Rider magazine asked our two good friends David Andreas and John Puerner, who are participating in the 20th Anniversary of the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America, to keep us posted on the ride’s progress with a daily blog. Each entry will cover the previous day’s events (or perhaps the two previous days). Here’s their report from the fourth ride day on Tuesday, May 6.
Our moving motorcycle centipede continued on its waltz across Texas with a shading cloud cover from Midland, Texas. To start, we traveled 122 miles to our first of the day’s fuel stops in San Angelo. Yesterday we described how we ride, today we’ll describe what we do when we stop.
After fueling all the bikes, trikes and support vehicles, we park and head for the Coca-Cola pickup truck for refreshments. Coca-Cola has been a long-time sponsor of the Ride and provides a complete assortment of its beverage brands. This year a favorite among the riders has been the Glacéau Vitamin Water Zero drops to add to bottles of Dasani water.
The ride through the southern sections of the country can be, and has been, quite warm. We are reminded daily to stay hydrated. These ice cold drinks are accompanied by fresh bananas, peanuts, an assortment of snacks, and this year’s big hit—tasty jerky. Generous sponsors contribute all of the snacks. Besides using the pit stop time to eat and drink, many riders will snack and drink while riding to the next stop. Some riders carry their favorite candy, with cinnamon being a popular flavor of candy and gum. The cinnamon flavor acts as a reliable way of maintaining attention on long legs between stops.
There is always plenty of time to use the facilities at the service stations or port-a-potties arranged for the riders. A fun way of raising a little more funds for the Victory Junction Camp is the “Golden Ticket,” a laminated card that riders may purchase from the motor marshals that allow the person holding it to go to the front of the restroom line for the entire day.
Of course, we ride as a group and eat as a group. Today’s lunch at the Willow Creek Café in Mason, Texas, was a tasty selection of country-fried chicken or country-fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, rolls and homemade chocolate cake. Many lunches and dinners on the Ride are sponsored by riders. Today’s lunch was sponsored by Jeff and Trish Pospisil, long-time participants from Florida. The fuel stops are also sponsored by Ride participants and donors as a way of making sure more of the Ride proceeds support Victory Junction Campers.
After lunch, we set out on our way from Mason to Austin, Texas. The 120-mile leg was quite warm and the pace was brisk through the beautiful Hill Country of Texas. One community that looked like it deserved a return visit was the bustling town of Fredericksburg, on U.S. Route 290. We arrived at the Hyatt Regency in Austin at 5 p.m., with most of us quickly exchanging our riding clothes for our casual evening activities, including a fajita bar dinner at Doc’s Bar & Grill on Congress Avenue. The total mileage for the day was 344 miles.
We passed our half-way point of the ride today and have four more days to get to Daytona Beach, Florida, on Saturday. Tomorrow we start our “Krispy Kreme day” from Austin to Beaumont, Texas, with breakfast at Krispy Kreme, our Day Five sponsor.
Ride on,
John and David
Previous Blog Entries:
The Kickoff
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Next Blog Entries:
Day 5
Day 6 & 7
Day 8 and Final Thoughts
