Ride The Stroke Belt

I plan on riding my bike across the stroke belt from Atlanta, GA to Raleigh, NC (430 miles) next May, during Stroke Awareness Month. I know I can raise awareness and I hope to raise money for my Stroke Recovery DVD project.

To read about my stroke, recovery, and Stroke Recovery DVD project, go here
Stroke Recovery DVD project main
Here is a direct link to the post on my idea Here Is My Idea post
Click them, they are hyperlinks.

I hope to culminate the trip with a speech on stroke, possibly at Tri-State Stroke Network’s annual meeting. I plan on taking a video crew with me to interview doctors and stroke survivors along the way and document my journey. I also plan on speaking to stroke survivor groups and will encourage stroke survivors to ride with me or walk with me when I arrive in their town, by planning such events. I will try to get as much publicity as possible, and will produce video news releases for TV stations to make it easy for them to do a story on the ride and my efforts to get the word out about stroke. I would love to have stroke rides & walks in Atlanta, Columbia, SC, and Raleigh on the 3 weekends before, during, and after the ride. I plan to average 43 miles per day M-F for 2 weeks.

Did you know that North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia have twice the rate of stroke as the rest of the country? Well, it's true. The "Stroke Belt" is usually defined as an 8-12 state region (typically including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and often including Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. as well) where stroke death rates are substantially higher than the rest of the country.

That's from this page
Click it, it's a hyperlink

There you can read about the "Stroke Buckle" and see a map (which you can click on for a larger view). Or click here for only the map.

Atlanta is just a little bit north of the red, but the roads from Atlanta to Raleigh roughly follow the line between the yellow and the red. Maybe the ride should be called Ride the Stroke Buckle, but Ride the Stroke Belt sounds better and makes more sense to anyone who has not heard of the Stroke Buckle.