Saturday, June 6, 2009

Best Buddies Challenge Ride

Wow what a day!

After driving 9+ hours on Thursday to Massachusetts and doing some tourist things on Friday we were all set to kick off the Best Buddies Challenge Ride on Saturday morning. The weather cleared & we had a perfect day to ride.

Thanks to your donations we were recognized in the top 5 fund raisers at the 50 mile start and 13th overall. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT.

While the ride was the longest we have done I must say it wasn't the most difficult. I understand that the 100 mile segment was much harder coming out of Boston. We had a couple of good size hills to climb, a very dangerous high traffic bridge to walk over and a several mile long steady climb at the end. But none of us were wiped out at the end. We had plenty of energy to enjoy the showers, massages, classic clam bake (thank goodness for the Chicken alternative since I'm not a big sea food fan) and a concert by the Bangles (Walk Like An Egyptian). The post ride logistics of getting our truck & trailer from the starting line and back to load up the trikes turned out to be one of the biggest obstacles of the day. Luckily while I was on the bus back to the starting line my wife & kids were able to convince the local shuttle driver to transport them & the trikes to the hotel. Otherwise they would have been waiting on the beach for 2 hours.

It was a fun experience for the entire family. We got to experience some of Boston, especially the traffic. We got a parking ticket because we lingered too long at a diner. We got "rear ended", guess the person didn't see the big hitch sticking out the back, I didn't even bother to get out of the truck. We spent way too much time trying to find parking spaces only to give up and walk half a mile to dinner. But we laughed, we talked and we rode. You can't beat that.

Once again, thank you to everyone who supported the fund raising. The money will go to help a wonderful organization that is making a difference in people's lives every day.

Our next "organized" group ride will probably be a local short 32 miler in late August. Less than a year ago I don't think "short" and "32 miler" would have been a sentence for me. But it certainly is now.

Rolling Thunder

Memorial Day weekend brings thousands of motorcycles to the Washington, DC area for Rolling Thunder, www.rollingthunder1.com/.

Since were were still conditioning for our Best Buddies Challenge Ride we, at least my wife & I, decided to cruise over to DC and watch the motorcycles stream in. We took the W&OD trail to the Custis Trail to the Mount Vernon Trail and stopped at the Memorial Bridge.

We made it to the Memorial Bridge about 20 minutes before the "parade" began. We parked our trikes and took up a position along the sidewalk with hundreds of other watchers. We stood there for over 90 minutes watching motorcycle after motorcycle stream past, all there to bring awareness to our POW/MIA. Of course the classic "thunderous" Harley-Davidsons were represented well but there was almost every shape & size of bike and rider that you can imagine. Eventually we decided to take advantage of the closed streets around the monuments to get some very safe riding in. We took a tour around the mall area and even answered several questions about the trikes we were on. I began calling our little two person parade the "silent thunder".

We made our way back to the Memorial Bridge only to find the stream continuing. After 2 1/2 hours the bikes were still coming into DC. If you look at a satellite photo of the DC mall area (where the monuments are) you'll see the park space with softball fields and common areas. Every space that didn't have a monument on it or was needed for foot traffic was in use for parking bikes. The last estimate I heard was 500,000 and I wouldn't doubt it!

We returned home via the Mount Vernon Trail to the 4 Mile Run Trail and back to the W&OD. All in a all about 32 miles and a lot of fun.