It’s Monday and the official start of the 2021 Cross Country Chase. I started my day by riding the 17 mile practice route twice. I hooked up with Gypsy, Barry and their dog Molly on the second run. Everything seems to be working great. We met back at the hotel at 12:30 for a riders meeting where we received all the do’s and dont’s. It was a little overwhelming. We were given a new map to load into our scroll boxes. The first stop was the Red Star boat launch on the bank of the Mississippi River. At this stop we would all assemble for the group photo taken by the legendary motorcycle photographer Michael Lichter. It was a grueling 2.5 hours. Michael said it’ s going to be worth it. I have no doubt he will be right. We had to take The Soda Kracker and another Chase rider with a sidecar downtown and ride back to the photo shoot area along a pedestrian sidewalk on the river side of the seawall that protects Cape Girardeau during flood times. All other bikes could cross the pedestrian bridge but the two of us were too wide. I was almost late getting back to the start line for my class due to having to fly back down the seawall to downtown and then to the boat launch. I unfortunately may have frightened a family having a picnic on the seawall sidewalk. Anyway, I made it back just in time as the class 1 riders had just departed and (my) class 2 was starting. The 29 mile ride was great. The roads were not straight for this ride. Constant attention required looking forward and consulting the map. Hopefully tomorrow we won’t be making a turn every mile. The stage 1 route tomorrow is 283 miles. Thats 10 times longer than today’s route and I am already exhausted.
