The Season's First Sunday Night Update

The weather was fairly mild this past week and we did manage to get outside riding once, so that means we need an Update. We do not update based on indoor training rides. We don't like riding indoors. We do it to stay in shape. We ride outdoors because we enjoy it, and we stay in shape. But that is a extra benefit.

This week's ride totals:

3/13 - 10.5 miles, White Pine Trail south

Total: 10.5 miles

Let the season begin

March 13 is still officially winter but we were out on our bikes yesterday. The temperature was pushing 70 degrees and it was sunny, sooo... we pulled down the road bikes and zipped off to the White Pine Trail for a quick 10 mile ride. There was even a slight head wind on the way out, which is nice, because we love the wind. Now I know there are hard core riders out there who bike all winter long in the ice and snow. Let me just say, we are not that type of biker. Although we have great respect for those who are. We are really looking forward to the bike season getting underway in full in the next few weeks. It felt really good to be out on the trail yesterday. The snow is melting and the gears are turning.

UCC Challenge

Last Saturday Mary rode in the UCC Challenge in Holland along with several other members of the West Michigan Ride Team. The Challenge is a 12 or 24 hour indoor team ride done on spinners. Coach Mike Clark, Rob Andro, Sarah Andro, Joe Schmeider, Dave
Berkiner and Ted Bentley joined Mary on the JDRF team for 12 hours of fun. The team wore their very stylish JDRF jerseys to help build awareness for the cause.

Death Valley Ride 2006 Video

For when we ride outside again

I found this on the web. Some of it's funny, but all is good advice. Thanks to the Bicycle Diaries blog.

Donations just got easier

While we really enjoy riding our bikes, the real reason we put ourselves through the "torture" of Death Valley is to raise funds for a cure to Type 1 diabetes. The folks at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation have just made donating to the cause a whole lot easier Click HERE or on the DONATE link to the left. This will take you directly to a new page that will allow you to make your donation on-line and also show you how close we are to our goal.
Thanks in advance for your support of this worthwhile cause.

sNOw

It's snowing again. Or should I say "still". One of the lovely things about living on the west side of Michigan is this thing called lake effect snow. The weather could be beautiful throughout the Midwest and we'll get dumped on. It's hard to ride bikes in 2 feet of white stuff.

We have made the commitment to ride Death Valley again this year. The ride is on October 20, 2007 so we have several months to train and fund raise. Right now the training is indoors, yuck. But soon (not soon enough) we'll be outside, on the trail, on the road and having fun.

Ride on!

This Just In...

From this evening issue of the Grand Rapids Press.

Which is why I am tickled to announce that another eight-mile section of the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail will be paved this spring from Russell Road to Sand Lake, the Kent County line -- at long last."The engineering is done," said Dave Heyboer, chairman of the Friends of the White Pine Trail. "The paving will be done by the end of May."

Great news for those of us who train on the trail. With the paving to Sand Lake we will now have a 36 mile out and back route from our house up the White Pine Trail. It's going to be a great summer.

Also, here's a link to a video I put on YouTube of the 2006 Death Valley Ride. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wly043lxHJw
Enjoy.

Happy New Year

Saturday was one of those wonderful days we seldom get in Michigan in December, sunny and 50 degrees. So we hopped on our bikes for one last ride in the 2006 season. We rode up to Rockford along the White Pine Trail. Great news on the trail, the local governments are now saying that the White Pine will be paved all the way to Sand Lake this summer. I know we've been hearing that for awhile, but it looks like it's really going to happen now.

The final Sunday Night Update for 2006
12/30 - 11.5 miles; WPT north
2006 total mileage: 1,469 miles

Merry Christmas

I hope Santa was good to everyone this year. Tom got an "Italia" cycling jersey. Very cool. Mary got a fluffy robe and warm hat, scarf and gloves. Not real practical for bike riding, but necessary for Michigan winters. We also have assembled all the photos taken in Death Valley by all the different West Michigan riders. It's almost 2 gigabytes of material. It's a little post Christmas gift to our fellow riders. We'll be giving those out at our 2007 Ride Kick-off Party on January 9th. Thanks to Digital Video Services of Grand Rapids, Michigan for donating the disc duplication.
Have a happy holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day. It's time to put on that winter layer of fat that we will all work so hard to get rid of come Spring. It was a great weekend weather-wise for this time of year in the Mid-West. So after finishing raking leaves and putting up Christmas lights today I went on a bike ride. It was actually my first time on a bike since our return from Death Valley and it felt really good. Just a quick trip up the White Pine Trail to Rockford and back. We are hoping for some more nice days this Fall/Winter but realize that we may be on exercise cycles at the gym for the next four months. Yuck.

