2018 Tour de USA® Rally Route Segments

Welcome to the 2018 Tour de USA®.

Beginning on August 15, 2018, an adventurous bunch of auto and motorcycle enthusiasts will hit the road to stop prostate cancer in its tracks. Along the way we’re going to drive some fun roads, talk to a lot of people, and show men and their families how we can use the tactic the medical community used to eradicate smallpox to end prostate cancer. But, more about elsewhere on the website.

This page and sub-pages show the route we’re going to follow. We’re still selecting segments and we invite you to submit your favorite twisty section for possible inclusion.

Here’s the overall sequence . . .

Begin in Los Angeles (exact location TBD)
St. George, UT
Durango, CO
Colorado Springs, CO via Pikes Peak
Leawood, KS
Lincoln, NE
Cheyenne, WY
Little Big Horn Monument, MT
Boise, ID
Eugene, OR
Willows, CA (Thunderhill International Raceway)
Santa Rosa, CA
Laguna Seca, CA (Miatas at Laguna Seca 2018)
Santa Ynez, CA
Manhattan Beach, CA

These are the city stops for the trip. Please find a more detailed schedule at https://tourdeusa.events/2018-tour-de-usa-city-stops/ I will be posting the actual start and end points for each each in the drivers forum – https://tourdeusa.events/forum/

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Allez!

How the Tour de USA® Began

You may have read this bit of history on one of our other sites but, if you haven’t, read on. [This is the Cliff Notes version!]

I learned I had prostate cancer when I was 58, just after I completed a post-Army career MBA at UCLA. I was pretty shocked, since I was a lifelong amateur athlete, former Army Ranger, and in pretty great shape.

Two events saved my life: 1) a case of prostatitis that seemed like a recurrence of malaria that sent me to urgent care and 2) my primary care physician referred me to an oncologist who was super thorough and found two tumors hiding on the very top of my prostate. [By the way, until then, I had absolutely no idea what the prostate gland did or where the heck it was located. Surprise!]

Fast forward to post-surgery and I went back through my medical records gathering at all of my old PSA test results to understand if I should have seen the prostate cancer coming. I dropped all of those numbers into a spreadsheet and applied a trend line (that pesky MBA training, remember?)

Looking at those numbers, I could clearly see a gradual rise over the preceding 8 years and the a sharp increase during the last two years as the cancer grew in size. The lightbulb turned on and I realized that simply tracking my PSA test result each year would have shown me there was a problem and I wouldn’t have needed pure dumb luck to survive.

Everyone has a purpose in life and, having survived two tours in Vietnam and now prostate cancer, I figured that the Higher Power was clearly pointing me in a direction.

My goal was to make prostate cancer visible since prostate cancer usually doesn’t present any symptoms until it is well advanced (urination urgency and frequent urinations at night being the most common). My goal was to create a simple system, using available and affordable tests, that would let men see their risk.

The result was the ProstateTrackerApp. ProstateTracker uses the number from the PSA (prostate specific antigen) blood test to create a graph that visually shows if the number has risen from the previous year, a rising trend. If the trend line is up, it’s time to see your doctor. ProstateTracker is free and you can get the PSA blood test through your doctor or through Walk-in-Lab on the Internet. Walk-in-Lab sends the test results directly to you and the cost is roughly $35.00.

OK. That’s the Why About Prostate Cancer. But Why Create the Tour de USA®?

The short answer is to get the need for cancer early detection to be top of mind. To survive cancer, you’ve got to find it early.

In 2006, I created a non-profit focused on prostate cancer early detection and prevention – The Prostate Cancer Awareness Project, and we began our our outreach programs.

In 2010, I rode my Harley-Davidson Low Rider from Los Angeles to the East Coast and back, stopping at every state capitol and radio and TV station that would listen to my prostate cancer awareness message. I spent 42 days on the road, covering just over 8,100 miles. Two state governors issued prostate cancer proclamations but it was pretty tough getting anyone to listen to the prostate cancer message. [We guys are a little reluctant to engage the prostate cancer topic.]

I created the “Prostate Cancer Pony Express” at the end of the 2010 ride. In 2011, over 100 Prostate Cancer Pony Express motorcycle riders crisscrossed the US, touching all of the lower 48 states, and we raked in 11 more state proclamations. In 2012, we did a regional ride in Virginia, ending at the White House in Washington, DC. It was a real challenge organizing riding since we are an all volunteer organization, so there were no rides from 2013-2016.

We broadened our cancer mission in 2016 and created the Cancer Journeys Foundation (CJF), a new 501 c3 non-profit that supports all of America’s 15 million cancer survivors, with the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project folding into the CJF and becoming one of our major programs.

In line with our new wider mission, The Prostate Cancer Pony Express became the Tour de USA.®

The Tour de USA® Mission

I’m a former Army guy and everything the Army does is mission-based. The CJF’s goal with our prostate cancer program is to significantly reduce the annual 28,000-man death toll through early detection. If the medical community can eradicate smallpox through early detection, we can hammer prostate cancer the same way. So, we need to tell men about ProstateTracker and get them using it. That’s the mission of the 2018 Tour de USA.®

2018 is The Tour’s inaugural year and the focus is on prostate cancer awareness. 2019 will be about breast cancer, and succeeding years will tackle the other cancers.

Veterans Against Cancer

More than a million men are living with prostate cancer and thousands of them are related to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. It would be great to have a strong Vet contingent in the ride.

I’ll be driving my screaming yellow Miata sporting prostate cancer awareness messaging. What will you be driving? And where will I meet you?

Warm regards,

Robert

Cancer Survivor
Class of 2003