2026 Bike MS Jack & Back

This year the Bike MS Leadership Team had to make a tough decision. The Gateway Getaway has, for as long as I’ve been riding, always been held the weekend following Labor Day. Well, this year the weekend coincided with Rosh Hashanah, and we have a large Jewish contingent who said that they’d be unable to ride that weekend. These teams contribute a lot to the overall fundraising, and in order to honor them, the Bike MS team decided to move the ride to the last weekend in September, since Pedal the Cause was the third weekend.

Many of you know by now that I have had plans since early this year to do a bucket-list pilgrimage to Egypt, including the majestic pyramids and the Great Sphinx, and then a 4-day Nile River cruise from Luxor to Aswan, visiting a host of sacred sites along the way. My best friend Mike agreed to go along with me, but insisted that if we’re that close, we’re also going to Greece after the 10-day trip in Egypt. So we’ll spend a day in Athens visiting the Acropolis before flying to Santorini, which is supposedly the best Greek island to visit if you’ve only got limited time. As it goes, Mike has to be back for a conference, so we’ll only spend a couple days in Santorini before flying back to Athens to catch a flight out the next morning back to the US. And this trip happens to be scheduled in conflict with the rescheduled Gateway Getaway.

Due to the generosity of so many people, I raised over $5K last year, making me a Passport Rider, which offers the privilege of riding in any other Bike MS event around the country. I’d heard good things about what they do in Nashville, so when Marisa Cook (the Bike MS manager who was recently promoted to Executive Director!) mentioned that they were hosting the Bike to Jack & Back ride the weekend after Labor Day, that seemed like the obvious Ride to ride.

Now many of you also know that the weekend after Labor Day often coincides with the weekend of our wedding anniversary, and my wife Maria has always been completely supportive of me being away that weekend. (She joined me for the Saturday night Bike MS party at least a couple times over the years to celebrate our anniversary!) So this year she lined up a VRBO in Lynchburg, where the Day 1 ride would conclude, so we could celebrate our anniversary together at the home of Jack Daniels Distillery.

We drove down Friday and connected with some cousins who moved from the Metro East to the Nashville area a number of years ago, and it was timely that our visit coincided with a planned visit by other family from Florida. So we enjoyed a warm summer afternoon in delightful company around their pool, and shared stories and memories over a BBQ dinner before heading down to our weekend nest in Lynchburg late Friday evening.

We normally arrive at the host site and camp the night before, so this was a little different. We were up at 5:30 the next morning and drove from Lynchburg to the starting point at Eagleville High School, south of Nashville. It was overcast and a little drizzly on the drive up, but by the time we arrived around 6:45 the rain stopped. A steady stream of cyclists flowed into the makeshift parking lot on a grass field, with everyone doing last minute preparations as they sought out their team members. With weather forecasts including potential storms along with a heat advisory that day, the MS staff elected to cancel the 70-mile route and limit everyone to the 48-mile ride. (Which is what I planned to do anyway!)

This would have been my 10^th year riding with team United By Design, so I’m accustomed to seeing a lot of familiar faces on the morning of the ride. In this case, there were literally zero people I knew, but 350 friends I just hadn’t met yet! Maria and I noticed a number of people sporting the same Bike to Jack & Back jersey that top fundraisers get, so we chuckled about all of us being on a virtual team. It was an easy opening to introduce myself to another “teammate”, and fun to find out where they were from if not Nashville.

Tom from Denver

The first person I met on the parking lot was Tom from Denver, who’s also a Passport Rider. Then I met Jimmy, whose 14-year-old son had ridden with him last year, but was getting his learner’s permit instead of riding this year. Then there was Steve, a Nashville native who had just gotten back from Denver to celebrate the wedding of some friends who dated 34 years before finally deciding to enjoy the benefits of marriage.

Nathan from Nashville

I met Nathan on the ride into the second rest stop. He was riding with his brother-in-law who was wearing a spiked helmet (that I did not get a photo of!) And then “Patches” – a Passport Rider from Ohio who’d ridden in 40+ rides all over the country. His wife lived with MS for 26 years, nine of which were spent in a hospital bed before she passed away at 52. I also met Gordon, who was riding a classic single speed bike (that’s hard core!) and going slow enough to keep pace with his friend Rob who was riding with a heart replacement from six years ago. I met another Steve who was riding with a pacemaker!

All in all, the ride was delightful, with lots of flat roads and relatively mild inclines, including a pleasant stint on the Old Nashville Dirt Road. I’d been dreading the big climb about 40 miles into the ride near Mount Herman, which turned out to be not as bad as I’d imagined. Of course, what goes up must come down, and I hit 40 mph on the descent. The kid in me still enjoys the thrill!

I arrived just before noon, with 3:17 of riding time and 1:17 of lollygagging around rest stops! But that the fun of the ride. It’s not a race. It’s a party every 10-12 miles.

Maria met me at the finish line, and we enjoyed lunch and a beer before heading back to our VRBO for a shower and a nap. The big festivity that day was a trip up to BBQ Hill, a big open-air facility at the highest peak of Lynchburg, where we were promised the finest BBQ dinner, along with live music and an awards celebration. We sat with three other couples, all of whom have their own stories about why they are committed to the ride for MS. It was a lovely evening with a beautiful sunset and a chance to indulge in some of Jack Daniel’s finest whiskeys.

The beautiful BBQ Hill Pavilion

*Bruce & Nancy, living with MS since ’99*

After a shuttle ride back to the VRBO, we enjoyed a little downtime to celebrate our anniversary in a old garage that was renovated into a beautiful one-room suite. Maria had made a stop to pick up some additional snacks and breakfast items for the next morning, and we settled in and snuggled up.

After we checked out on Sunday, we headed over to the Visitor’s Center to pick up a bottle of Gentleman Jack, one of the distillery’s more mellow whiskeys, which I drank the night before to toast my father Jack. They offered a nice etched logo with our 34^th anniversary date below as a souvenir to commemorate the lovely weekend.