A lone scale model P-51 Mustang flew guard outside Ed McNeff's tent on RAGBRAI this summer. It helped him find his tent in a large field of look-alike canvas shelters. It also flew as a reminder of how he spent he spent many of his 88-years before he retired, the first time.
Ed graduated from high school in 1942 and joined the US Army. Fourteen months later he had learned to salute, march and fly a Stearman Army Air Corps trainer well enough to get his pilot's wings. Later that year, 1943, he flew his first combat missions in a P-47 Thunderbolt guarding American bombers on daylight raids over Germany and Eastern Europe. In 1944 he first climbed into the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang, one of the best fighter aircraft ever built. It was at home on a low level bombing mission as it was a dogfight at 20,000 feet. It was the only Allied plane that could hold its own with the new but few jet fighters Germany built before the end of the war.
When the Army Air Corps became the United States Air Force on September 18, 1947 Ed McNeff went right along into the new service. When he retired from the Air Force in 1975 he was wearing two stars and had led US fighter commands all the way from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida to Fuchu Air Station, Japan.
When he retired from the Air Force Ed entered law school (I didn't ask him but I have to believe all of his professors would have called him "sir") and then set up his own firm. When he retired from this second career he looked in the newspaper for a used road bike. He found a nice used Nishiki (red, double-butted chrome moly steel) for $250 and without any particular training Ed started riding from California to his old home in New Jersey. Good fighter pilots are notorious for making big, important, life altering decisions in a very short amount of time. And living to tell about them.
He bought some transcontinental maps from Adventure Cycling, outfitted his Nishiki with panniers and other lightweight camping gear from REI and at age 61 pedaled off to see America, this time from ground level. A grandson and his granddaughter started with him but soon the prospect of pedaling 3,000 miles across the country sapped both their excitement and enthusiasm and the two returned home. Ed rode solo to Oregon, met his daughter Cathy for the ride across Washington and Idaho into Montana. After she returned to work Ed continued east and rode the long downhills out of the Rocky Mountains.
He trained for the ride as he rode the ride. Twenty miles a day was plenty at first. As he went further his daily milage went up. By the time he reached the Dakotas he could turn out a hundred miles a day. He did concede the self-contained ride wasn't nearly as enjoyable as sleeping in a bed at night in a room with both a bed and a shower and eating food in places that had real tables. He shipped his camping gear home. But even without the extra weight the trip had taken its toll. Ed threw in the towel in Minneapolis and flew both himself and his bicycle home to southern California.
He regretted his decision almost immediately and decided to continue his ride across America from where he had left it. He flew back to Minneapolis, reassembled his bike and headed north. His enthusiasm returned along the way and his remaining belly fat disappeared. He was back on a mission.
He veered off the Adventure Cycling maps when the mood struck him. He crossed the border at Sault Ste. Marie and then pedaled across Canada to Niagara and crossed back into the states. He pedaled across New York, Pennsylvania and then to Atlantic City, New Jersey. When he finished the home stretch to Cape May, where his brother still lived, he had been on the road a total of 63 days.
Ed didn't rest on his well deserved laurels after he rode across America. He wanted to see the ceremonies at the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day landing on the Atlantic beaches in France. As a retired military officer he flew on a space available basis on a C-17 to a base in Germany. There was plenty of room for his bike in the huge aircraft. He pedaled from Germany through Luxembourg to a bed and breakfast on a farm near St. Lo, France. After the ceremonies were over Ed put his bike in the back of a rental car and drove back to Germany.
In late summer 2009 "space available" for someone with a bicycle back to the states became "no space available", even for a retired Major General. Ed took his bike apart into as many pieces as he could and mailed everything back to his daughter in Texas. Suddenly the Air Force found space for a retired general traveling light.
Back in Texas, Cathy took the Nishiki to a local bike shop. They reassembled it, tuned it up and both waited for Ed's return. When he reached the states, Cathy told her dad that she had been offered $250 for the bike, the same price he had paid for it 14 years and thousands of miles earlier. Ed sold the red Nishiki and bought a more modern, lighter weight road bike.
Ed and his daughter Cathy have ridden the Tour of Tuscon twice, the Ride the Rockies a couple of times, the Grand Canyon to Nogales Tour and, of course, RAGBRAI, once in 2011 and again this year.
This year my friends and I rode 1400 miles this year training for RAGBRAI. Ed told me he went on a 50 mile ride a few weeks before the big Iowa ride and decided he was fit enough. And he was. He did catch a sag wagon one day 30 miles into that day's ride. That was the day the heat index was 120 out on the asphalt roads, and I think that was the same day I rode 12 miles before catching an ambulance to the hospital suffering with dehydration. Like a lot of the riders, Ed has taken some time off his bike since RAGBRAI. He will go on some little hour and a half 20 milers just to keep in shape.
What's next? While he doesn't yet have any firm plans, Ed daydreams every now and then about a bike trip through Italy. If he does he will see some countryside from down on the ground that he had only seen from the air, 68 years ago. Ride on, Ed. Ride on.
with his daughter, Cathy Shaw after a day's
ride (and a shower) on RAGBRAI XL.
