Day 3 - On the Kansas Border

We left Strasburg Station in the historic, old railroad town of Strasburg in eastern Colorado bright and early. It was 70 at departure time, but warmed up quickly; the mercury hit 100 this afternoon.

Bob and I are riding some remote country - dusty and windy conditions, hilly roads with long climbs, and wheat fields everywhere. God's country nevertheless. The spare landscape has its own beauty.

We're each riding with four water bottles each. But here in eastern Colorado, towns are few and far between. At one point we ran low on water. Thankfully, in Anton, the local postmaster provided us some cold water from her deep well. We drank, replenished our water bottles and were revived.

Hey, some great news to report. The Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry's website posted information about our CycleQuest project. Thank you Cathy Fahey! And thanks Lesa, one of Susan's cousins, for getting the information to Cathy! You can check it out at http://www.ovariancancer.com/app/index.php?pid=11.

Also, a special thanks to Vicki, Pam, and Danny, Susan's siblings; her mother Georgia, all the relatives, Bob's wife Ginny, my mother Betty, sister Sharon, brother John, and a whole lot of friends and colleagues, for all they're doing to support this effort and encourage us.

This afternoon, we ran into Essie Garrett, a long distance runner who is helping to raise funds for the Amelia Earhart Foundation. She flagged us down and we visited briefly. Check out her website at www.essierun.org. Essie's run more than 23,000 miles, and raised over a million dollars for charities, since 1981. Cool! Run, Essie, run!

By the way, U.S. 36 - one of the main arteries across America in the era before freeways - is a great cycling road. The people in the small towns are kind and gracious, but the biting flies are less polite, so... we keep moving! :-)

We rode 117 hot miles in just under 8 hours of riding time today, and will overnight in Idalia, Colorado, a neat town just a few miles from the Kansas border. Back in the 1980s when my brother and I were doing a lot of backpacking in Colorado, we always managed to plan our drive so we could have breakfast at this great little diner in Idalia. Bob and I will be eating breakfast there tomorrow morning. I can almost smell the bisquits and coffee!

On the media front, the Hannibal Courier-Post already has run a story on the CycleQuest ride and plans a follow-up when we arrive. Other newspapers and television stations are planning stories, too. It's good to have the media coverage and national visibility so we can share the purpose of our cycling odyssey across the heartland of America.

Please do me a favor; contact every woman you love and encourage her to know the symptoms of ovarian cancer. The current situation, with many women having the disease diagnosed too late, is unacceptable. Let's all work to make it better. That's why we're riding.

My teammate, Bob Lewis, is really riding strong. A true ironman! I'm grateful to have him riding this with me.

Ever onward! Wednesday - Kansas!

Brad & Bob

Media Advisory:
To schedule an interview and photo opportunity with Brad, please contact John Wingate at 612-782-8551 or via email at john(at)wingategroup.com.