This week's ride totals:
11/27 - 12 miles; WPT north

Winter in Michigan

Okay, technically it's not winter yet, but November is probably the most depressing month in this state. Everything is gray. The sky is gray. The trees are gray. When there is snow (which could be any day now) it's gray. Oh how I long for the warm temperatures and blue skies of Death Valley. Check out this photo. This has not been filtered or Photoshopped. The sky was really that blue.
And finally for the people out there who are into stats, it's amazing where people have been logging into this blog from. We've had visitors from 38 states including the District of Columbia and 18 countries other than the U.S. And over 1,300 hits. Now if each of those hits would just donate $10 we'd be well on our way to making next year's goal. Yeah, we're going to do this again next year. More on that later.

Greetings from Detroit

On the road again, but this time for work, not to ride. We had a great post ride get together at Sarah and Rob Andro's parents house on Sunday. Most of the Ride Team was there. We ate, drank, swapped stories and started making plans for next year. Almost everyone committed to coming back to Death Valley and bringing along more riders. We want to take the title of Largest Ride Team away from Wisconsin. Keep watching this blog for more updates and news as we wrap up the 2006 ride and get ready for 2007.
Oh, and speaking of stories, the mojito shower that Nicole provided in Las Vegas was very refreshing. True to her word, she didn't have a repeat performance at the Andro's, but there is always next year.

More Donor Thank You's

We'd like to thank all the people who have donated to the ride so far. There is still time to give to this worthy cause if you haven't already. Just click on the DONATE link to the left or mail a check to the address on the left. Our recent contributors include:

John and Carrie Kasper
Jack and Karen Kleinhecksel
Brian and Darolyn Mogg
Paul and Brenda Schab
Tom and Florence Scheidel
Pat and Renee Smith
Dave Usleton and SueLynn Ritsema
Paul and Sallie Wieringa
The Corner Bar
Stonecrest Productions
Tru-Vue, Inc.

The Ride - part 3

We shot some video with our little still camera while we were in Death Valley and Las Vegas. Some of it can even be shared. Check out YouTube. There are 4 video clips. After clicking on the following link the first video should show up and the rest should be in the playlist. Derek Dykstra also has a few clips. Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WmfilU5pUA

We want to thank the folks from Adventure Corps for organizing the logistics of the ride. Here's a link to their photos http://www.adventurecorps.com/jdrf/2006dv/indexoct.html

There are also photos from Bright Room. You can see them at http://www.brightroom.com/view_event_photos.asp?EVENTID=13912&PWD=
Tom's bib number was 757, Mary's was 758.

We also noticed that we didn't have a Sunday night update last week. That could have been because we were relaxing in Las Vegas last Sunday. But here it is, a week late.

This (last) week's ride totals:
10/20 - 10 miles; Zabriski Point, Death Valley, CA
10/21 - 105 miles; Ride for the Cure, Death Valley, CA
Total: 115 miles

