A view from the saddle...

Let my first post emphasize that my wife is the most awesome person that I know. She not only tolerates this craziness, she actually encourages me along the way. Well, I hope she has stored up a lifetime worth of good karma because this trip is over the top.

I first got hooked on the tour in 1986 when Greg Lemond won his first of three. I got hooked on riding in 1971, at the age of 12, when my best friend at the time (Ben Hinton) convinced me to ride a century (100 miles) with he and his dad (Don), who was president of the local bike club (The La Crosse Wheelmen). Riding in tennis shoes and a pair of nylon running shorts, my raw crotch and aching body were oh-so-happy to end the ride after 75 miles due to a mechanical failure on my bike that could not be repaired at the ride. In high school and college, football took over as my first love and cycling fell into obscurity until 1984 when another great friend (Brad Flick) who I worked with in Kansas City convinced me to enter a Triathon in Topeka, Kan. There were two problems with this idea ... I had no experience in distance running and I didn't know how to swim!

Relatively minor details that would be overcome by the enduring love of a challenge that seems to persist in my life. Fast forward to 2004 after more triathlons, bike races and crashes than I can count, I have now given up running (the four knee surgeries and two foot and ankle surgeries eventually put an end to the running). Biking is now king and I'm enjoying the sport with our local team in Green Bay, Wis (The Bellin Health/In Competition Cycling Team). On one fateful day of training in July of that year, a relatively low-speed crash left me laying in the road with a broken left hip/femur.

Julie and the kids (son Mike and daughter Liz) met me in the ER (wasn't the first time) and I went to the OR that night where my friend and orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Marc Anderson, screwed my leg back together. Unfortunately the screws didn't do the trick so we got to repeat the surgery about 10 days later with plates, screws and a large bolt that remain in my hip today.
I resumed riding in early September and that Christmas, my family rewarded me with a two-week trip to Belgium and France with my good friend and cycling enthusiast Fred Sheppard to attend the Spring Classics (famous 100-year-old-plus single-day bike races held in Belgium, France and Italy each spring) as impetus to get back to hard training. We would see the famous Tour of Flanders, Gent Wevelgem and Paris Roubaix. The Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix are considered the most difficult single-day races in cycling. Each is 256 km long (about 154 miles) and both cover many sections of rough cobblestone roads that jar the body like you can't believe. I said to Fred, "if we're going all that way to watch the races, I think I should try to ride the courses." The next 3 months are just a blur of riding the trainer, rollers, plowed frozen fields and frigid Wisconsin roads. By late March I was ready, and by the end of the trip I had seen and experienced the greatest cycling culture on earth and had achieved the goals I set forth. It was then that I knew the next and ultimate cycling challenge could only be the route of the Tour de France. It would be the "Everest of Cycling" if completed, but even getting to "base camp" would be an accomplishment.

In keeping with my habit of making life just a bit more challenging, I decided to "kiss the pavement" again in July of 2007 with a spectacular crash on Maple Street in Omaha, Neb.
Knocked unconscious with a broken collarbone, 4 broken ribs, a shattered scapula and a punctured lung, I enjoyed some really good drugs in the Trauma Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center for several days with surgery on the collarbone to follow.
By now family and friends were begging me to hang up the cleats but for some reason, that thought just nevers seem to enter my mind. So here I am, still riding and still dreaming. In 6 weeks I'll be off to France to take on some unfinished business on the "Bucket List." I hope you will stay tuned in for the ride.
- Dave