2007 MS150 Bicycle Tour
Rider #150 Completes 10 Tours In A Row
Dear Supporters,
Thank you for the wonderful
pledges to this year's MS150 Bike Tour. This year the "Emerald
Express" was a bit thin (just me). But I qualified for the
VIBE-TEAM (met a minimal pledge goal before the ride) and got
some cool socks, my second year in a row. I am very
proud of my number #150 since it matches the number of miles in
the tour. I am also very proud to have completed 10 tours in a
row.
Also because I was wearing
#150 (a gold number) I also got a neat jersey. This year's
jersey feature the Flag-Of-New-Bern a red background with a
yellow diagonal stripe with a black bear walking up the stripe.
An beautiful cycling jersey.
I set out for New Bern on
Friday 7 Sept, I picked up my rider number and T-Shirt (sadly I
got a L vs XL and it does not fit) and the beautiful cycling
jersey I went on to Morehead City to spend the night.
My sister
in-law, Mary Vann, and I had a beer and and burger at the local
pub and I turned in early. Evelyn was on a Red Cross
"deployment" in North Dakota helping the small town of
Northwood recover from a
devastating tornado. This was Evelyn's third deployment
with the Red Cross this year, she helped with the Lady Lake FL
tornado early in the spring as well as the Enterprise AL
tornado. Evelyn also spends two weeks every six weeks on
call with the local Red Cross and is now a client services
supervisor. Evelyn and others like her make the Red Cross
work. They are all volunteers, the Red Cross does (when
deployed) pay
their travel, food and board but that is
all, their time is 100% volunteer. Further, all the assistance that the
Red Cross gives out at disasters is from contributions, not one
nickel comes from the taxpayers.
Bright and early Saturday AM I was back
off to New Bern, sadly I left my ball cap and prescription
sunglasses at the pub the night before, but my helmet has a
little visor and I did fine without my dark glasses.
The ride was grand, I plugged
along at about 13mph skipping one rest stop and stopping very
quickly at all the others and go back in exactly 7 hours (less
than that actually on the bike).
After the ride I hoisted a
few pints at the Civic Center, courtesy of Carolina Brewing Company and had a pasta
and potato supper, and headed back to Morehead City.
I turned in early (after
picking up my ball cap and dark glasses from the pub) and got up
early Sunday AM to check on the progress of TS Gabrielle.
When I got to New Bern there
were little hand drawn signs all over the place saying "ONLY THE
30 MILE ROUTE WILL BE OPEN". There was not really any rain yet
and about 350-400 of us took off for the 30 mile loop around
8AM. I knew that this loop was certainly a 'doable' ride for
me.
We were only interrupted
twice by the rain bands of TS Gabrielle and those were very
mild, when we did turn NE we felt a little breeze. Only as the
day wore on did the rain bands get a bit stronger and with it
the wind but by that time all the cyclists were long done.
On returning to the
Start-Finish line I got my 2007 medal, had some lunch and
headed back to Raleigh.
This was good MS150 - I wish
I could have done 150 miles but was OK with the 105 I did do.