Fellowship United Methodist Church

I wasn't able to blog last night because I couldn't get to a computer but yesterday was a 50 mile ride from Hiawassee to Dahlonega.  I rode with a great friend of mine, Mark Gernazian and a young semi pro rider named Daniel.  Those two guys are REALLY fast but very gracious to wait on me to catch up on the climbs.  First we climbed for 10 miles up to 2547 feet followed by a 10 mile descent into Helen.  What a blast!  I have learned to love gravity in descents because I was even faster than Mark and Daniel.  I hit a top speed of 56 mph but had a couple of hairy moments when another ride pulled in front of me, forcing me into the reflectors on the center line, and another when we ran into traffic and had to slow down for the cars.  Yep, it is pretty cool to go faster than cars down a hill on a bicycle.  The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful except for a nasty cramp in my left quad while climbing a narly hill (had to get off for about 5 minutes and rub the cramp out.).  Overall we were much faster than I normally ride on my own but we were the first into camp that morning and got in the showers before anyone else.

Today we rode from Dahlonega to Mt. Airy for a total of 47 miles.  I started the ride with Daniel from the day before and another Daniel who works for Mark at Cycleworks.  These two guys are super fast compared to an old fat man like me so after about 8 miles I told them not to wait on me.  I rode most of the day by myself except for about 10 miles with a father and son named Harvey and Matt.  Matt was a little scary because he had never ridden in a pace line and we were averaging about 20 mph.  I don't like the idea of crashing so when they stopped at a rest stop I went on ahead.  Had a great time chasing the next riders in front of me and then talking to them for a while before moving on.  The cycling community is a very eclectic crowd and you get to meet all forms of humanity.  I ended up the day with an average of 18.7 mph and felt pretty good about it.

Now for the real reason I am on this ride.  Right now I have a seriously stiff lower back (spell that p-a-i-n), but you know what?  It is nothing compared to the pain of families in our community whose lives are falling apart and they just need a hand up to change their family tree.  I have set a personal goal to raise $10,000 on my own and through our church to go toward the $60,000 our coalition needs to build that first house.  We are not there yet but God is providing.  Tonight I had dinner with a friend and mentor who handed me another check to support what we are doing.  Doing a great thing is never easy, and can sometimes be painful, but together we can share the burden, ease the pain and accomplish amazing things.   I am gladly giving a week of my vacation to make a family's life better.  Is there somthing you can give?