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Guests: Connor Long; Dennis Markatos-Soriano
This week’s show is chock full of awesomeness! We begin by sending off the Velo Sano Ride and our XOBA event. Velo Sano, now in its second year, is already raising multi-millions of dollars for cancer research here at our Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
XOBA, the Cross Ohio Bicycle Adventure, will begin in the Northeast corner of the state and travel down the east side to end up in Racine, Ohio right up against the W. VA. border.
Then we head on over to Copper Mountain, Colorado to speak with cyclist, swimmer, rock climber, actor, and so much more Connor Long. Celebrating his twenty-first birthday today, July 18th, Connor is captaining a team of cyclists to raise funds and awareness for the Anna and John J. Sie Center for Down Syndrome by riding 38+ miles, hoping to top his high mileage mark from 2014.
The ride is called the Copper Pro Challenge Community Ride and Connor is captaining the Courage Classic “Dare To Ride“ team.
Connor has Down Syndrome and his beautiful explanation of what that means blew me away. You are going to love him! (PS – his Dad Brian helps out in this interview, so I didn’t want to leave him out)
After a break and our news – which is full of fun and actually segues quite nicely with Connor’s idea of “triathlon”, we will head on down to Durham, N.C. to speak with the executive director of the East Coast Greenway, Dennis Markatos-Soriano. (watch his TexX talk by clicking on his name!)
The East Coast Greenway vision is for a long-distance, urban, shared-use trail system linking 25 major cities along the eastern seaboard between Calais, Maine and Key West, Florida. It will serve non-motorized users of all abilities and ages. A 2,900-mile long spine route will be accompanied by 2,000 miles of complementary routes that link in key cities, towns, and areas of natural beauty. This green travel corridor will provide cyclists, walkers, and other muscle-powered modes of transportation with a low-impact way to explore the eastern seaboard.
We talk with Dennis about the challenges, the successes, and how this amazing network is coming together.
Full plate tonight so… let’s get to it