On the road again....

Jimmy was just released from his doctor this afternoon and he will be flying back to Texas today. His plan is to get off the plane, drive to Liberty, Texas, where he fell, and ride into Beaumont, Texas. The ride will resume in Beaumont on Friday.

We are putting together a tentative schedule now and will have it out today after we see how Jimmy does from Liberty to Beaumont. He’s just not sure he can do 60 miles a day until he rides. He might have to cut back on the miles for the first few days to allow his arm to get stronger, but he should have a better idea once he rides.

We will be updating the schedule as soon as he finishes the ride today. Thanks for all the well wishes and continued support.

JB & Cory

East Bound & Down (Once again)

Day 30 - 33 “Houston-Liberty-Surgery”

Day 30 started out as one of the most inspiring days we’ve had to date. James Marshall came out to ride with us for the first part of the day. For those of you who don’t know who James Marshall is, he was a young up and coming Supercross racer who also encountered a life changing spinal cord injury due to a crash at Qualcom Stadium in San Diego, CA. He gave an inspiring effort today. We were all so proud of him for coming out with us. Cory helped him some today by assisting him a bit. Cory couldn’t hold back his emotions either by his amazing effort put out. He found himself crying while riding behind him. This reminded us all what this journey is about and we all feel so privileged to be a part of the entire M4M project. James’s muscle tone was acting up a bit today due to his SCI and his right ankle was getting a small abrasion. So he made the decision to end his ride. Due to the lack of circulation with people with an SCI even the smallest abrasion can take a long time to heal. It’s usually a good idea to avoid anything that could cause complications. We would all like to thank the “Outlaw” for coming out to support us today.

After James left us we were having one of our best days as we headed toward Beaumont, TX. We stopped in Liberty for a snack. Little did we know what would happen next. While we were leaving the Shell Station in Liberty Jimmy fell over because he was unable to get his foot out of the peddle and landed hard with all of his body weight on his elbow. He still wanted to try and ride but quickly realized it wasn’t possible since he was unable to put any pressure on it. At that point we decided to go to the local Hospital in Beaumont for some x-rays. After about four hours of waiting we got the news that we were all scared of getting, Jimmy had a clean break at his left olecranon process (elbow) and would need to fly back to San Diego for surgery. At this point he was in a huge amount of pain but because of his SCI he is unable to take most pain medicines, we knew it wouldn’t be a good night.

The following morning we took Jimmy and Kristi to Houston to catch a flight to San Diego to have his elbow accessed by Dr. Murphy. He scheduled a 3 pm surgery to plate Jimmy’s elbow. This surgery wouldn’t have been Dr. Murphy’s first option but since Jimmy’s desire is to get back on the bike as soon as possible to finish the ride, this would work best. It will have a bigger scar and be more painful in the long run but it would be stronger in a short amount of time. After surgery Dr. Murphy said that things had gone better than he had expected and should heal faster and better that he had initially thought. Jimmy is at home now for a few days so that he can be monitored. He will see Dr. Murphy this weekend and then we are expecting to continue our ride at the beginning of next week. The rest of us are here waiting in Beaumont for his return. We have been very blessed to have the opportunity to stay with an amazing family here. Joe and Roxanne Newman have gone way over and above what most people would do to help. They are truly good people that have become a huge part of the success of our project. We could never repay their true Southern Hospitality. Please continue to support M4M and we will keep you all informed of Jimmy’s progress. He is still fighting to finish this ride and make a change for all people affected with a SCI.

JB & Cory

(Soon to be) East Bound & Down

Day 26 - Back on Schedule

Last night the crew got to go out to eat at Tre's in San Antonio and it was amazing. We also go to take a pic in front of The Alamo. We were gangster style though, Big E left the car running at the curb and we jumped out and took it! I'm pretty sure the guy that took the pic thought we were crazy. We have gotten to see a lot of cool stuff along the way, this is truly a once in a lifetime experience.

(From Cory) On that note let me take a moment to let all of you reading this know how hard our days have been. This is the hardest most painful thing either one of us have ever done. This past week has been the hardest but these moments create life long memories. Not a lot of people get to spend 4-6 hrs a day riding their bike with their best friend seeing the country at 12-20 mph. Jimmy has worked harder than I could ever have imagined, I'm so proud of him. Unless you have a SCI or have a family member with one you will never know how hard the simplest things can be. Also, even though he looks fully recovered in some pictures he still has a long way to go and he is working at it everyday. So please don't assume because we always try to smile for the camera that we are just out here having fun. We are working our asses off and trying to raise money for much needed research.

