www.projectbreathe.net

I forgot how I came across this guy. Maybe it was on the txbra.org forums, maybe it was something from 1lesscar or something like that. This guy, Matt Young, was doing 3000 miles in one month on his bike to raise $$ for Cystic Fibrosis research. He's got a girlfriend who has it. Turns out that he's an Aggie. Sweet. I go to his blog. Turns out he's going from Seattle, WA to right here in Ft. Worth. Sweet. Another reason to support him. Being my narcissistic self, I'm thinking I might know this guy from being the Vastly Popular Youth Minister that I was. OK, maybe not Vastly Popular, maybe just Mildly Recognizable. Then I click on his donate button and I see the names of the folks that are donating and I recognize a couple from my church. Maybe I do know this guy. Then he puts on his blog an open invite to come ride the last 50 miles into town with him. I'm interested. Then someone from TBI, my cycling club/team posts on our forum, hey, let's do this. So I get up at 4:30 Sunday AM to get to Sundance Square to meet the other folks from the team and travel out to Mineral Wells to ride in with him. I walk up to the guy and his GF says "Hey, I know you, I go to St. John's. Thanks so much for being here." Wow. Small world. And right then, I did feel small somehow. That's probably a good thing.
The ride was fine, I was not near the match for the hills that Matt or Bob Rowell (TBI guy) were. There was another TBI guy, Gerry, who I've ridden tons with, and a tri-athlete gal from A&M (Cheryl). Most of the ride was on Hwy 180 from Mineral Wells into Weatherford and the rest on the I-20 frontage road. The road was rough in places but virtually traffic-free. Matt and Bob and I opened it up after another cyclist turned in front of us near Aledo. That's when I bent a tooth on my big chain ring. Don't really remember how, I think I hit a pot hole the diameter of a coffee cup. Maybe I kicked something up? Anyway, my chain ended up wrapping back on itself in a curly-q twice. The chain locked up on me. Weird. After a three minute mechanical break we were on our way. Then, after Matt doesn't have a single flat in his 3000 miles, I get one in Ft. Worth. I have Vredestein tires pumped up to ~ 145 PSI, which is a lot. It wasn't a hiss, it was a gunshot. That was when Amanda, the GF, the reason that Matt was riding, gets out her bike and rides in the last few miles with us. It was nice. There was a bunch of Matt's and Amanda's friends and family waiting for us when we arrived. Plenty of cheering, balloons, and more cameras than I could count. There was even a bit of coverage on the local news that night. You can hear some folks from our church exclaiming quite surprisedly "Bull!" as we finished. I was just as surprised to see someone I knew there. But I guess that comes with being Mildly Recognizable.