Notes from RAGBRAI. With much anxiety I started RAGBRAI on Sunday with Doug and the 65 riders of the Pedaling for Parkinsons group. I know the disease continues to progress and I wasnt sure I was up to the ride. But as soon as we drove into Hull, IA and I saw old friends and new, I felt confident that the ride would be good, not fast, but good. We have seven riders with Parkinsons on our team, riding everything from recumbent tricycles, to tandems to solo bikes. Four men and three women, all early onset but me, and representing many stages and iterations of the disease. Weve been staying a the homes of friends and relatives and at retirement/nursing homes. The latter give me a sense of what may come someday. We find the staff uniformly kind and generous, and certainly welcoming to our group. I think we give them discussion topics for months to come. Sunday and Monday were windy but not too hot. Jay gave talks each evening and asked each of us to share our stories, inspiring to us as well as to the guests. Tues was a long day but fun and confirmed I can still ride day after day. Wed. Jay spoke again, this time to a much larger crowd and then he and I were interviewed by a TV reporter. kimt/2014/07/23/pedaling-for-parkinsons-a-woman-fights-symptoms-of-her-disease-with-her-bike/ The story played Wed. night and Thurs morning. Quite fun. Thurs our professional photographer, Lee, asked me to ride the last ten miles with him and a couple of the super riders so they could block out space and Lee could take action shots. I felt like a princess. Never had so much attention on a bike! We arrived in Waverly and didnt know how to get to the host house so we went to the fire station to ask and they ended up leading the way for us with a fire truck, more like a big pickup with fire gear. Much laughter and many photos. Today it poured and I got so cold I had early hypothermia so had to sag in. Hundreds of people packed the school cafeteria but the ladies took one look at me and hauled me into the kitchen and sat me down in front of the warming oven. Oh, the experiences I have with Parkinsons! Tomorrow is the last day. Glad we came.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 20:31:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015