Atiba Mbiwan and James Jones

00:06 My name is James Wesley Jones the for a lot of people call me Jay. I am 15 years old and today's date is June 16th, 2012 and I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm sitting here with my cochiti.

00:23 Good morning. My name is a Teva and B1. I am 52 years of age on this day, June 16th, 2012 in the great city of Atlanta, Georgia, and I am with my dream team alumni member James Jones who we affectionately called J.

00:47 All right, so cuz you can you tell us a little bit about how Bragg starred in what Bragg is.

00:53 Brag is the name for the bike ride across Georgia, which just ended its 33rd annual bike Trek across the state of Georgia and it was formed by a small group of people.

01:08 Who wanted to do a long distance bike ride and decided that they should try it in a part of Georgia. That wasn't too hilly. And so I believe it or not. It's a little town called matter where it started and they say things are better than matter. So it's a great place to try to spike right idea and believe it or not. It was a couple of dozen people who participated on that ride 33 years ago and now Bragg is a week-long bike ride that draws anywhere from a thousand to two thousand people and the truck across the state over 7 days usually is somewhere between 400 to 500 miles and it attracts both individuals families cycling teams people from all across the United States.

02:06 And even people come from other countries to participate Bragg.

02:12 So, can you tell me how you got involved in it?

02:16 Well, I moved to great state of Georgia 20 years ago from the little State of Rhode Island where I went to college and Brown University and then stayed in the city of Providence for another 10 years working as a teacher at the high school and middle school level and I did not own a car in college and province is the kind of City where you can actually get around without a car.

02:46 But I was at a bike and so I use my bike to zip around and as a teacher in the 1980s, we started focusing on this community service concept and so our advisory groups we would do.

03:03 Service projects

03:05 And I decided instead of getting on a bus or I have caused the Caravan. Why don't we ride our bikes to the service projects and started doing that with kids and I One Day decided to do an overnight bike ride, and I went to

03:23 Massachusetts from Rhode Island to Massachusetts, which is not a long distance, but it's it's pretty flat and it was a great experience. And so I thought about how I could replicate that experience and a couple years later I decided it was time to move my family. I took kids to Georgia and believe it or not my goddaughters the twins who live in the Atlanta area. We were visiting their mother works for Delta Airlines.

03:58 And she knew that I was doing this bike riding up in New England and then I did some of it with kids. She said you might enjoy this article in the Delta magazine about the bike ride across, Georgia.

04:13 And that when I read that as a no.

04:16 Anyone if I move to Georgia, I'll do that and a couple years later I did.

04:21 And

04:24 What was the real Turning Point?

04:29 Was I took my staff on his Outward Bound adventure and we were in, North Carolina.

04:40 And I decided to do the high ropes.

04:46 Adventure and it was pretty scary being up in the air but when you finally finish your on a platform and get to take a roll when you swing down off the platform down to the ground and before you jump you have to make a big goal for that year and I decided this was a year as going to the bike ride across Georgia. And so I jumped off the platform made it to the ground got home so that my registration form put in my vacation for the week and about a month later found out that they had to think on the Dream Team. And so I told the guy, you know, if you need my help, let me know.

05:22 And that was 1994-1995 installed in 1995 with my first first time.

05:34 James Dean is a very known Viking group around Georgia and Atlanta. Can you tell us more about the Dream Team?

05:42 So the Dream Team what was started in 1994 by the director of the bike ride across Georgia carry Kali and he reached out to Atlanta Public Schools gentleman named Harold head who was the director of Athletics and health for their Public Schools the time and he recruited some of his colleagues will working in schools name of your former principal down Duran. Who is the principal at Inman Middle School at the time?

06:14 And Jeff Kramer who was a teacher at Grady High School and they were able to pull together about 15 Middle School students.

06:24 And provide him with bikes and helmets and it did some training and they did the first bike ride across Georgia to dream team in June of 1994, and I didn't brag in 1995.

06:43 It sound up on my own and basically about a two weeks before Bragg. I got a call saying will I be willing to help be a mentor with the Dream Team? And so I said yes not knowing what I was getting into and that is a bike ride across Georgia was in North Georgia and it was very hilly and it rained the first two days and what I realize is that the students weren't really prepared and they gave the mountain bikes which people don't realize you don't ride mountain bikes across male.

07:20 And so I said I'm going to do this we got to do it right and so

07:25 High step that my involvement and 18 years later and still still here.

