Total

I was able to raise $655 for the ACS.
Thank you very much!!!

Donations

I will be delivering a check to the ACS today(tuesday, sept 13)
Thank you to everyone! Your donations, support and encouragement were very appreciated!

I will still accept late donations and pass those along as they come in, but everything that I have today will be dropped of this afternoon.


If you would like to mail me a check or hand deliver (check or cash) to me, then email me @ TheBret@gmail.com and I will give you information to make that happen.
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Thank you for donating!
100% of donations go to the American Cancer Society.

Final leg

I did it, i made it!
4 days 21hrs and 30 mins
I biked 723 miles for the total trip. (i had est. over 800, but that was just a guess)
It was a perfect end to the trip, as the weather was nice and cool and i didnt get rained on.

I cant explain the feeling of accomplishment that i have right now, its so good to be done!
Thanks again to everyone that offered words of encouragement, support and help.

Donations can still be made for another week or so. If you want to mail them to me, thats fine, just email me for an address to send it to. Ill be dropping a check off at the ACS after i get back from Germany.

There will be a few more updates over the next few days, and hopefully some pictures also!

- Bret

Leg #5

I am now in Bay city. it was a very long day, but the weather was very nice. there was only some strong head winds to battle, but ill take that over the rain anyday!
i realized while i was riding today that a lot of the posts are not very positive. they seem dry and almost negative, and thats not what what i intended. i think the reason for this is that they are all written at the end of the day, when i am the most tired and sore. the days post should be written while i am on the road, flying down a hill, going much faster than the bike was ever intended to go, with cars flying by me head on, just inches from my handlebars. or maybe when i crest a hill, after fighting it all the way up, only to see a beautiful landscape in every direction. its times like that when the posts should be written, but they cant be. i just wanted everyone to know that its not all doom and gloom out here. i WANTED to do this trip, i wasnt forced to do it. i took vacation days from work to do this. i just wanted to clear up that not everything is bad, there have been plenty of great moments along the trip. its just not easy, thats all.
back to what happened today.
it was a slow start, i slept through 3 alarms, so i got going later than i wanted to. once i got going it took quite awhile to warm up, but then my right knee began to act up. it has given me problems before on the trip, but i can usually adjust to make it go away. this time it kept getting worse, so i had to pedal with one leg for a few miles. that didnt work out, so it was grind through the butt AND knee pain now.
it got to the point where i was going less than 10mph, and stopping about every mile or so. i finally got to a kmart and picked up two important items: aleve and a "granny cruiser special" bike seat. i took too many aleve, and swapped out the seat, the seat worked out great right away. the aleve kicked in about an hour later, and worked out better than i had hoped. it was then that i really kicked into high gear and covered some serious ground. i made it into pinconning with less than an hour of daylight left, but decided that i wasnt done yet. i pressed on another 20 miles and made it into bay city in the dark. it was 135 miles today, and a top speed of 39! (that hill was huge!)
i am looking forward to getting the last leg done tomorrow, as i need to be back so that i can depart for Germany on tuesday afternoon. not much time to recover, but ill be ok as long as i can get packed and sleep in my own bed.
im sure this trip has taken some years off my life, but it has been a very good experience overall. thanks again to everyone that is following, supporting or otherwise helping me get throgh this.

i will have a short post tomorrow after i finish, but hopefully a more detailed one to follow while i am overseas, maybe filling in some missing points from some of the previous days.

its very late now, and i still have some work to do tomorrow... not done yet.

time for bed.

Leg #4

today was rough. i traveled from traverse city north, on 31 up to petoskey. it rained the whole time, and didnt let up until an hour or so after petoskey. i made a decision today, to modify my route. i chopped off the northern most section and skipped mackinaw and cheboygan, and shot across from petoskey to rogers city. i did this for a few reasons, but the biggest ones were weather and time. when i got to rogers city, i still had a little bit of daylight left, so i decided to go south to alpena, where i am staying the night. i rode about 177 miles today, but again dont have good numbers due to the rain taking its toll on the bike computer, still.
as for my body, everything feels ok so far except for my rear end, it is basically raw. i think its a combo of long hours and rain that are really taking its toll. my legs and hands are sore, but usable. my feet are destroyed from being in wet socks so much, but dont hurt. im very tempted to try to put one of those hemeroid doughnuts on my bike seat for the rest of the trip! i had to bike standing up for the last 12-15 miles inyo alpena, because i couldnt sit down. not fun. hopefully this was not too much information for everyone...
i will be attempting to get down to the bay city area tomorrow, and then home on monday, if all goes as planned. weather doesnt look great for tomorrow, but we'll see what happens

thanks again to all of you who are reading this, passing it along to others or in some other way supporting me. i really do appreciate it.

Leg #3

Very long day. got very wet from some thunderstorms that came off the lake, and im still very sore. 

Im in Traverse City now, with a long day ahead of me tomorrow. i started very early this morning, and plan to do the same tomorrow. bike computer didnt like the rain, so i dont have any numbers this time, but google says i went about 146 miles today. thats all for now, i need to rest. thanks to all who are following me, its very encouraging.

i wish i had more time to make these posts a bit more detailed, but i have no energy left at the end of the day, and i can fill in with more detail after the ride is completed.

Leg #2

I made it Muskegon today, short of my goal, but still in one piece.
there was a slight issue today, when I was rolling through Grand Rapids.
I was on the sidewalk clipping along at around 17-18mph, when i saw a red car stop for me short of the next driveway. as i was crossing, the person driving accelerated and ran right into me. she must not have seen me, as she was talking on her phone, but to make things worse, as i'm trying to get up she backs up and races for a different exit to the parking lot. this was not an ideal time to get hit, as i was in a very bad part of town. it took a bit of time to get the bike adjusted and back to an operational state. i rode away very sore, but that was it. i wasnt able to ride as fast from that point on, as my knee and shoulder took the brunt of the fall. i would hope that i could have made it farther had this not happened, but i cant say that for certain. the bike computer is not happy anymore, so the only figures that I have are 118 miles traveled today with 13.5 mph average. i dont have time or max speed, but i started around 8am, got to the hotel around 8, and would guess that i was in the saddle for 9 or so hours.
Tomorrows route will be modifed to accept this change, but im not sure to what extent. I will try to get out at sunrise and get an early start.
Thanks to all those following!

Still not able to post pictures, will try to solve that soon.