Well the ride is over and I want to thank you for your pledge to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and you support along the way. As you might have noticed over the weekend (May 17th & 18th) it was alittle wet and cold in this region. But the ride went on as planned.

The ride started in The Plains, Virginia at Great Meadows. To get there you drive an hour west on route 66 from Washington DC heading towards the mountains. Once there I started at 8:30 am with my goal in mind of riding the 104 mile course which would take me through some of the nicest and speculator country sides to see. But with low clouds, visibility was sometime only a mile long. Yet I pressed on, seeing horse farms, lama farms, saw a rooster on the side of the road, some barking dogs, some goats, some sheep and lots of rain drops.

I stopped at rest stop #2, mile 22, to be greeted by Kelly and our friend Nadine who were official photographers for the MS ride. I think they got an ugly wet picture of me. With a modification to the clothes I was wearing, some Gatorade and a bite to eat, I pressed on. The temperature gauge on my odometer never made it above 49 degrees the entire day. So as you can see it was not a biker friendly day.

At mile marker 66, I meet up with them again and had lunch in our car with the heat on full blast. My hands thawed some so I could eat my lunch and after 30 minutes of defrosting in the car it was back on the bike and off again. I stopped at mile maker 86 for another rest stop and drank some Gatorade and had a banana. I knew I was getting close and started to feel stronger on the bike. With the same temperature in the air, the rain still coming down you spent little time at the rest stop and just tried to keep going to keep the body temperature moving.

With less than 20 miles to go I was patting myself on the back. I caught up to two guys who were doing a pace that I liked and when we reached the 96 mile marker we suddenly made a mistake. One of the course arrow signs magical disappeared and with none of us reading the cue sheet we continued on for 2 miles in the wrong direction. Maybe it was mental fatigue at this point but we stopped figured out what we had done and headed 2 miles back.

Once we all got back on course it was 8 miles to go. Yeah!!! A walk in the park from all the training Ive been doing this winter and spring. With joy I peddled my way up one last challenging hill that some choose to walk up and was greeted with a mile decent to the finish line. Ride miles 108. 4 more than I planned on this miserable, rainy cold day but it will be a day I won't forget.

On Saturday night Kelly and I went to her mothers house in Sterling, Virginia and spent the night there. We are fortunate that she lived 20 miles away. We awoke Sunday morning to more rain, more cold temperature and gray skies. Driving back to the start line in Leesburg, VA we were 10 minutes from the fairgrounds when Kelly asked me if I put my front tire in the car. After looking in the trunk I realized I had forgotten it. So we did a U turn back to her mothers house. It was now 7:35 and there was 20 minutes of back tracking going on. No way could I make it to the startline by 8am which was the required leave time to leave the fairgrounds. So instead of going to the start we drove directly to rest stop 2 in Middleburg, VA so I could meet up with my friend Mike and ride the rest of the route with him. So total ride miles for Sunday was 18.

Well 126 miles later, a day off from work on Monday and having a deep tissue massage Im feeling good and ready to get back on the bike for another challenge.

Thanks again for your support.
Steve