MS 150 Bike Ride – Day 2

Embarrassing, I’m finally getting around to telling you about day 2 of my bike ride that took place over two months ago? Seriously that’s really sad, but if anyone still cares…here’s what happened.

First let me point you to this picture of Frank and I at the finish line of day 1. Those are two guys that look like they’ve just accomplished something big…and we did…except neither one of us started day 2 of the ride. It turns out that Frank, who I’ll affectionately call “Speed Demon” for the duration of this post, was so fast on his new bike that he threw his back out. He was pretty sore when we sat down post ride in front of the Cowboy’s preseason game. For the record we also devoured a fantastic pizza but I can’t remember where it was from. Anyway, the next morning when we got up to get ready for the start of the ride Frank was feeling it pretty bad, not to mention he couldn’t really stand up straight. By the time we showed up at the start line to pick up our bikes he’d decided he would scratch from day 2.

Shortly after talking with Frank I started wheeling my bike toward the start line and I noticed my back tire was catching on the back brake pretty severely. It seemed like the wheel was bent but since I hadn’t fallen I wasn’t sure how that would have happened. I wheeled the bike over to the mechanic and he pointed out I had a broken spoke. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the last leg of the route on day 1 was in terrible condition. I must have broken the spoke during that section of the ride. Unfortunately, the mechanics didn’t have any spare spokes on hand so I was pretty much dead in the water.

Admittedly I was a little relieved to be done since I would have been riding without Speed Demon to set my pace and we had also heard the wind gusts were predicted to be up to 30 mph head winds. Nasty. Since we had both scratched from the ride we inquired about taking the sag wagon back to the finish line but the driver said it would basically take all day to get back to Ankeny. We then called Dave to come pick us up yet again at an hour of the morning he would not have seen had we not called. After the trip back to Ankeny we picked up Arkay and went out for a mid-morning breakfast before Frank and I headed home. We were both disappointed to not have finished the ride but it was also great to spend more time with Dave and Arkay.

It also gave us some extra time to plot which ride we’d take part in next year. Would it be Minnesota, Wisconsin, Hawaii (seriously it’s possible)? We haven’t decided yet but we’ll let you know.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our ride, we appreciate it but those with MS appreciate it even more. Thank you.