Nancy Moore rode her Trek bicycle 475 miles this summer from Lowell, Mich., where she grew up – near Grand Rapids – to Frankfort. It took six days.
She’s logged plenty of other bicycle training, including 32-mile roundtrips twice a week, commuting to work from her Peaks Mill area residence to a Frankfort optometrist’s office.
And she’s still apprehensive about starting her third consecutive 225-mile ride through the Bluegrass state Friday morning.
The first word of the ride has changed this year from Grand to Governor’s Autumn Bicycle Ride Across Kentucky.
But GABRAKY is still a fundraiser for the $5 million newly-renovated Grand Theatre, a downtown community arts center.
More than $60,000 has been raised so far, and the number of participating cyclists has increased considerably – from 25 last year up to almost 70. Funds for the project come from sponsorships, entry fees and pledges per mile.
Besides Kentucky, this year’s cyclists are coming from Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland and Canada.
It’s the same tough 3-day route from the Ohio River at Carrollton to Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park at the Tennessee line.
Moore, 55, can verify a north to south bicycle journey through Kentucky is not all downhill and most of it is off the beaten path.
“The hills are hard, especially the second day,” she says. “It’s up and down, up and down continuously through Mercer County in the morning. Then there’s Lose-Your-Lunch Hill in the early afternoon,” in the Knob Region not long after cyclists leave Perryville following a lunch break.
“It’s so steep I don’t even try to ride up it.”
On the final day – 7 miles from the finish line – riders hit the long, winding, steep, and dreaded Heartbreak Hill in Cumberland County, the route’s toughest.
GABRAKY Chairman Phil Coleman missed Heartbreak Hill two years ago because he hit the pavement in a bicycle wreck five hours earlier, just short of the lunch break at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia.
Coleman continued for a while after lunch but the hot weather and pain from a shoulder injury eventually took its toll, and common sense told him to stop.
“Hitting the ground at 20 miles an hour on a bike isn’t any fun,” says Coleman, 54, director of technology services for the state Department of Education.
His shoulder still bothers him occasionally, but not riding a bicycle would hurt a lot more, he says. This will be his fifth consecutive GABRAKY.
“I like the challenge to traverse the whole state,” Coleman says. “And GABRAKY is still a small enough ride that it becomes like a family atmosphere.”
In a March 2009 proclamation, Gov. Steve Beshear designated the Grand Theatre’s signature cycling event as the Governor’s Autumn Bicycle Ride Across Kentucky.
The ride goes through 12 counties and is a part of the “Commonwealth’s Adventure Tourism efforts,” says Coleman.
“It also promotes the Get Healthy Kentucky program by encouraging physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle.”
The governor’s designation and advertising the ride on more Web sites this year have helped increase participation, Coleman says.
“We had a lot of success last year and the word got out that GABRAKY is a beautiful ride and a well-organized event,” he says. “If the weather cooperates this should be another grand ride.”
But rain or shine, cyclists will pedal 60 miles from Carrollton to the Grand Theatre on Friday. Many of the riders have tickets to the John Sebastian concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the theatre.
Early Saturday morning the group will depart from the Grand, traveling up Capital Avenue behind a police escort.
The grueling 90-mile day will end near Campbellsville at Camp Acton, a church campgrounds with lodging and a dining hall for a spaghetti dinner.
Sunday’s ride covers 75 miles.
Coleman says there’s another new twist to the ride this year. He’s using an iPhone to periodically do 3-minute audio interviews with the cyclists. Enthusiasts can get the updates at twitter.com/gabraky.
Ed Stodola, a 67-year-old state psychologist who owns the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Frankfort and is a Grand Theatre board member, organized GABRAKY and will be riding in it for the sixth straight year.
Besides the Grand Theatre, other major sponsors are Humana, Capital City Cycles, Graviss McDonald’s restaurants and Lindsey Wilson College.