Day 40 (Thur 8/6/09)

Roanoke Boys and Girls Club!

What a great group of kids!!

Yesterday Tomorrow

(This is cool if you like lots of data! It may take a few seconds to load but you can hit play and time compress our ride. )

DAILY REPORT: Weather -- After the thunderstorm last night, the weather was cool and slightly foggy. No rain the forecast for today. Yea!! Starting temp - mid 60's with expected temps in the mid 80's again.

Today we have a meeting w/ the Roanoke Boys and Girls Club starting at 1600. The mileage for today

was a little over 95 miles. In reviewing the maps last night it looked like I could shave off some mileage by departing from the TransAmerican Route and taking RT11 for most the way. This would reduce our trip today to ~75 miles. We needed to be on the road a little earlier than what we had been doing. We had our normal continental breakfast basically loading up on what was available. Today their pastries and waffles were the hot items.

It was cooler more than usual this morning and I decided to wear my arm warmers. The ride began with our normal roller coaster of hills and 15 miles later we were climbing Draper Mtn to get over to Pulaski. As we were passing through the outskirts of town John broke a front spoke. The repair of the front wheel while on the rode is pretty easier if you have a replacement spoke (which we did). John was back and riding in no time.

We met Skip for lunch in Christianburg. Our lunch was a little shorter than usual so we could get on the road. We were making good time. The plan was to be at the Hampton Inn NLT 1500 so that we could take a quick shower and be heading over to the B&G club. On the way out of town John hit a large pot hole and blew his front tire (#6; but who's counting) and upon inspection had also shredded the rubber of the tire. I gave Skip a call and asked him to come back to our location so we could get a replacement tire out of the trailer. Skip was back in no time, we swapped out with our spare front tire and we were on our way. Fortunately for us, the remaining 25 miles was mostly down hill. As such we were at the hotel by 1430.

Skip had talked with the Hampton Inn Hotel and had gotten us 2 free rooms. Thank you very

much! The Hampton Inn was just perfect. Very nice place. Skip had already checked in but was now out looking for a bike shop to have them "true" John's front and back rims and to replace the broken back spoke. John found the East-Coast Bicycles. Not only did they immediately start truing the wheel; once done they wouldn't take any money. They appreciated what we were doing for the WWP. Thanks so much for your help!!

We arrived at the Boys and Girls Club right at 4 PM. As we pulled into the parking lot, there were 20 or so youth holding signs welcoming us!! We unloaded one of the bikes and went into the auditorium/cafeteria. We talked about our bike trip and the boys answered questions. There were a lot of good questions. We then went out to take a group picture of everyone and

then the boys finished up by signing autographs w/ all the kids. (Made them feel like rock stars!!). After that we had a Skype teleconference with the Boys and Girls Club of NAs Oceana. They are getting ready for our arrival. Some of the youth are going to met us at the beach and then on Monday they are hosting a luncheon for us and then we will do our presentation. Tyrell McElroy is running a great program and the kids are just awesome!!

Tomorrow we will be traveling to Keysville. The weather looks like it will be good

as well.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY
Our daily morning shot. Today we are standing in front of 1969 Chevy Chaville.	James brought along a can of Red Bull to give him "wings" to help climb this section of road.
James found a praying mantis. He was pretty cool.	First time I had seen a sign like this on our travels!! This was in the town of Pulaski. A big BZ for taking care of bikers!!
James and John giving out autographs. They were very funny to watch.	John and James video dancing w/ the kids. Everyone seemed to enjoy the show. I would have had two left feet for this.