The Tanner Foundation hosted another excellent rendition of the Tanner Foundation Grace Ragland MS400 Ride. We adventured the legacy that Grace left us with and raised $15k to help fund the Tanner Foundation’s research into the source of MS to find a cure and better therapies.
I took a lot of pictures along the way, and it took a while to pick out the best to go along with the story. This is 9/25 Day 1. I’ll post the following days shortly on my FB page.
We had been watching the tropical disturbance in the gulf, which has occurred most of the years this ride has been ridden. The week before, the forecasts were very pessimistic, but it was too early to know for sure. We decided to roll with the original plan and ended up with extremely pleasant weather, aside from a few hours of spitting and stinging drizzle.
Riding along with me were Martha Wynn, Diana Nalley, Hardwick Gregg and Stephen Cabeza. Congratulations to all for completing this journey together! We had the best support along with our sag drivers, Judy Loo and Bill Tillman, our massage therapist and everything filler inner, Shea Corbitt, our event organizer, Jenny Ely and of course John and Emily Riser of the Tanner Foundation.
Driving to our start at Camp Dawson in Montevallo, there was a lot of cloud cover threatening rain and I got a few sprinkles along the way. Once I got within ten miles I finally saw the edge of the clouds and clear blue sky over Camp Dawson. We got extremely lucky considering the forecast last week. We only had a couple hours of drizzle rain, but it was enough to sting on a 30mph descent.
We stopped for lunch at a gas station parking lot in Valley Grande, made sandwiches in the parking lot and then rolled through downtown Selma and across the Edmund Pettus bridge, where this year’s photo shoot may/may not have caused a little mayhem. We kept seeing these bright red hurricane lilies in small patches every here and there. I stopped and picked one somewhere along the way each of the three days and rode with them hanging from my handlebars.
At the end of the ride, we rolled into Rockwood in Furman, AL. Rockwood is a beautifully restored historic home just outside of Pine Apple in Furman. Our hosts treated us to charcuterie and refreshments, while we gathered our legs, minds and things together to get ready for dinner. Some of us stayed the night at Rockwood, and a few others at the Bungalow in Pine Apple which was right behind our dinner location. Dinner was a wonderful bar-b-q hosted poolside at another beautifully restored historic home.
Pine Apple is a special place where many beautiful homes, people and stories open up to us on this ride. As we rode from the city into the woods on the first day, it was fitting to be in a place that was more Mayberry than Mayberry.
2024 Grace Ragland MS400 Day 2, Pine Apple to Atmore
Bill, Stephen and I had slept at the Bungalow in Pine Apple. I got up early enough to have plenty of coffee and do a little exploring before heading to breakfast. Waking up haven ridden away from the city into the country you notice the loss of all that chaotic city energy. There was a cool old log cabin on our property, and a massive needle oak right next to the bungalow.
We headed to Rockwood and had a great breakfast prepared by our hosts before heading out on our ride. We rode fifteen miles of rollers before coming into downtown Pine Apple, where one must take pictures of a small town so mayberry you expect Opie to walk around a corner. Pine Apple was founded in 1821, and was a bustling city back in the day.
Later we rolled through Burnt Corn and took our annual pic on the steps of the post office, with lunch shortly after at a gas station parking lot in Excel, AL. After lunch we rolled into Atmore. We’ve always gone down this old neighborhood chip seal road with abandoned houses parallel to the correctional facility rather than ride the busy road. This year the old road and neighborhood was replaced by an unmarked dirt road with an open gate, and as soon as we pulled onto it we got the whoop whoop. Immediately everyone looks at me and said go talk to them.
I walked up to the officer and said I take it we’re not supposed to be back here. He said nope, I told him we were raising money for MS and had been on this road several years in a row, but it was obviously different now. I told him we would go back out to the four way and figure out a reroute. Then he asked me if we could ride on I-65. I was shocked, and limited my response to a no. He then tells me to go and take a turn that would have us headed north. I repeated, we’re gonna go up here to the four way and re-route. The others had already ridden back, so I skitched a ride on Judy’s truck door on the way back to the four way. Riding past the correctional facility we passed a turn that went back onto that property and it was the correctional facilities nursery? They sure didn’t want us back there.
We pulled into the Wind Creek casino for the evening. We took showers, got massages, enjoyed the hut tub and all got together later for dinner. The buffet is always an adventure. Lord knows who told the staff to come out and sing for Hardwicks birthday, but they did an amazing job and we all got some of Hardwick’s cake.
2024 Grace Ragland MS400 Day 3 – Atmore to Orange Beach
We had our annual breakfast together at the Waffle House at Wind Creek. This has always been one of my favorite ride starts. We always have a good time with a staff that is seasoned from having to deal with casino people 24/7. And they serve quality ride fuel.
The first day, I had no problem keeping up with the rest of the fast group. On day two, I was having trouble keeping up on the hills. I could have kept up, but my legs would have hurt a lot worse. I was more interested in a leg pain threshold that I could happily maintain through the day, so I went with that, and it worked very well.
After not keeping up on day two, I decided to ride with Stephen on day three and we had a great time riding together before an undetected crack in his rear wheel caused it to keep going more out of true. I watched it go from slight wobble in the morning to almost rubbing frame a few hours in, so some calls got made and he was off and set up with a bike shop.
We did all get to stop together about fifteen miles in to see Butch McDaniel’s Pipe People. We have stopped here for many years to take pictures of Butch’s pipe art that he has in his yard. We met him several years back while visiting, and last year he even took Judy’s favorite and updated it just for her and we brought it home. It was great seeing him again this year.
I had Bill to myself for sag on day three and let me tell you what, I turned that man into a draft machine. The biggest impact this ride had from Helene was the wind. When I came onto a long flat stretch in a headwind, I would reach my right arm over my head, point back at Bill’s truck behind me, and pointed where I wanted him to go around and get right in front of me. Once he did, I thumbed up or down for his speed and we found the sweet spot with the back of a F-150 six feet in front of me. I was soft cruisin’ 27.
Once we got into Bon Secour there was a detour on 16 with a closed road on the route. It looked like it might be a sinkhole a block ahead, and it was totally blocked. The reroute I came up with put me into more and more traffic, and Bill was getting tired of it. He tried to cuss me into the truck several times, but when he finally said “get in the d@mn truck, you’ve gone 113 miles”, I was happy to oblige. I was a little ticked later to see that I only got 103, but he had to drive an extra ten miles to find me at one point, so he had 113. The fast group got forced into the car by Judy a little later, and most of us met up at the Caribe. We met up for dinner later at Cobalt next door. This was a nice finale for the ride to the beach. I only