Members of the Kosciusko-based Tour D'Attala cycling club pedaled more that the length of the Mississippi River from its source in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico -- 2,186 miles – in a virtual race during July. And they did it faster than any of the other nine teams entered in the Mighty Mississippi Virtual Race.
Riders were allotted 30 days, beginning July 15, to complete the race. The six Tour D'Attala members – Amy and Wayne Bowling, Stan Merryman, Al Chadick, Claude Gunter and Maureen Boswell – accomplished the distance in less than half the time, 13 days.
The six riders totaled 2,219.01 miles, and averaged of 170,7 per day. Gunter did the most, 505.56 miles.
“Some days I would ride 20 miles in the morning, then go back and ride 20 miles in the afternoon,” said Amy Bowling. She did most of her cycling on the Natchez Trace, as did her husband and Chaddick. Boswell, a Kosciusko resident, cycled in New Mexico where she has a house, Gunter in his hometown of Oxford and Merryman “a little everywhere,” Amy Bowling said.
“You could ride whenever you wanted to. You just had to use Strava, a GPS app,” she said. The app recorded a rider’s distance.
Amy Bowling became a cyclist after she and her husband moved to Kosciusko in 2005. “I started cycling with my husband. He has always cycled.”
The activity enabled them to make new friends. “I’ve met a lot of people through cycling clubs.”
She enjoys cycling competition, but one major event in Mississippi will not be held this year due to the pandemic. The Little Mountain Ride, 72 miles up the Natchez Trace, has been canceled.
“It’s a really challenging ride because of the climb,” Amy Bowling said.
She is looking forward to the Natchez Trace 444, scheduled for November. It is a 444-mile ride the whole length of the Trace from Nashville to Natchez.