07:32 And we by the way, we do give the kids the bikes to keep if they complete the bike ride across Georgia. So that's part of the incentive for being a member of the Dream Team.

07:45 Can you describe some of the challenges that you faced or some of the dream team members faced during the courses of you doing brat?

07:54 Well, we could probably spend a couple of days talking about the challenges.

08:01 That dream team members face and you you should me you know, this that dream team is

08:12 Designed around helping middle school students do this bike ride, but we have lots of adults who are coaches who assist and I would say just like schools and other institutions that work with young people the quality of the adults determines the performance.

08:35 And the achievement levels of the young people and so with a dream team we try to make sure we recruit coaches who are responsible adults who understand how to not just discipline but also nurture students across a very difficult 7-Day Trek on a bike because we can we do 50 60 70 even 80-mile day sometime and so it's June is Georgia. So it's hot and humid and so this a pretty top physical challenge, but the truth is that we tell them people most time that it's primarily a mental.

09:18 Challenge that is 80% mental if your mind.

09:24 Says you can do it. You'll do it your body will follow but I think that you probably can answer that question about Talent is better by sharing want to one of your challenges when you are on Bragg.

09:38 I guess on my first break it was Wednesday or the middle day where we're about to go in there. I hang up layover day and it was very cold at morning. So I had the bright idea to wear sweatpants and I thought if I roll fast know if I can stay in the cool temperature and beat the heat. I was sadly mistaken.

10:02 Only my last rest stops. It was at 12 miles left to go almost passed out from heat exhaustion and had to get put into a sag wagon, which is a car that takes us to the next rest stop if we ever got injured or sick and it was not very fun. I had a suffer from hallucinations. I was very dehydrated and I was very fatigued and I could tell you right now every time I do brag or go on a bike ride, you will not find a pair of sweatpants with you.

10:37 And it'll it I got sent home because of it and I can tell you now that was probably one of the biggest mistakes I made so far in my life and I hope it's the only biggest mistake I make so far in my life and I hope to do brag every year until I'm old like a lot of the people I meant over the years and make sure that I'll be safe for the rest of my riding days. So could you tell me how could you tell me more about the coaches and some of the coaches who do a little bit more than others like what you Kevin?

11:11 Yeah, he's a great example. Let me just say one thing about your experience because I think that it illustrates. What is at the core of what we're doing the bike ride across Georgia and the dream team which really is greater than just a bike ride across Georgia is really designed to help young people learn lessons for life and the bike is really just an instrument. We use the bike rides are the metaphorical Journeys that we think are parallel to what you'll find as you go through life and the challenges of going up hills.

11:52 And on difficult Terrain

11:56 And one of the things that we think is critical is your health because we know that to perform well in life, you have to feel good and health is something that we sort of take for granted but really it requires work and it's not just about physical exercise. It's also about what you take into your body and your rest and those are three elements that we we deal with a lot when we're on the bike ride across Georgia, but we try this dress is this issue of your diet because a lot of young people put

12:36 Bad things into your body's and the most important thing is water.

12:41 And I can tell you in the eighteen years. I've been doing this. I've been to the emergency room a half a dozen times and

12:51 With the exception of once it will all times when young people dehydrated and like you said when you start to dehydrate you start to hallucinate and you faint and fortunately in your case you were

13:10 Not hospitalized but we had times when we got you had our dream team members hooked up to IV for at least a day to get fluids back into their bodies. And this is the kind of thing that game we think you know,

13:26 By the life that you need to drink water everyday.

13:29 You don't need to drink soda ever.

13:33 Do you want juice? That's fine. But in moderation but most of the time you should be drinking water because your body is mostly water in and so I think your lesson was a heavy lesson for you, but it was a good lesson for everybody about

13:47 Dealing with the heat and hydration issues that that we Face especially in a state like Georgia and you probably know this young people your age have died from that playing sports training in Seoul.

14:04 You lesson was one that

14:07 Was big for you but likes a big for a team and four others, cuz the more you share the story I think others will learn from it and Coach Kevin just a great example of that because

14:20 We had a situation coach Kevin. I actually we're on the dream team together back in 1995 and he's a veteran cyclist. He have been on Bragg back in the 80s. So

14:35 I was a new kid on the Block at that time when I met him, but he ended up taking off a few years.

14:41 And I would say about maybe 10 years ago 10 11 years ago.

