “America’s beautiful and I might as well see the most of it. Living in a city like New York, it’s very rare to see stars and things like that.”
That is part of the reason why Solominsky, who initially considered an East Coast route for his trip, decided to extend it. But he said there was a larger reason behind the change.
“I came across this route and it seemed daunting, yet something that will have a lot more outreach than just a local or East Coast ride,” he said.
Giving back long has been important to Solominsky. He believes an impetus behind joining the military came from 9/11, when he was in the lunchroom at the High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology — close enough to the epicenter that some students saw smoke from the windows as the second plane collided into the World Trade Center. That is not the only event that inspired Solominsky to give back. After all, he and his mother came to the United States from his native Russia when he was a young child.
“I wasn’t born here in the states,” Solominsky said. “It’s a country that took me on as its own and I’ve grown to love and embrace everything about America. I figured again that I should give back again in some way.”
That venture through 11 states has started. And he does not plan to end it Yorktown. When he finishes the TransAmerican Trail, Solominsky plans to bike to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., which will add another 180 miles to his journey.
“That’s like the beacon of life for most guys who come back physically injured,” he said. “It’s a good way to tie everything together.”
Solominsky, who hopes to blog about his travels at www.hopeforthewarriors.org/ridesolo, might even bike from Bethesda back to Brooklyn. Whatever challenges Solominsky encounters — from the grueling climb through the Rocky Mountains to the redundancy of hundreds of miles of corn stalks in the midwest — he will harken back to the resiliency that he had to display during active duty in the Middle East.
It is a message he hopes resinates with those suffering through PTSD.
“In any kind of situation, specifically when you’re at war, if you dwell on something it makes you kind of complacent,” Solominsky said. “When it makes you complacent, you start making mistakes. I had to realize very quickly that the way of dealing with things has to be in a very strict way. Your brain kind of devolves into survival mode.
“You kind of do what you have to do.”