The Ride - part 2

I've been on the road for work practically since we got back from Death Valley so it's taken awhile to get the next entry about the ride. I said in part one we didn't have any injuries, but we did have two riders, Ann and Andrea, who were nursing injuries and were unable to ride in Death Valley, even though they made the trip. We also had several riders who have Type 1 diabetes. They were out there fighting the heat and wind with the rest of us. I know how hard it was for us, I'm in awe of someone with a life threatening disease being able to do that course. Last Saturday was a very hard day. At 5:00 a.m., when we got up, it was already warm and unlike the day before it was windy. The ride is "out and back" style. 52.5 miles with a light wind mostly at our back. We made great time. Then we turned around and came back 52.5 miles, into a 20 MPH head wind with gusts to 30 MPH. Also, the last 6 miles before the turn around is the climb up to Jubilee Pass. 6 miles at a 6% grade. It took us an hour. The wind made a difficult course a little piece of hell on earth. There were very good riders who said it was one of the toughest rides they've ever done. Our fastest riders got in a pace line on the way back so they could go 11 miles an hour! That passed for fast in Death Valley.
Another member of our team is Danielle Musto, who is the ranked second in mountain bike racing. Danielle was the first woman to finish the ride. She also has a blog and you can read her thoughts on the ride there. Just click on the new link to the left or on her name above.
Speaking of links, click on the Flickr badge on the left and you'll see a whole bunch of pictures from the ride. In part three we'll post links to other people's photos and some video.


















This is the part of the team (we had 34 riders) that we rode most of the course with. Sue, Mary, Tom, Peggy, Lynn, Nicole, and Joe.

Beautiful but desolate countryside.

The day of the ride was Mary's birthday. The day after the ride we recuperated in Las Vegas and it was Tom's birthday. Use the comment section to guess how old we are.

The Ride - part 1

We arrived in Death Valley on Thursday evening after traveling all day. We had a nice dinner and hooked up with the rest of our team at the Furnace Creek Ranch. Friday morning was the training ride. Five miles uphill to Zabriski Point in 85 degree heat, but no wind. The wind would come on Saturday. After enjoying the view and posing for pictures it was five miles downhill back to the Ranch. On Friday afternoon some folks went on a hike, others hung out by the pool, still others rode their bikes some more. That night we had a pasta laden dinner in the date palm grove and got to bed relatively early to be ready for our team photo op at 6:20 a.m. on Saturday. Tom had the first flat at the top of Zabriski. As a team we suffered at least 15 flat tires over the weekend, but no injuries, except for some VERY sore muscles on Sunday. More photos and more stories about the actual ride in the next few days.

The West Michigan Team at Zabriski Point, the site of the Friday training ride.

Tom and Mary at the top of Jubilee Pass. This is the half way point. After this we rode back into a 20 MPH head wind.

"Naughty kitties" Peggy, Sue and Mary at Badwater.

We are back!

Wow, wow, and wow. It was an incredible trip. So much to tell and so little time tonight. I will post stories and pictures soon but here's a brief synopsis of the Ride to Cure Diabetes.

There were 284 riders from all across the country. 37 of those came from West Michigan. We were the second biggest team there after Wisconsin. We don't have the exact figure yet, but the ride raised between 1.5 and 2 million dollars for diabetes research. Mary and Tom both completed the full 105 mile course, which was made incredibly difficult this year by a 20 MPH head wind for the last 50 miles. Danille Musto, of the West Michigan team, was the first women to cross the finish line. (Remember, this is not a race.) West Michigan coach Mike Clark was named coach of the year. And the high temperature during the ride was only about 90 degrees. We'll have lots more soon.

Yummy dogs

The "Dogs for Dollars" promotion at the Corner Bar in Rockford was a big success. The manager there said it was one of the best nights they have had in awhile. Several members of the Ride Team showed up as well as lots of other folks. We all had a real good time eating great food and discussing our upcoming adventure.
tomorrow morning we're leavin' on a jet plan for the ride. It's been a great spring and summer of training, and now our time is here. We'll post lots of photos when we return.

Soon and very soon

So our bikes left Wednesday and then it snowed on Thursday and Friday. I guess the bikes gods sent snow so we wouldn't feel so bad about not being able to ride our roadies. Today the weather was sunny, if not exactly warm (52 degrees). Usually when we ride north on the White Pine Trail we turn around where the pavement ends at Russell Road. Today we drove up to Russell Road and took the mountain bikes north on the dirt part of the trail past Cedar Springs. It was only an 11 mile jaunt, but boy oh boy, it felt like a lot longer after training on the roadie all summer. Tomorrow night is our fundraiser at the Corner Bar in Rockford. Our plane leaves Thursday morning for Las Vegas and then we take a bus to Death Valley. Boy oh boy.

This week's ride totals
10/15 - 11 miles; WPT (dirt) north
Total: 11 miles