Clip from Odyssey Video
© 2000 MYA and TK&A
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Clip from Odyssey Video
© 2000 MYA and TK&A
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The rest of this page tells what happened during the year 2000. |
The Odyssey 2000 Bike Ride is a round-the-world bicycle ride that includes 45 countries and 20,000 miles of biking. Pictures of the ride will be posted regularly on the official page and on www.biketheworld.com, www.worldriders.com, Al Young's daily diary (GOOD) , and many other sites. Read the Seattle-PI article of December 29 for a mention of me as the oldest rider. I get publicity this way.
My strength has improved tremendously this year. I feel more like 60 than
80 years old. Scrapes and bruises that took 30 days to heal when I began now
heal in 10 days. I feel great!
A rider who is a reporter has an interview with me to be aired on KOMO-4 sometime around Thanksgiving Day. The picture is from the www.worldriders.com page in China on Oct 15.
-Elbert, one of the riders, is about 80 years old. He rides every day, but is
slow. Consequently, he has never been able to finish a ride before dark, and,
therefore, has always SAG'd in. Well, now that it's light until 9;00, he has
more time. At about 8:00, Elbert walked into dinner and received a
spontaneous standing ovation. It was the first time he completed a ride on
his own. -Everyone was really happy for him. It's actually pretty impressive
to think the poor guy was on his bike for 12 hours!
. . .
-I just heard that the last rider is about 76 miles from the end. This time
of day, that would probably be Elbert. (Anita would have either SAG'd,
hitched or hired a taxi by now.)
It was easier riding through Mexico - flatter. It was
hilly through Panama and Costa Rica. I haven't had a chance to take out my computer
or camera because I've been so busy riding! We now ride through Chile and
Argentina, then fly to South Africa. The air lifts have been a problem,
with the planes having to go back for a second load because we have so much
stuff. They are saying that next time we will get a 747. This is kind of
fun and I am getting faster, stronger and sturdier. The mail is slow and
probably takes 3-4 weeks to get here.
There are about 60 web sites for riders and the beginnings of a web-ring that links them randomly together. www.biketracks.net/photo.htm has this picture of me from the Rose Parade on her site along with many other photos of the group. They started us 10 minutes early in the parade to get us out of the way, hence the TV coverage mostly missed us. San Diego started their coverage early, so we were included there.
The new bike has taken some getting used to. After falling a few times and getting scraped up due to the drop handlebars, I am now getting along a bit better. The scars are healing.
All in all I am OK and hope to use the camera a bit more when there is some daylight and time to catch a breath during the day. I have sent one package of clothes and things back and will be mailing another and hopefully some souvenirs!
Stephen and I left around 9:30 am on 12/29/1999 from Stephen's house in my pickup truck after packing and cleaning all night. Yes, that's right. Cleaning my office at APL of 25 years of accumulation of experiments which included a disassembled Yugoslavian motorcycle. Now there is one interesting 60 lb motorcycle, but back to the subject. It was a good 21-hour ride to L.A. I am currently in the Burbank Hilton and Convention Center about 20-minutes from the parade route. This is where all the riders are getting their gear packed up into lockers that will go with us. There are 18 paid staff taking the trip and things are quite well organized. Stephen has returned home and I am going through orientation sessions with the group. We are practicing formation riding for the Rose Parade and getting tips on things like what to do when a non-Odyssey rider joins us in the parade and tries to become part of the group (just stay in formation). The ride has all spaces (250) filled. I am very busy and have not had any time even to get to a phone except this one call to Gerard. I expect not to be able to communicate much. It may be another week before the next phone call. One sense of the orientation is that the bicycling part of the trip is thought to be minor compared to solving the various logistics of getting 250 riders and support people around the world. Biking is just the way we will arrive at our next problem to solve.
I am very excited to be here and beginning this adventure!
Stephen returned in a 27-hour drive. Shannon and Robyn also were on their way to L.A.
