pa 200k ride report.....sort of

[walt pettigrew]

this is a copy of the e-mail i sent to my sisters and brother after the 200k: > m.e. sent this to all 4 of you, but originally had the wrong e-mail for
you. >sorry to boor you with a ride update of yesterday's pa. 200k but,
i thought it would be of interest. on thursday the ride administrator had
posted on line the list of the pre-registered riders. of interest was a
james wilson from pa. jim, whom i haven't seen in 25+ years, i knew was
living in pa somewhere. so just maybe it might be the jim wilson. >my
biking friend, dawn, and i left the start in easton about 5 minutes after
the other 16 riders. unfortunately there had been no familiar jim wilson at

the start. fast forward 30+ miles; we had just finished a long climb around
mile 30 and were headed down hill. the roads were wet and there were quite
a lot of newly fallen leaves on them to boot. dawn, hadn't been up and down

a hill in years, and i'm kinda cautious on downhills anyway, so we weren't flying down the hills. there was a jogger up ahead going downhill also. i thought he
ran sort of like bob gebert. last i knew of bob he was living about 30 to
40 miles south of here. i slowed up as i passed him. the guy had a beard.

i found myself asking, "bob, bob gebert"? he stopped dead in his tracks and

stared at me and said, "my god, walter?" turns out he was just finishing
his run and he lives just 200 yards down the road. we spent about 45
minutes talking with him inside his house. he retired 2 years ago.
exercises everyday. runs, bikes a little. loves to ski. makes his own
wine. grows almost all of their vegetables. has 2 sons. the oldest is 22
years. the second is finishing up college. his mom still lives on grove
ave. says she still walks all over the hill. but her mind is going. said
she thinks he(bob) is her brother most of the time. she had had cancer of
the colon, just like dad, but about 10 years after dad. > about this
time you might be asking when was the last time we saw or talked with each
other...........it was when laur and i were living in warren county. i was
patrolling(driving) along the delaware river in southern warren county. i
was in uniform. saw a jogger up ahead and thought he ran just like bob
gebert. i drove slowly by him and wasn't sure, so i stopped further up the

road. got out of the car. waited for the jogger to come by and asked,
"bob, bob gebert?" and he said, "walter, i recognise your voice." that was

a bit over 22 years ago. his girl friend was pregnant then, for the first

time, and so was laur(we weren't married either).

that time it had only been 16 or so years since we had last
talked or seen each other. alot of ifs, went into meeting
yesterday. if we had started on time, if the roads weren't wet, if james
wilson wasn't on the list, if dawn hadn't been riding with me.



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[Tom Rosenbauer]

A ride report with pictures and rider comments for the PA150/200k has been posted at:
http://users.rcn.com/trosenbauer/PA150_ ... 71020.html

Thanks for coming on out and clipping in this year for the Eastern PA brevets. Putting these events together is a labor of love -- your kind remarks make it all worth while and really helps me keep going. Hope to see you all again, next year.

-Tom Rosenbauer
Eastern PA RBA