Richard J. McGilvery and Tom Montville – two members of the Rutgers community – will cover a combined distance of more than 4,000 miles on two very different bike rides for causes they each strongly support.

McGilvery, an officer with the Rutgers University Police Department, will be riding in honor of his father Detective Richard E. McGilvery, the only RUPD officer to die in the line of duty. Next month McGilvery will make the 300-mile bicycle trek from New Jersey to Washington, D.C.

Montville, a professor in the Department of Food Science, will pedal from New Hampshire to San Francisco to raise money for Elijah’s Promise, a New Brunswick-based social service organization that provides food, clothing, and job training to low-income residents in central New Jersey.

A son rides for a father who died in the line of duty

Richard J. McGilvery was only 8 months old when his father, Detective Richard E. McGilvery of the Rutgers University Police Department, was killed while responding to a report of a burglary on October 6, 1978.

McGilvery will join hundreds of other law enforcement officers from around the country in the Police Unity Tour for the "The Ride for Those Who Died," which raises funds to support the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial (NLEOM) in Washington, D.C., and honors those officers who have fallen in the line of duty.

The Police Unity Tour was founded in 1997 by a Florham Park, New Jersey, police officer. The cyclists raise funds by obtaining sponsors for their ride and each participant rides in the name of a fallen officer.

"By riding in memory of my father I not only want to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his passing, but also hope to increase awareness of the dangers of police work," McGilvery said. "I want people to realize that behind the badge and the gun there is a human being who has the same hopes and fears as anyone else."

This is the first year that McGilvery, whose grandfather also served on the Rutgers police force from 1963 to 1981, is riding in the Police Unity Tour. Officer McGilvery will be joining RUPD sergeants Matthew Gulsby and Eric Neilsen on the tour, part of National Police Week, which runs from May 11 to May 17.

Last year, 181 law enforcement officers nationwide died in the line of duty, according to statistics from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. That compares with 151 officers who died in 2006, an increase of 20 percent. Since 1792, more than 18,000 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty. Their names are engraved on the “Walls of Remembrance” at the memorial.

More than 1,000 participants raised $1.15 million for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in last year's Police Unity Tour. To support the RUPD officers, go to policeunitytour.com and download a rider sponsor form.

Food professor on a quest to do 'something big' for humankind

This summer, Tom Montville, a professor in the Department of Food Science, will pedal from San Francisco to New Hampshire to raise money for Elijah’s Promise, a New Brunswick-based social service organization that provides food, clothing, and job training to low-income residents in central New Jersey.

He will cross Kansas, where the strong headwinds are the legends of bicycling lore and will travel up the 11,000-foot-high Monarch Pass in the Rocky Mountains, where the weather can change from sunny to snowy within a few hours.

Departing May 31 on his light-frame bicycle, Montville will ride a total of 52 days covering 3,800 miles, traveling with a touring company and paying his own expenses. He hopes to raise $38,000 – $10 per mile – and estimates that the money he raises will pay for about 15,000 of the 100,000 meals Elijah’s Promise serves every year.

A former chair of the food science department and an international food safety expert, Montville started logging miles when his faculty status was changed from a full-year to an academic-year appointment. At first he was not happy with the change, but he now says it was a blessing.

“The change gave me my summer to do whatever I want. I come in and take care of my students and my lab, but I also ride my bicycle – a lot,” Montville says.

Over the last several years he has ridden in charity rides covering the East Coast from Montreal, Canada, to Charleston, South Carolina. Two years ago, Montville participated in the California AIDS ride, a seven-day, 545-mile event. Last year he rode two events totaling 1,000 miles in the course of a month. These brought his annual riding to 6,000 miles – 400 hours of pedaling.

Though biking for causes, Montville began to feel that the time he was spending cycling amounted to self-indulgence. “I decided that if I was going to keep riding like that, I had to ride for a very tangible reason.” He recalls hearing a theologian at Harvard, Henri Nouwen, say, “When you die, the question won’t be about how many papers you’ve published in peer review journals, its going to be about what have you done for the least of your brothers.”

Montville’s involvement with Elijah’s Promise goes back to before its founding in 1989, when its predecessor was located in a New Brunswick church where Montville was a member. The organization evolved into Elijah’s Promise, and Montville has continued to support the group, serving in the food kitchen, helping distribute clothes, or contributing donations.

“These were all pretty small things,” Montville says. “I wanted to do something big for Elijah’s Promise and was waffling on the idea of riding across country. When I decided to do the ride as a fundraiser for Elijah’s Promise, I knew that it was something I really wanted to do.”

The choice of Elijah’s Promise is particularly meaningful, he says, because of the organization’s ties to food. After all, he says,” I am a food scientist.” Montville is a noted researcher is in the areas of listeria, clostridia, and antimicrobials.

On his bicycle, however, those issues tend to be far from his mind.

“Professors are thinking all the time, going from being a researcher, to a mentor, to a teacher, to an editor, to a fundraiser,” he says. “But when you’re on a bike, you’re right there, your mind is clear. And that’s it. You’re just riding the bicycle, being in the world you’re in. You can’t ride through places and not notice them.”

To make a donation to Montville’s journey, use the "click to donate" link the Elijah’s Promise website and in the "purpose field" type "bike ride." Or download a donation form here.