Two of the riders, "Captain" Bob Brown and his son, Derek, have already begun their trek. They started from Minneapolis on May 22, and will ride to Butte during the next three weeks. Bob has been a friend of mine since 1979, when he joined my nutrition dept at Carnation Company in Van Nuys, CA. Here is their picture the evening before they departed, wearing their Tour de Cure outfits that we all have:
Bob already has biked incredible tours during his life, including one as a leader across the U.S. for BikeCentennial in 1976, and one from his Peace Corp site in Guatemala all the way north to the Midwest and then west to the Pacific in Oregon. He's the one who got me interesting in taking up cycling seriously. He's done other long bike tours since, and has always had the Montana-to-Alaska trip on his wish list. Derek just graduated from Kansas University, so we celebrate him on this trip!
Here is a map of our route. Bob undertook the huge task of planning the details of our itinerary, with each day's stop site noted and sights to see along the way. Our daily mileages range from about 40 to 140, with the average being about 80/day. Derek took Bob's itinerary and drew out this map of our route:
The other two riders are: Bert Stock, a friend of Bob's since high school and a biking friend of mine for many years in Southern California; and Rick Smith, a bike-mechanic friend of Bob's from Texas who now lives in Las Vegas during the winters and in Butte during the summers. Bob and Bert and I are 60 yrs old, and Rick is 64.
My motorhome will be the support vehicle, where we will sleep, prepare food and carry our junk. It will contain a mini-bike shop, as Rick Smith is our bike mechanic. All but Derek will share driving duties each day, such that we will each drive about 20 miles, and ride the remaining 60 or so. At least that's the plan; I envision that many modifications will take place as situations dictate.
As most of you know, we have linked our ride to the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure. We have set a goal of raising $30,000 to combat this disease that afflicts so many, and for which exercise is a critical prevention and treatment component. There are Tour de Cure biking events all over the country, and ours is linked to the Chicago ride. We are hoping we will continue to receive donations so that we can achieve our goal. At the time of this writing, we have about $16,000 of our $30,000 goal. To donate, please go to this website: http://main.diabetes.org/goto/KenRidesToAlaska
To help publicize our ride to solicit more ADA donations, I suggested to our local newspaper that they run a feature on us. They did, and here's the link to the published story. In the end, they focused more on my broken neck and recovery than they did on the fundraising. http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/middletown-news/monroe-bicyclist-prepares-for-4-200monroe-bicyclist-prepares-for-4-200-mile-roundtrip-1378474.html
That article triggered a Cincinnati TV news station to contact me to do an interview, which occurred yesterday and aired on last night's 11:00 news. It too focused on my accident: http://www.wlwt.com/video/31107426/detail.html Janet took this picture of them interviewing me outside our condo:
As the ride gets closer, what am I most concerned about? I'm worried about the mosquitoes, the biting black flies, and the motorhome. I have long-sleeved shirts and pants, and mosquito netting for my head, but what about when we stop cycling to take a break? Will we be swarmed? Will the Deet spray work when it's applied over sun block? Regarding the motorhome, it's currently in fine shape, but will it hold up?
Note: if you wish to be notified by e-mail whenever I post, and if you use Outlook, then my friend Dave Thompson has passed this along to help you set it up: "It's only appropriate if you use Outlook. I was just looking at someone else's blog and there's a little toolbar on the right hand side that allows you to 'subscribe' to the blog. I find that most people are using gmail or yahoo these days, so you can't push blogs into your inbox."
I will probably post one more time before we begin on June 15. On June 2 I will ride a century here called Tour of Covered Bridges. Two days later, Janet (and her granddaughter, Morgan) and I will head out to Washington where her parents, son, and grandson live and where she will stay while we are on our tour. The motorhome is already there. I will do some maintenance to prepare, and then drive it to Butte on June 12.