Today we are once again just going to get on the bikes and ride. We started outside San Antonio on the I-10 Freeway heading toward Houston. The wind isn't totally in our face today and Travis is here again to help us push the wind for Jimmy. The roads are actually good today so we put our heads down and went at it. It was pretty hot again on the I-10. It was 42 miles to where the bus was stopped for lunch, we made it there in 2 hrs and 40 min. Travis is helping a lot today. After lunch we are going to try the 90 again because we heard from a local that it has been repaved and the trees may offer up some shade from the sun and wind. We were going to try and make up the time we lost this past week to get back on schedule again. The 90 was surprisingly smooth well, at least the first 20 miles were. Then it just went to crap again. There were 2-3 inch gaps about every 20 feet. So once again we hit the I-10. After 5.5 hrs we rode 83 miles and were back on schedule. Thank you all for following us and supporting our cause.

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 25The Alamo

Today the ride began about 26 miles outside San Antonio. Travis joined us today from California and he will be here through Friday. We still had a cross wind but we did have decent roads for most of the day. It was nice to experience downtown San Antonio on a bike. We got to see the Riverwalk and the Alamo. The lunch stop for today was back at the bus. We had our usual fruit and Ryno Power "Carb-Fuel" shakes for lunch. Thanks Ryno for supporting us. The second part of our day was supposed to be spent on I-10 but I guess the truckers in San Antonia don't like cyclist. They gave us a lot of uncalled for honks. So after our wonderful Chase Chicks had taken all they could we made a jump back down to Hwy 90. It wasn't as rough as it had been the past few days but it wasn't smooth. We ended up being able to ride 62 miles in just under 5 hrs. This has been a hard week on our bodies and minds. The wind in your face all day everyday slowly wears on the spirit.

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 24 Turbo

Today we are supposed to have someone join us for the ride somewhere close to San Antonio. Little did we know Jason "Turbo" Doyle would do a 76 mile solo trip out to where were staying in Uvalde, TX to turn around and ride back with us. Little did he know that we hadn't made it quite all of the way to the bus the night before. So we packed up and drove another 16 miles west on the 90 to start our day. Rumor is the roads get better today. We weren't shooting for a specific ending point today because we hadn't been able to make up ground at all this week. So our board just said "here to there, TX". It didn't take long to tell that we weren't at altitude anymore either because someone turned up the heat. We actually ended up making up 20 miles of our lost mileage today with the smoother roads and less wind. Notice I said less wind, not no wind but we will take it! We decided to stop about 20 miles out of San Antonio but not Turbo. He decided to finish it all the way in. He finished his day with around 160 miles in the saddle and that's why we called him Turbo. Thanks for the help.

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 23 Gravel

Del Rio to 20 miles before Uvalde

Today started out with overcast and a possibly of rain which made the temperature about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday. The winds were favorable for a majority of the day as well. The night before we were fortunate enough to meet a few fine people at the Holiday Trav-L-Park and when we rode by today they were all gathered on the street cheering us on! A big thanks to all of them and especially to Cindy for organizing it! On a side not everyone loved our Honda mini van and one of the couples even took a test drive with Big E. We had been in the desert for the past few days and it was a great change to be in civilization again. The roads today were the worst by far, we even passed by the Department of Transportation and wanted to stop in and file a formal complaint. It looks like they spread tar on a smooth road and then threw gravel at it sporadically, we have also come to the conclusion there are no steam rollers used in Texas on their roads. We are excited about a few riders joining us in the next few days and also the prospect of smoother roads.

JB & Cory

Eastbound & Down

Day 22 Same, Same!

Middle of nowhere to Del Rio

Same rough roads, same wind, same hills and same heat.

Highlight of the day was passing the Pecos River and seeing the awesome rock walls around it. We rode into the wind all day again today. The good thing is we are supposed to be done with the hills but probably not the wind. We are both hoping the roads get a lot smoother as well. I guess we will just need to wait and see what happens tomorrow.

JB & Cory

Eastbound & Down

Day 21 Black Jack

27 miles past Marathon to the middle of nowhere.

