Tour de Cure - 22 April 2006

This year Tour de Cure was windy and stormy, but nevetheless was a huge success with probably more than 800 participants at the start of the Hickory High School in Chesapeake.
I left home at 6:00 am to go pick-up Mike at his home and on to the start. There, like many others, we registered, prepared our bikes and ourselves for the ride to come. We were all aware of those threatening storms for the afternoon and of the fact that we would likely face a strong head wind all the way down to Manteo, NC.
For the first part of the ride, we stayed with Jack and Donna, Reed, Mike Rogers, Mike Scott and myself. At some point, part of the group went ahead, Reed got dropped and Mike Scott and me stayed behind at our pace. As usual, we skipped the first two rest stops, took the third and then kept going until the lunch stop in Coinjock.
After lunch, Reed rejoigned us and we let the others go ahead. The wind kept blowing hard, 20 to 25 mph in our face, but we were making steady progress at our own pace. A stop at mile 78 allowed us to stretch a little and rest before confronting that damn wind again.
We crossed the Wright Memorial bridge to Kitty Hawk faster than I had ever done it, riding at 20/21 mph all the way across.
Alas, the story changed as we reached the Kitty Hawk rest stop at the fire station. Then, the fire people told us that a line of strom was fast approaching the course and advised us very strongly to get a ride back in their box truck.
Which we did. As the picture shows, this was the hardest part of the ride and Mike had to concentrate very hard to get there.
Anyway, another Tour de Cure behind us.
Until next year. . . . .