CitySquash Rides Route 66 by Bryan Patterson June 6, 2015 -
“Man you’re crazy” that’s what they said when I said that CitySquash
was going to ride again!! Last time it was San Fran to the Bronx 3000+
miles, and what a ride!! This time it’s Route 66 LA to Chicago 2400
miles – EasyPeasy!! A dawdle, a walk in the park only 30 days at 80
miles per day!! Oh and sorry to all you die hard Route 66 fans, YES the
wrong way round!! But at least we would be heading back East.
So it was that Route 66 came about, like the Olympics, four years after
the first X-country ride! I’m already being asked what’s happening in
2019!! Hell I guess the World.
The TEAM – myself (obviously), plus three CitySquash kids, who have
been in this since the start, bugging me to do another ride. Well this
is what they got! Karina Giselle Lazaro, a Tabor student, (she hates
being called Giselle! But we all think it’s a lovely middle name),
Cristian Escalona who attends Episcopal Academy in Virginia and
Captains the squash team there and fancies himself as a Wiggins – we’ll
see about that! Finally and not least Jeremy Carasquillo who thought
that coming to LA he might land a role in a super movie. Tough luck
Jeremy, we just didn’t have time to go see your agent!! Al Boillot,
CitySquash programme director, is joining us for the first three days.
She just wasn’t able to train hard enough to be able to withstand the
long and arduous ride and thought that Giselle would probably outride
her hence only three days!
We also have a rider from Dublin, Ireland, Mark Kelly who is in the
process of starting an Inner City programme in Dublin, and using this
ride to gain publicity and awareness in Dublin and Ireland. He’s a
Gordon Blue cook and we’ve literally just finished a wonderful meal a
la Mark. I thought I was going to lose weight this ride but probably
not!!
Our driver James Whitelocke another Brit (what would we do without them
folks?) who insists that he has no desire to ride (shame on you James)
but will be making sure that the van is strategically placed every 20
miles for the fuel and rest stop.
Finally Siddharth Tripathi a volunteer at CitySquash and the youngest
rider is excited to be doing Route 66. We are all looking forward to
riding with Sidd.
So there you have it from our secret training base just outside LA,
where we have been training hard for the last three hours and we are
all getting psyched about starting Route 66 Sunday 7th. I am hoping to
keep in touch every day but I believe that Route 66 is not too great
with WiFi, we will see.
Sorry no photos, as yet, but we are all looking very fit.
