Making a change

After four years of riding in Death Valley as part of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Ride for a Cure we've decided to make a change. Next year we will be participating in a new JDRF ride in Killington, Vermont. (What is it with these morbid place names?) Because of that, we can't really have our ride blog called "Death Valley Ride", so we started a new blog called "More Than 100 Miles..."

"More Than 100 Miles..." has multiple meanings. First, these events are much more than just 100 miles of bicycle riding. They are a major fund raiser for JDRF. Our West Michigan team raised over a quarter of a million bucks last year. Plus there is the emotional component of spending a whole year fundraising, training, and getting to know some very motivated people. Not to mention the kids and adults with diabetes who are constantly in our thoughts.

Also, it's the name of a documentary, "More than 100 Miles: Riding to Cure Diabetes" we are currently producing. Our plan is to release it early in 2009 and enter it in several film festivals.

If you followed this blog, you'll notice that the new one is a little different. Tom will be the main writer with Mary adding occasional, attributed commentary. We are going to drop the weekly mileage updates in favor of more thorough descriptions of the ride season activities. We'll also keep you up to date on the documentary of the same name. Thanks to everyone who followed us the last few years and we hope you'll join us on our new site.