The Tour of Hope DC Charity ride took place last Saturday. Or should have taken place. Unfortunately Tropical Storm Tammy decide to stop by and deliver 7+ inches of rain. It ended up still being a good experience, all be it a little soggy. The good news is that the ride raised over $1.4 million, and I helped collect $709 which I think is amazing!! Thank you to everyone who contributed!!
Ride Photos: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=b39fgtf.9369nttf&x=0&y=mnieq8
The Recap:
I woke up at 3am on Saturday in order to catch the bus to the start of the ride in Columbia, MD. It was pouring out and it had been raining for the past day. The rain wasn’t too bad though because it was 70 out. The bus left from the J.W. Marriott in Downtown DC so I biked down there. There roads were empty, so it was actually sort of fun, even though I got soaked. When I got down to the Marriott there were already about 500 people waiting to load up their bikes into a moving truck and hop on a bus to the start. There was coffee and pastries so it wasn’t too bad a wait.
The amazing thing about all of this is that people were not complaining, at all. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits. A lot of people were just happy to have a concrete way to help out, especially against something so random.
Once I got on the bus, I ended up sitting next to one of the riders from last years cross-country ride. For the entire bus ride he was telling great stories, about his ride, the people he meet and of course riding with Lance. The thing that amazed him the most was the kind of support they got while riding. School marching bands would setup and play from them as they rode by. Farmers would line up there tractors along the side of the road. His favorite time was when they had been bike through the night in Iowa. The sun had just come up and they were riding through the fields. As they got close to the edge of a town they could see a sea of yellow. An entire elementary school had come down to see them ride by. ( of course they stopped 
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Anyhow to continue, by the time we had made it up to Columbia, MD we had all pretty much come to terms with the fact that we would be riding in the pouring rain for the next 4 hours. Also the bus had the AC on so I was near hypothermia with my wet clothes on… or at least it seemed. So we can see the tents for the start and are about to pull into the driveway when a lady comes on the bus and announces that the ride has been called off. A number of the roads we were going to use had been flooded and the local police had revoked the permits. Everyone was pretty disappointed but took it pretty well. So it is about 6:00AM and we head back to DC.
Sitting across the aisle were two ladies who had driven down from Minnesota for the ride, and took the news surprisingly well, considering. That was one thing that became apparent from the start, it is tough to complain because someone there had either done more to be there or been through worse. One of the ladies who had driven down lost both her grandmother and mother to breast cancer and had tested positive for the gene herself. Things like that make four hours in the rain not seem so bad.
I made it back to my place around 8:30 and took a long, warm shower. After breakfast I went back downtown to watch the cross country riders arrive. I got some photos of that and a rally afterwards. I also managed to get some photos of Lance but unfortunately I didn’t see Sheryl! Next time !! So basically I was really glad I was able to be a part of this and I want to thank everyone for there contributions that allowed for that. I would have been nice to be able to ride, but it was still a great experience.
The Photos:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=b39fgtf.9369nttf&x=0&y=mnieq8
Thanks!
-Luke Klein-Berndt