The day started out extremely hot, 87 degrees at 10:00am. Jimmy had major muscle spasms and stomach cramps. Some times the heat is unbearable for Jimmy’s injury so he had to ride with his shirt open the entire day.

We stopped in Sanderson, TX for lunch where we had to change a tire because of road debris. Immediately after lunch Jimmy’s left leg spasmimed due to the heat which forced us to slow down 4 miles per hour.

Once again the road was rough, which seems to be standard for Texas. The 2600 feet of descending we did was off set by the head wind that we encountered the entire day.

We are holed in Comstock, TX with no internet or phone service but we were able to get our TV to work after being out of commission for the last 4 days.

Highlights of the day:

Very courteous drivers today, an airstrip in the middle of nowhere and we met a fellow cyclist, Adam, who was riding from Ashville, North Carolina to Phoenix with his final destination being Seattle, WA.

JB & Cory

Eastbound & Down

Day 20 - Midway

Day 20 was supposed to be our halfway point on the ride but it ended up being a rest day because of how hard the week has been. After we rested most of the day and did our laundry we took an easy 27 mile ride. We actually got to meet a lot of cool people at the camp fire here. We will get back at it tomorrow and are hoping for better wind conditions tomorrow.

JB & Cory
Eastbound & Down

Day 19 - Wind

As we left the campground in Ft. Davis we headed toward Alpine, TX to get to the Highway 90. The roads were still rough and it seemed like we couldn't get away from the 18 mile a hour head wind. The 2 best parts of the day were the quaint little town of Alpine where we stopped for lunch and the sunset we watched from our camp site in Marathon. We are hoping for more favorable conditions tomorrow because we have some mileage to make up.

Jb & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 18 - Straight Up

Day 18 started out in Kent, TX on Highway 118. It started out slow because Jimmy's injury reminded us that his nervous system does not respond like the normal human body. He woke up feeling very fatigued and shaky but we probably should have expected this since he had pushed it to the 100 mile mark the day before. We weren't sure how far or long we would ride, it would all depend on Jimmy's body and today was expected to be a difficult ride due to 36 miles of continuous climbing up to 6200 feet in elevation. To add to the difficult climb the road was composed of loose gravel, at times it felt that our teeth were going to rattle out of our head. When we reached the top of our climb 3 1/2 hours into our ride we decided the day was going to have to be cut short. Rather than going all the way to Alpine TX, we descended 12 miles to Ft. Davis and found a campsite at the national park. Today was to be the second hardest day we had experienced so far. Although it was the toughest day it was by far the most scenic day, it included javelinas (wild pigs), cows, deer, elk and the prettiest landscape to this point. Jimmy said if the campsite had been one more mile, he might not have made it!


JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 17 - Redemption

Day 17 started at Exit 78 off the I10 where we had an early finish the day before because of the bad weather. On the ride back to the exit there was a lot of uncertainty about what the day would bring. The forecast called for more wind but we had no idea which direction it would be coming from. As we started out it became very apparent that today the wind was our friend. It only took a hour and forty minutes to make up the thirty miles we had lost the day before. At that point we decided to try and make it to the city of Van Horn which would have put us at 63 miles for the day. The roads were smooth and the wind stayed at our backs to Van Horn. We stopped there for our lunch break and were still feeling pretty fresh so we decided to ride another hour. At the end of the hour we realized that it would be possible to accomplish the century (100 miles) we weren't able to finish last week. We knew the century was possible but it was going to be hard because we had already climbed 1600 ft and ridden 63 miles but we charged on. Things fell in our favor unlike last Thursday and we finished the century on Highway 118 in Kent, TX. This was a first ever for Jimmy and it was a goal we set when planning the ride. We both felt redeemed after missing the century last week and the having to stop short yesterday because of weather. This was a very emotional moment for Jimmy because a year ago he could only ride a stationary bike for a total of 15 minutes and today he rode 100 miles and climbed over 2400 feet in 5 hours and 17 seconds!!!