14:46 We were on a bike ride and it was the middle of the week that layover day and we had some dream team members who wanted to do the century. What's the Century Century is doing a layover day. We have three different route. So if you could take you can take either 30 miles at 60 miles or a hundred miles to Century and a century is a hundred miles over a train that usually Luke's back to your restaurant that you previously came from and that's what has you know, doing a hundred miles in a day is quite an accomplishment. And so we always have dream team members who talked about doing a century before the Rye but when the middle of week comes most of them don't go forth. And so we had a young man Alejandro who

15:36 Wanted to do it and he was one of I think three dream team members and we had some coaches with them and on their way near the first rest stop. Some people wanted to stop someone to keep going and skip it and go to the second rest. Stop English was his second language and so as they were coming towards the rest out there riding pretty fast is speaking and I think that he did not hear clearly what's going to happen. So he was going to skip the rest stop and go straight. One of the other members was going to turn and when they turn they hit him knocked him over. On his elbow and ended up having to go to the hospital to get an x-ray and what they said is nothing it was in a serious break. He did have a little fracture put it in his name, but he couldn't they could ride a bike after that and you don't know that I learned the bike you got to finish the rock miles for the week.

16:32 You can always make up the miles after the week. But you know, like most others he wanted to take the bike home at the end of the week. Well coach Kevin was on Bragg with his tandem bike and his Stoke got sick in the middle of the week. And so he found out about what had happened to the dream team member and Coach Kevin's tandem is a recumbent tandem, you know what that is. So you don't really need your arms if your stalker that's the the back seat on a recumbent because you're actually sitting down.

17:09 And so he said that he could take the screen team member as his stock up for the for the rest of the week so he could continue riding and as a result the young man was able to get his bike and Coach Kevin.

17:25 Provided excellent coaching for him the rest of the week. They got to talk a lot being together and it actually established a tradition. So now coach Kevin.

17:37 During the Bragg each week. I mean each day he gives opportunity for dream team member to ride with him. And so they can also take turns and learning how the only ride on a tandem but to learn from one of the most experienced cyclist in the state of Georgia coach Kevin Fitzgerald.

17:59 Could you also tell us maybe some of the you said a lot of the terrain is difficult. Could you tell us some of the well not even difficult to rain, but terrain that we saw like the mountain is in the lakes that we pass through going through Bragg.

18:15 He's having more about that.

18:18 Yeah, the state of Georgia is.

18:21 I think it's the largest east of the Mississippi land wise so it's a big state and it goes from the coast, which is pretty flat.

18:35 To the mountains. What's the end of the Appalachian mountain range is very hilly.

18:44 And then you have parts of South Georgia that is relatively flat but it doesn't have as much canopy as it as a northern part of the state. So depending upon the route.

19:01 What changes every year with Bragg you can get to see all kinds of Flora and Fauna or kind of housing rural areas, Urban and

19:15 I know that my experience on Bragg that makes it so special is you're not riding the same rows that you do when you're in a car.

19:26 Until you get to see parts of the state that you don't normally see you get to interact with people in towns who are for the car off the beaten path and to me that's the beauty of the bike ride across Georgia. Of course, you know, we also must pay homage to Mother Nature.

19:50 And

19:53 We can't control the weather.

19:55 Until one of the greatest challenges really riding across the terrain is

20:01 How much sun or rain and as you know the most recent Bragg me we had about 4 hours of rain that is poured on us and

20:12 I rule is as long as it's not thundering lightning we ride I would say that.

20:21 It was a difficult moment because I'm always worried about safety of our kids and

20:28 Rain, but I thought everybody actually did extremely well and finish.

20:34 Without any accidents that I know of and so again, this is part of what we talked about lessons for life because

20:46 It will be difficult times in your life. When Storms will come and you will have to figure out what to do and whether not, you know to keep going on or the Stop and reflect.

21:00 Let's tongo by stay in it keep rolling until we hope that again. These are the lessons that resonate with your peers as they grow older into adulthood.

21:16 That's thank you for telling me a lot about the Dream Team and bragging self. Now before we go. Can you join me in singing The Dream Team song or anthem?

21:30 Well, I was certainly follow your lead because we always finish I'll brag without Dream Team alumni leading Us in that great Chan. So everywhere we go everywhere we go. People want to know people want to know who yeah. Yeah, so we tell them so we tell them we are the Dream Team. We are the dream team dream team anytime anytime. Thank you Jay.