How This Adventure Began

It really started about 40 years ago. We spent a good bit of those lazy summer days riding our 10-speeds back and forth to the Scottsboro community center. Softball, ping-pong, box-hockey, and an occasional game of croquet ball burnout kept us out of trouble while filling our time between the weekly lawn mowings. Mine was a yard sale special Huffy Scout with parts bought from Big K and a personally, but not perfectly, executed custom bright blue spray paint finish. His was a white Raleigh Grand Prix, bought used from a 6'4" basketball player, making it long on fit and miles, but short on gears due to its missing front derailleur.

Those were days before gps, cyclometers and drivers licenses, so we never really knew how far we rode or how many feet we climbed, and the only limit to our noodling was dinner time. Speaking of dinner, it was probably during one on one particular summer evening when the topic came up of a family vacation up to Toledo. This was not unusual, as we normally made one or two trips each year from Nashville to visit relatives. What was unusual was that the two of us decided it would be fun to start a week early on our bikes instead of the normal family-of-five-in-a-Suburban routine. "A hundred miles a day for five days, no problem. We'll meet you there, Pops."

Pops didn't shoot down the idea. On the contrary, he began helping us plan it. He began peppering us with questions we would need to answer to successfully complete our new mission. "What will you eat? Where will you sleep? What happens if it rains? How will you fix a mechanical issue?" Hmm, maybe this wouldn't be so simple after all.

As the logistical challenges grew, our enthusiasm shrunk. In my imagination, I had envisioned us riding fast and carefree down country roads, out-sprinting dogs, winds always to our backs, miles of infinite sunshine. But reality had begun painting an entirely different picture. This new vision was one of towing a bicycle trailer full of supplies, setting up and tearing down a campsite each night, running out of food that our adolescent metabolisms seemed to crave 24 hours a day, and pedaling endless miles in waterlogged Levis and Stan Smiths.

We never did pin those pesky details to the mat that summer. It was easier to postpone the trip to the following summer, giving us more time to fully plan our grand adventure. The following summer arrived, but our bike ride didn't. Summers passed by, then came college, careers and families, and we never did take that long bike ride. Which brings us to the here and now, still dreaming of that long bike ride, but with a puncher's chance of actually pulling it off.

We'll be posting daily to this blog our progress along the way, hope you enjoy our adventure.

The McBRAAM cast of characters is:

Lance McElhaney: older brother, generally good guy who first proved it was actually possible to ride 100 miles without keeling over, spends most of his cycling season chasing very fast riding mates around the corn fields of Indiana, husband of Monica and father of Hannah and Claire who think he's crazy for sitting on his bike so long and so often, and responsible for all pragmatic thought.

Les McElhaney: younger brother, more than happy to follow in his older brother's footst...er...draft for the entire ride if he can get away with it, generally low on cycling talent but high on enthusiasm, also known as Island Boy for his frequent sorties around the Hawaiian Islands, husband of Kathy the marathoner, and responsible for not getting us lost (too often).

Bill "Pops" McElhaney: father of Lance and Les, drafted into serving as SAG Chief (Support And Gear), happily retired octogenarian, patient as a northern summer day is long, husband of Dolly, responsible for keeping boys from fighting and making them share their toys.

The Route:

Here is the planned route we will follow, if all goes to plan, which it seldomly does.