We're Linda and Andy Johnson, from Cazenovia, New York. What began as a blog about a bike ride has become a story about our ride through life, trying to overcome a disease that has had a huge impact on us and on many of our friends.

Our journey began in 2007, when Kyle Bryant originated the idea of Ride Ataxia - riding his three-wheeled cycle from San Diego to the annual National Ataxia Foundation meeting in Memphis. It took two months to get there, and in the process he raised $40,000 to fund Ataxia research and he raised awareness of the disease like no one has before. Well he rode to the annual meeting again in 2008 and we joined him! We left from Sacramento and arrived in Las Vegas two weeks and 650 miles later.

You see Linda also has Friedreich's Ataxia. This inherited disease causes the nerves of the body to deteriorate. Linda (and Kyle) can still walk at this point, but it's getting much more difficult. In addition, speech gets slurred, finger dexterity suffers, and other serious complications can develop as time goes on.

The good thing is that research is more promising than ever! Several drugs are going through trials at this time, with other significant research taking place as you read this. There has never been a better time to contribute to this research! Let's cure this disease - for Linda, for the rest of the Ride Ataxia team, and for all of the others afflicted with this disease!

Enjoy our blog! Feel free to write to us any time. Check out the links in the right column below to read more about the disease and our adventures. And if nothing else, be sure to take the seven minutes to watch FARA's video - we couldn't say it better ourselves.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Day 10 - Boron to Calico, CA

Andy writes:

Fatigue is starting to set in. Another 55 miles done today. By the time we get in, get set up in a room, get cleaned up, and have dinner, we're often too tired to post - you'll notice this is a day late.

Here are the statistics:
Ride times: 8:19 to 3:02
Mileage: 55.5 miles
Average moving speed: 11.0 MPH
Roadkill: One cat and one television (an old CRT, for those of you who remember them).
Falls while pedals are clipped in: 1 - NOT ANDY THIS TIME!!! (poor Jina, right on the freeway with cars flying by right next to her)

We were on a divided highway most of the ride today. It seemed like a long day - not overly difficult, just tiring.

By the way, we went through the town of Hinkley, the town made famous by Erin Brockovich (we didn't fill up our water bottles there).

Here's last night's hotel room, with Linda on the computer. Note the beautiful table lamp from about forty years ago.

Our excellent lunch-time SAG crew and riders:

We were on Route 66 for a bunch of the ride:


We're spending the night at a bunkhouse in the Calico Ghost Town:



And finally, here's our great dinner of beans and hot dogs:

Posted at 8:12 PM

2 comments:

  1. That Route 66 picture is sweet! So glad to hear Jina B's ok...I got your postcard today - thanks guys! I LOVED IT!

    Ang

    ReplyDelete

  2. That table lamp is ...SWEET! I miss our little group so this is like ALMOST being there (not really:(
    Spinner

    ReplyDelete

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