New Jersey is NOT flat

Today was a butt kicker!

We started off the morning with a moment of silence at exactly 8:46 am, the exact momemt United Flight 11 struck the northface of the north tower of the WTC. It was a very sobering moment thinking of that day, all the lives lost and how it changed our country. I think many of us said a silent prayer. I know I did. We then departed the hotel and rode 10 miles to Liberty Park on the Jersey side of the Hudson River. Looking across the river you can see the area of the 9-11 attacks in lower Manhatten and the new Freedom Tower. After a brief ceremony there we loaded and departed for the ride to Princeton, NJ.

350 riders departed with an escort by the NJ State Police in patrol cars and the American Legion riders on Harley Davidson motorcycles. It was pretty cool. Those NJ cops and American Legion riders don't take any static from anyone and totally shut down the roads for us along our route.

Funny thing...when I went through basic training in NJ in 1987, there were no hills. They have grown a few since then and it seemed like we were going up hill the entire time. I won't bore you with stories of Mari and I sucking down wind or narrowly escaping Tour De France spectacular type crashes and just cut to the chase. It was hard, but we both completed the first day with very respectable times. A total of 61.5 miles! A personal best for both of us. Did I mention that the entire thing was up hill? All kidding aside, it did seem like we were going up hill the whole time and we are both very grateful for the pushers that helped us along the way. The pushers come up along side of you and one or two will stack up on you and place their hand in your lower back, or grab the hocky stick attached to my hand cycle, and give you a boost up hill. That along with staying in the draft makes life much easier, but after 61 miles, we were near muscle failure.

Tonight we will both sleep like babies...and probably cry like babies when we have to move our sore muscles in the morning. Tomorrow we will knock out another 54 miles through down Philadelphia, PA. HOOAH!

Each day of the ride we ride in tribute or memory of people dear to us. Tomorrow we will ride in memory of our friend CW3 Steve Redd and will say a prayer before we begin the ride and carry his photo with us. We will draw inspiration and strength from him memory. There will be a separate blog in the morning dedicated to Steve.