I’ve been on vacation this week. There hasn’t been a lot of blogging going on during that time. I have enjoyed watching the Tour De France each morning and you can see a few tweets from those times. I also spent some time to getting the Ride for Mike planned out.

Things are progressing quite well. We are now less than two months away from the first pedal stroke! We are also just now crossing a milestone. Going into August the Ride will have raised $10,000! Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us reach this goal. There is still time and more opportunities to raise funds for the Michael T. McCaskill Memorial Scholarship Fund.

There have been some changes from the first plans. The Ride will now start in Moscow, TN instead of Memphis. That is a good thing for me because it cuts off about 50 miles in the overall length. It keeps the distance much closer to 700 miles.

So, now I’ll ride from Tennessee through Mississippi with the first stop coming in Alabama. This is the Moscow, TN to Muscle Shoals, AL. This is the beginning and will start off as a challenge. I’m going to attempt over 100 miles this first day. It is important to get the miles early because the terrain gets tougher toward the end and I’m sure I’m going to be tired. I’d like to have those last days with sub-century rides.

Day Two now has me riding nearly 120 miles. Here is hoping for a major tailwind! That is one of the reasons for starting in the west and heading east. The chances of tailwinds will be much greater. This day I hope the wind will be pushing me from Muscle Shoals to Collinsville, Alabama.

It is also important for me to get in as many miles as possible these first days because I really want to arrive in Greenville by Wednesday. If I can do that, I will be able to start cutting back on the distances Thursday to Saturday. If I have to, I also have the safety valve of being able to use Sunday at the tail of the week to finish the route.

Am I ready? No. I am not ready. Regardless how I feel, I’ve got to get the legs going when I get back to Greenville. I hope that not long after I am brace free I will be able to get back on the road. It will be a while before I’ll take the risk of riding in a group, but I cannot put off getting in some road miles.

Stay tuned! More daily routes to come…

 

Tags: Ride for Mike, Routes

This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 10:18 am and is filed under Events, Rides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.