My 5th year riding to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. This year I rode a total of 180 miles in 2 days and 27 donors gave over $1100 to support my effort. Overall there were over 2400 riders in this event raising about 1.6 million dollars (total figures not in yet) to help find a cure for and to directly support the over 5200 people in our part of the state who are living with MS. Some of these people are close friends and many we have come to know from doing these yearly rides.
Karen and I rode the Multiple Sclerosis Society's Historic New Bern Bicycle Tour on Saturday, September 11 and Sunday, September 12 to raise money for the MS Society and to support our friends and the thousands of folks in Eastern North Carolina who have Multiple Sclerosis. This is the "ride report" that I sent out to my donors but I wanted to share it here, too. This is a special event for me and I always encourage my friends to join us. Yes, you could do this, too. More info at the bottom of the post. Thanks to my friends who helped me raise $1500 for the Eastern North Carolina Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society!
September 26th and 27th I'll be riding to raise money to help find a cure for multiple sclerosis. I will be joining more than 2,000 other cyclists for the 2009 MS Bike Tour “BB&T Tour to Tanglewood” which will benefit the Central North Carolina Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We will be riding a minimum of 90 hilly miles over 2 days to help end the devastating effects of multiple sclerosis, a chronic, often-disabling disease of the central nervous system that strikes people in the prime of life.
On September 13th and 14th Karen and I rode the Bike MS Historic Bike Tour out of New Bern, NC to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We rode a total of 175 miles - 100 on Saturday and 75 on Sunday. For both of us Saturday was our first "century" (100 mile) ride so it was an extra special occasion. We also both raised over $1000 (over $1350 for me) for MS thanks to the generous help of our friends.
The luxury of being self employed. I managed to adjust my schedule to accommodate a weekly Wednesday morning bicycle ride with the Tarwheels. I've been doing this almost every week since August when I started training in earnest for the MS150 Bicycle Tour. What was a 9:00 AM ride became 10:00 AM when daylight savings time ended and then starting in December it became 11:00 AM. Figure about 3 hours for about 40 miles plus rest stop plus a little socializing before/after the ride. That's a big chunk out of the day. Plus shower, change clothes, and somehow I manage to work up a huge appetite so there's an extra meal in there somewhere. The people are wonderful and the scenery is great. I've learned more back roads in my area in the last six months than in the whole 25+ years I've been living here.
Thanks to all my friends who donated to our MS150 ride. Well, it turned out to be the MS105 ride. Tropical storm Gabrielle caused the ride directors to cut the Sunday course down to 30 miles in case the weather turned nasty so no one would be stuck too far out. As it was, we rode through a couple of rain squalls but nothing too bad. But Saturday's 75 mile course was beautiful and we took a leisurely pace through the flat countryside around New Bern. That was after a bit of a rough start. Karen and I got separated at the start - so many people on bikes!!!
