Day 1 - The Big One

Due to a family wedding in Pennsylvania this year I was unable to make the first day of the ride.  Instead I spent the first day getting up way too early after a late night to catch a flight back to Albuquerque.  I touched down in ABQ around noon, went home and quickly loaded up my stuff and strapped Guiseppe the bike to the roof and headed off to Santa Fe and the ride center.

Our team flag and our mascot Domo!

I arrived just in time to see the majority of the team cross the finsh line.  It was great to see the team hanging together as 12 riders crossed at the same time.  That speaks a lot to how well our team gelled this year - I know that some of the riders were much faster than the rest, but they decided to all stick together and cross as a team.   And today was a tough one, we had 16 riders do the full 88 mile ride.  I personally was sorry I missed it, but my behind was pleased to sit this one out!

The Penultimates crossing the finish line day 1.

After that we had fun at our ride tent welcoming in the last of the riders.  We gathered again at the ride center later that evening for the banquet.  It consisted of a lot of hungry riders eating a lot of food.  As in the past three years, Dave Bexfield, the driving force behind the fantastic ActiveMSers website, showed a very funny and moving tale of his story.  Diagnosed in 2006, he had a very aggressive MS that quickly debilitated him.  He underwent experimental stem cell therapy two years ago and is slowly regaining much of what MS has robbed from him.  His movies always make me tear up as I feel a close bond to him.  His ActiveMSers was the sole informational site that didn't make me want to scream in terror when I was trying to make sense of my new diagnosis back in 2007.  He has such an upbeat outlook on life, and was determined not to let MS drag him down.  So it was fantastic to see he was doing so well.  If you haven't seen them, check out his series of videos part 1 (where I appear very briefly around 12:01) and the most recent part 2 as well as specifics of his therapy and why the fundraising for MS research is so important here.  Tell me you don't tear up a little watching these.

One of the neat thing is watching people new to the ride come realize how special this event is.  Many of my teammates came just expecting a nice challenging bike ride, but became very moved by the whole event.  Everyone there is touched by MS in some way, from the volunteers at the rest stops and ride center to other riders.  The feeling that everyone there is participating in something much bigger than themselves, as they truly become part of the fight against this crappy disease.  They were honored to participate in the event and already have committed to next years ride.

We finished up the night by beating the crap out of MS with a stick (or at least a MS pinata made by my teammate Chris).  We recruited kids from the ride center to take some swings until the thing split open spilling its treasure of tootsie rolls and Clif bars (it was a cycling event after all!)  I turned in early ready for tomorrows ride!