Post #14:
Looking back to my original notes, it seems there were no photos or events of interest for June 13, 1995. I recall needing to rack the bike, without permission to ride it through tunnels and across various bridges and Interstate Highway Systems. Carl Lebman got me safely through the tip of NJ, and across the PA state line, to somewhere between Morristown and Randolph, PA. (Each picture has more details.)
~~~
Picture #026b
Here
is an excerpt from the July 5, 1995, Pride Ride News (written on the
road, by Jim): "This is not the fun trip our Project Manager Carl Lebman
anticipated. Some of his daily chores are: coordinating media
interviews, scheduling stops at AIDS Agencies, arranging all lodging and
meals, automobile upkeep, communication with two base stations,
continuous marketing (and tee shirt sales) including
on-the-road live radio announcements, entertainment, tracking Jim's
every biking move, insuring cellular link-ups from city to city (quite a
task in 1995), lining up sponsors for routine nutritional and medical
supplies, camp fires (a closeted pyromaniac), and much more. Carl is
not just support, but an integral part of this unfolding story, (even
when he is not in photographs or the lime light)." (Picture from June
11, 1995)
— with Lebman Carl
— with Lebman Carl
And
if all that was not enough, he had to arrange for our own USAIDS 5,000
PRIDE RIDE news mailings, and collect mail and supplies, air-expressed,
for 3 full months. He would make sure I had notes like this, and the
newspaper articles which accompanied it, as morale boosters. Now, what
about MILEAGE? New Google Maps would indicate the actual routes we
traveled totaled 5,727 miles, not counting another
few hundred riding around in cities and for promos. Yet, my book AN
IMPOSSIBLE DREAM STORY suggested that my trip ended some 200 miles
short; which I actually did make up when returning to Buffalo. So,
where did that other twelve-hundred miles go? You guessed it. I
needed on several occasions to rack the bike, for unforeseen road
problems, detours, and distances too far to keep me on time schedule for
planned events. The end result was that I still bicycled 5,000 miles,
yet only Carl is proof of that. Too bad we didn't have GPS back in
1995. (Picture from August 7, 1995)
No comments:
Post a Comment