Police Unity Tour: Day One

Editor's note: Centreville resident Kevin Whalen is sending updates for the next several days , a 220-mile bike ride from Richmond to Washington, D.C. He is riding in honor of Virginia Tech's Officer Deriek Crouse, who died after being shot on campus last December. His first post is  

Day one of Police Unity Tour, Virginia Chapter IV, Richmond to Charlottesville, Thursday, May 10th: 

94.16 miles

73 degrees, sunny, partly cloudy

25 mph headwinds

7:30am to 4:30pm

15mph average bike speed

25mph top bike speed

7mph lowest bike speed (headwinds)

6,496 calories burned 

We did it together, we conquered the hills, we battled the headwinds, we helped each other make it safely. The day started out with a ceremony at the Virginia State law enforcement memorial in Richmond. Attorney General Cuccinelli gave us a motivational speech to kick us off on a high note. We biked out of town 2x2 for the hills to Charlottesville. 

Beautiful day to ride, sun and clouds, no rain. Then the light cool winds turned into 25 mph headwinds after the first rest stop, and continued to pound us all day. We rode 2x2 for all 94.16 miles, protected by our 18 police motorcycles from Fairfax County PD, Virginia State Police, Loudon County PD, and Prince William County PD. We were followed by a caravan: of a bike shop on wheels towed by monster pick-up truck, another towed trailer, two rental moving trucks of drinks and food and our luggage, two ambulances, two passenger vans and two law enforcement vehicles. 

We had two breaks before lunch stop, fueling up on energy snacks, bananas, water, gatorade. At every stop during the day, two riders step up and tell their story about how their officer died and made the ultimate sacrifice. I'll give mine on Wednesday morning on two border patrol agents that were killed. My partner Rodney, who graduated from Virginia Tech, and is a Fairfax officer, will give his story on . 

At our lunch stop, a local church gave us the best lunch ever...peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! The best ever. With the amount of calories you burn on this kind of ride, plus the windgusts you fight, you have to eat and drink a lot to make sure your legs can keep pumping those hills, stay hydrated, and full of energy. We had a few riders fall back from exhaustion, but are recovering fine and ready to ride again tomorrow. After lunch we had one break, and then got pumped up to finish the 17.6 miles left, taking the last big one-mile hill up to the hotel. 

that we pulled out during the ride. and yell out "Dont Give Up...You Can Do It, Keep Going, Keep it Up!" We love these Fairfax County school kids. They are making a difference for us. During the ride, two schools of kids emptied out on to the side of the road and cheered us on. All of us were so moved and full of goosebumps....awesome. 

Once we parked our bikes outside the hotel today, we all gave the high-five's and hugs to making this leg of our journey, in memory of our fallen officers. We toasted a couple cold drinks and relaxed and told stories about the day's ride.  Dinner was well deserved. After burning almost 6500 calories, you're famished and eat like a pig, and don't feel guilty about it. Now we are exhausted and crashing. We get up tomorrow and start our second day of our journey at 8am, pedaling 80.3 miles to Warrenton.  We roll into Warrenton around 3:30.  Weather forecast is 75 and sunny and...no wind! 

The pictures I attached are from 130 I took today. So many cool pictures. Many more to be taken tomorrow. Thanks for all the emails and texts today.  Every rest stop I check for them. Keep them coming. For this Saturday, I would love to see you all on Route 29 around 9 a.m. at the top of Centreville, by restaurant. That's our last huge hill to take before we go into the Memorial in DC and finish our journey. Your view from that spot will be awesome.  Weather forecast is great. 

Kevin