This is a kind of journal of my experience in the 2002 MS 150 Bike Tour from Houston to Austin over April 20th and 21st. This ride is one of many such events all over the country helping to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. This event is not a race. Instead, it is a wholly non-competitive charity bike tour, so there are no prizes for the riders with the fastest times and nobody "wins".

The goal is to raise money to help the fight against multiple sclerosis, a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. Each rider participating in the event is responsible for doing a little bit of fundraising. The organizers have established a $300 minimum that each rider must collect in pledges and donations. With about 10,000 riders participating in 2002, that will raise a ton of money. The funds raised on the MS 150 Bike Tour provide equipment, financial assistance, self-help groups, counseling, information and resources, as well as education for people with MS and their families.

This was my second time riding in the MS 150 from Houston to Austin (I rode in once before in 1998). That year was quite an experience, as a freakish storm moved in overnight and caught almost everyone by suprise. We awoke on the first day to rainy 40 degree weather, not the sunny 70 degrees that had been forecast. Most of the 7,000 riders (myself included) were unprepared for cold, wet weather. It was an awful, miserable day - rain gear or not - and everyone looked like an unhappy wet cat. I'm proud to be one of the thousands who kept riding and completed the entire first day's riding in 1998, but perhaps that wasn't the wisest thing to do - about half of the 7,000 riders abondoned that day's riding with hypothermia due to the cold, wet conditions. As it turned out, the last 40 miles of the day were perfectly sunny and warm, and the second day was beautiful, too. I think most people were just happy to not be riding in the rain again. I guess it took a few years for me to shake the cold memories of the 1998 Tour and get motivated to ride with the MS 150 once again.

This brief news article was printed at a local news station website on Monday April 22, 2002:

The basic overview of the weekend is that the tour departed Houston on Saturday morning to cover 100 miles on the first day, everyone ate lots of food and slept Saturday night, and then we all got up bright and early for 85 more miles (with lots of hills, too) on the second day. But here's a little more detail about what happened on this year's MS 150 from Houston to Austin...

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This is a bike made for 4 people. What a machine! For those of you who have a discerning eye, you'll notice how much engineering there is (around the fork, for instance) to make it super strong. The bike has to support the weight of 4 adult riders. I didn't get a chance to see these guys out riding on the road, but I did see them at the end of the first day. I recall they were all wearing matching Bicycle Sport Shop jerseys, and one of the gals was very pleased when I shared that I had seen the bike in the hotel and upon close inspection, decided it must never have been ridden because it was so clean. Apparently it's been ridden many times, but she did an amazing job of cleaning it up.

This is my Pedal Partner bandana. It means I'm doing the ride on behalf of somebody who has MS. Some riders are Pedal Partners for people they've never met, and others (like me) have a Pedal Partner who is a friend. My Pedal Partner's name is Cuileann, she's very cool, and she lives here in Austin, Texas with her husband John (also a friend of mine, and riding buddy for the MS 150). Cuileann is one of several people I know who lives with MS.

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You have to get up very early on Saturday morning. You need time to wake up, shower, get dressed, get your things together for the ride, pack the rest up for transport, check out of the hotel, wait for the shuttle to take you to the stadium (where the ride departs), find your bike once you arrive, turn your bag in, get over to the starting arena and hope that there aren't several thousand people in front of you (if there are, it just takes that much longer for you to start riding). I think John and I were shooting to be as close to the 7am starting time as possible (again, the sooner you're there, the sooner you start riding). I brought a travel clock to use as backup.

I laid everything out the night before to make sure I didn't forget anything. I've learned that this much easier than trying to use my brain at some awful hour of the morning when all it wants to think about is sleep. For the curious among you, wondering what a person brings on a 100 mile bike ride... helmet, shoes, jersey, shorts, socks, gloves, two water bottles, two flasks of energy gel, several energy bars, two spare tubes, basic toolkit, sunglasses, cell phone, bike computer, patch kit, co2 cartidges, Pedal Partner bandana, and my camera.

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The shuttles that take us to the stadium. There were several school buses from our hotel, and our hotel was only one of many others. These few buses will carry just a trickle of the riders who will participate.

Ugh, it's still dark outside... who knows what time it is.

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Here's my evidence that there were many, many riders out there - number 10069. Now, to be fair, just because she had the number 10069 doesn't mean there are 10068 other people who are standing there with a bike waiting to ride. Often, they'll hand out numbers in chunks to different registration booths, so there might very well be gaps in the whole range of numbers. But it's pretty safe to say that there were thousands of riders out for the big ride.

Lots of picture taking at the starting area.

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This is a picture of all the riders in front of where I am. Way off in the distance is a stage with a bunch of people standing on it; they're the announcers. I don't think they even show up in this picture.

This is another picture from the same place as the previous one, only it's taken in the other direction. Look at how many people there are!

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I came across this guy about 20 miles into the first day. I chatted with him briefly, pretty nice guy. I asked how far he was planning to go, knowing that some folks will only ride the first day (which is still 100 miles). He said he was planning to ride all the way to Austin. Now, I used to ride a unicycle in high school, and I remember it being a LOT of work, primarily because you cannot coast on a unicycle like you can on most bicycles - the cranks are fixed to the revolutions of your wheel, so if the wheel is moving, so are your legs. I probably never rode it more than 2 or 3 miles at a time, and this guy was going for more than 180 over two days! What a monster...

Another shot of the unicyclist. I like how he's just cruising along with the guys on regular bikes.

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How long do you have to wait if you need to use a restroom during the MS 150? At this rest stop, you can see that the lines were not short. I waited about 15 minutes for a few friends to make pit stops here.

This is one of the rest stops, complete with tents handing out food and drinks, to bike mechanics and medics, to a few thousand riders milling around trying to remember why they wanted to stop.

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One of many tandems out on the ride. My wife and I had wanted to do this ride on our tandem, but it didn't work out so I rode it on my single.

A friendly fella who told me where he's from (I want to say North Carolina somewhere?) but I can't remember. I asked if I could snag a shot of his cool pig helmet, and he was more than happy to agree.

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If anyone tries to tell you there's no benefit to riding fast in the MS 150, show 'em this picture. This is one of the huge stretches at the camp area at the end of the first day. I got in around 2:30 pm and was very pleased to avoid the lines that would develop as the day went on.

The same thing applied to the showers, as well as the massage tables. I opted to get a massage first, and then go stand in line for a shower. Good choice, I think. While I was standing in line for a shower, I overheard dozens of people lamenting the long lines at the massage tables. Ha!, I thought, that was the first thing I did after arriving.

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I took this shot of the overnight bike parking when I arrived at 2:30. You can see rows and rows of bike racks with only a few hundred bikes (maybe a thousand?) scattered about....

... but then I came back that evening to take another few shots, and this is what it looked like. Definitely more bikes present.

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Father and daughter out for a little cruise around the camping area.

This is a picture of my friends John and Cuileann at the Saturday night dinner. John and I rode various chunks of the ride together.

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This is a shot of me, my wife Jana, John and Cuileann.

This is where we slept on Saturday night, probably sometime around 6am on Sunday morning when this picture was taken. Being typical Texas weather, it was about 80 degrees outside overnight, so we were very pleased to find this air-conditioned oasis with ample floorspace for us and a number of other lucky riders. Basically, if you stumbled upon this building and could find a spot to claim, you were set.

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While Jana didn't officially participate in the ride, she met up with me along the ride course and we rode together for a little while. It was fun to share the massive bike ride experience with her (she's done plenty of other riding, including lots of large group rides, but the MS 150 is in a category all by itself).