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 16 - Don't Mess with Texas

El Paso to Sierra Blanca

Today was the first day back after a much needed rest. Jimmy went home for 24 hours to be checked out after his crash by Kenny Sheppard. This was to be our first full day in Texas and we knew the wind was going to be bad. We headed out of El Paso on the frontage road for the first 15 miles, at this point the wind wasn’t so bad. When we reached the I10 the wind really started to pick up and with that came the dust and sand. We tried putting on masks but they didn’t give up much relief. Our right ears and eyes filled up quickly with sand. At points it felt like we were being pelted by thousands of little needles and sometimes it seemed like we were sideways because of the cross winds. The wind was so bad we couldn’t take either hand off while riding and had to stop several times just to drink. Jimmy’s hands got sore because he was unable to move them around, this also contributed to stopping multiple times. Initially we had intended on riding 73 miles and were only able to ride 53 miles in 4 hours, at that point we decided to call it a day. So now we know why they say “Don’t Mess with Texas”. We are going to leave early tomorrow to make up the 20 miles we missed today and hopefully miss the wind. Don’t miss the picture of the tumble weed almost taking us out.

JB & Cory

East Bound & Down

Day 13

Today started out a little slow because Jimmy was pretty sore from his fight with I-10. Which he lost! Once we got started we headed back to where we finished the day before and rode the 22 miles into Las Cruces. We had lunch and then headed out for our second part of the day toward the Texas border. We took back roads to try and see a little of the country side and stay off the Interstate. Little did we know what we were in for. The roads out of Las Cruces were amazing, and we had a lot of room to ride. The weather was perfect as well. About 11 miles into the ride we rode into a pecan tree farm that was beautiful.
The trees seemed to surround us from all sides and all we could see was the road in front of us. This was a much need change from the cars and trucks on I-10. We also passed three other guys doing the cross country trek in the other direction. Today was also a much needed mellow pace day. Big E came along for the ride with us today too. He's always good for a laugh and a smile. Thanks bro. We made it to the border of Texas, but I'm not so sure we weren't in Mexico for part of the day. We actually stopped in a gas station to ask how far the Texas border was and the old guy asked me if I wanted to know from Mexico or New Mexico. At that point we were only two miles from the sign. So we headed out and got our picture in front of it. Although we did have to finish the day once again on I-10. We are taking a much needed rest for the next two days so Jimmy can heal up. Have a good weekend and get ready for more adventures next week. I've got a feeling it will have cowboy boots and country music in part of it.

Jb & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 12

As we left from Lordsberg, NM, Day 12 started out with the potential to be the best day so far. Early in the day we decided that with the weather conditions this would be the best opportunity to try a century (100 miles). Once again the wind was in our favor and we had very good road conditions, at least the first 70 miles. We reached our lunch destination of Deming, NM at the 60 mile mark in just under 3 hours and still felt really good. We headed out on the second leg of the ride to find that our good road conditions had deteriorated and we now had a cross wind. We were still determined to make the century but little did we know the cross wind would take Jimmy out. The wind blew Jimmy to the right and into the gravel where he lost control and went over thehandle bars. Jimmy felt like he had been run over by a truck, initially he was very scared that he had re-injured his spinal cord because he hit his head pretty hard. Thank goodness Bell makes a great product that helped cushion the blow to his head. After a few minutes of cleaning his wounds on the side of the road, Jimmy decided to solider on and keep trying to finish the century. We got back on the bikes at mile 88 of the century and made it to mile 93 where Jimmy decided that his pain level was to high to continue on. There will be other opportunities to do a century on this trip!

JB & Cory
East bound & Down

Day 9-11 Tuscon, AZ to Lordsberg, NM

Monday was an active recovery day, we did a light 26 miles and happened to ride by a military airplane holding facility with 100's of fighter planes, bombers and transport carriers. This was a unexpected treat and one of the coolest things either of us have ever seen. This was the first day of the trip that it was just the two of us out on the road.

Tuesday we left Tuscon and headed east towards Willcox. We had a lot of climbing that day and the scenery changed a bit with some nice rock formations on both sides of the interstate. The 2 major highlights of the day were riding through Tombstone, AZ and stopping to see THE THING. We still aren't sure what we saw.....

Wednesday was the hottest day of the trip so far, topping out at a sizzling 89 degrees. Some of locals told us these were record highs for this time of the year. The wind was at our backs most of the day which assisted in keeping an average pace of over 20 miles per hour. We reached the New Mexico boarder approximately 34 miles into our ride where we met Dan, a Canadian who was on his own personal quest of riding his motorcycle coast to coast for his 50 birthday after a life changing motorcycle accident. We hope this is the first of many great people we meet along the way.

Just a couple of days in The Land of the Enchantment and then onto the great state of Texas.

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down