July 20th Border Raider Wrap Up

This year several things about the ride will be with me for some time to come.....

We have two empty saddles and two fellows from the Border Raider family will not be returning. We lost Dale L. last September and Earl J. this June. Dale succumbed to lung cancer and tragically, Earl was hit by a car on Highway 73 off route while he was on his way to join us the 2nd day of the ride this year. We will have a short memorial for both of these guys next year in Atchison.

Yes it was HOT and yes it was HUMID, but after losing Earl the second day, nothing else was really that hard. The ride did go on and the folks did a wonderful job of coping with the heat. It really felt like August in June. Gradually the heat took a toll on the riders and we had some cases of heat exhaustion to take care of. Some riders had to abandon the ride. One other casualty was the Long Rider Century, 42 folks had signed up, but with a weather forecast with a heat index of 115, we pulled the plug on the Century. They still got the lunch and t shirt, just no chance to ride 120 miles in triple digit heat.....

We are exploring some exciting possible changes for next year, they are in the discussion stage at the moment.
So keep an eye on the website and this blog, I will try to update it once a month or more if there is something to report....


Keep riding and keep that rubber side down on the road and hopefully your state will not decide to pave your roads with what appeared to us to be glass shards....... (In Missouri this year we had to reroute riders because they were experimenting with using crushed slag from coal fired plants in the asphalt mix, for bike tires, it was a disaster!!!!!)

Jim Turner