MS Ride a Success (Day Two)

Day two began with the prospect of being a bit shorter (50 instead of 60 miles) a bit flatter (less climbing to start the day, less elevation gain overall) and a different kind of scenic.

Everything went as planned except that I totally bonked about ten miles from the finish. About the half-way point, I hooked up with a group of riders from Mountain Orthopedic (some of whom I'd met at the start) and we got in a sweet paceline as we put about 15 miles on in about 45 minutes. I pulled and then let Henry (Enrique) and Alex (Sr.) do the pulling too. Both of these men are Basque (surprise that I gravitated to them) and they were both in their 60s making me look like I had a wooden leg and a plastic lung. They rode like machines. I really need to train harder. That's Henry in the front of the picture below and Alex right behind him. I'm taking the picture over my shoulder while pulling. The ladies in back are daughters and daughters-in-law.


I made it back into McCall solo--as I got dropped when I hit the wall. No worries, though, as I got to the massage table while there was no line. $10 for a thirty-minute post-race was $10 well spent. I think the spa (located in our home town) has a new client. I'll probably send Carrie first. She earned it.

Total stats on the ride:
Day one:
Distance: 59.32 miles
Time: 4:32:23
Avg. speed: 13.1 mph
Max speed: 35.8 mph
Calories burned: 5020
Avg. cadence: 68 rpm

Day two:
Distance: 49.20
Time: 3:19:09
Avg. speed: 15.2 mph
Max. speed: 37.6 mph
Calories burned: 3284
Avg. cadence: 69 rpm

I used my heart-rate monitor on the Garmin 305 Carrie bought for me for the first time on this ride. It says my average heart rate was 126 bpm and my max was 143 bpm. I have no idea what that means, but I assume that the first number is a bit high and the fact I didn't die may be a good thing. If anyone knows what that is, let me know--or I'll look it up myself. Everytime I go to the doctor, they tell me my blood pressure is normal and my heart rate is too. So I'm putting it out there for your closet MDs to tell me if I should be concerned.

Thanks to all my sponsors for their wonderful (and GENEROUS) support on this ride. I know I ask you folks every year to do what you can, and you continually amaze me and my family with your generosity and true devotion to this cause. I invite you to come ride/visit/watch next year. McCall is a beautiful location and would be a great place for a vacation.

Thanks again--and lots of love to each of you!

MS Ride a Success (Day One)

I finished. The MS Ride up in McCall this year was terrific. It was tough. It was challenging. It was well-supported. I love the ride and I love the opportunity to participate in such a fantastic cause. I've got a few pictures from it--although only a pair of them with me, since I didn't really know anyone in the ride (that changed after I rode...I'm a talker), but enjoy!


On day one, I climbed the first thirty miles--seriously--it was an "out-and-back" ride of mostly climbing the first thirty miles--and left the lunch stop ready to head down the mountain. About a mile or two into it, I noticed something on my front tire that looked like tar or goo. I stopped and realized that I had a "herniated tire" and that unless I could find a tire (not a tube), my ride would be over, and I would miss the downhill I had earned. See the picture below for a look at what a herniated tire looks like (note the blisters):



So I hopped into the SAG wagon that would take me to the twenty-mile rest stop and waited. He was also the Sweep car, so we had to wait for the last riders to go--he couldn't use his radio because he wasn't "HAM-certified" or something. Yikes. On our way down the mountain, we came across two brothers (who I'd seen a few times already) who were having their fair share of mechanical problems. One of them had just gotten his third flat of the morning (that was about one per hour). His brother Jason had already flatted once and also broken a cleat on his shoe. Good times. I suggested the issue wasn't "tubular" but instead "rimular" or "spokular" and that he ought to check that out. To make a long story short, we swapped wheels, rims and all, so I could ride down the hill (he was done--plus the SAG wagon had beer and he was thirsty). Here's a nice picture of the "two wrongs make a bike" pair of wheels:


That night, I joined my family, was super grumpy and sore, and actually got a reasonable amount of sleep. Special thanks to my wonderful wife for putting up with me and allowing me to do this without too much "leaving the kids alone" guilt. I love this cause and I love this ride. Mostly because I love my Mom.

Where I'll Be Riding This Weekend

Just in case you're wondering where the MS Road, Sweat and Gears ride is this weekend, here's a look:

DAY ONE RIDE

And the elevation:






Both the day one and day two rides are "out and back" rides, which means I'll be on either side of the road, depending on the time of day. I'm excited about the ride, but the elevation should prove to be quite a challenge. I find that the harder the hills, the more I think about my Mom...so Mom, your ears should be itching or burning--or whatever they do when people think about you--almost all weekend!

Team Comeback?

I was reading in Bicycling magazine this morning that there's a new pro cycling team being formed in the US. If you look at the roster, you may notice that many of the riders are either retired or had been forced into retirement due to the Operacion Puerto doping allegations out of Spain.

The most curious involvement to me is that they're courting Floyd Landis to be involved. This is my favorite quote from the story, citing a Landis email in response to questions as to whether he's involved with this new team, Team Rock Racing:

Landis wrote, "No comment, but I wish them the best. They have hired a bunch of exceptional racers who deserve support. Support, I might add, that was taken away because of political pressure from out of control anti-doping agencies run by second place finishers."

Classic Floyd. And for the record, I still say he's innocent--and still the 2006 Tour de France Champion.

My Big Little Girl

I had a nice voicemail waiting for me when I finished the century ride on Saturday. My daughter left the following for "Daddy":

"Hi Dad. We love you a lot. We really miss you. Congratulations on your bike ride. We miss you lots. We wish you were here with us. We're watching Hannah Montana. We wish you were here to enjoy it. It's not the same without you. Bye from all of us. We miss you. Bye!"

I was thinking of you, too, sweetie.

Thanks: Ready-to-Wear

Everyone who rides the MS ride gets a number known as a "bib". In this year's ride, I was assigned orange bib number "44". According to the results from last year's ride, my supporters pledged enough support to make me the #44 top fundraiser in the ride for 2006. Altogether, you--my friends and family--and I pledged exactly $1500 to help fight MS. For that, I want to thank you forty-four times.

This year, you came through again. As of today, we're over $1200. If you're interested in pledging more or pledging for the first time, click HERE.

...and THANK YOU again!!!

Three of my Favorite People

For those of you who've heard me talk about how great the Rockin Jalapenos team is, here are some of the reasons right in this picture.

The guy on the left is Arvin, our team captain. I had a chance to talk to him this weekend and realized just how committed he is to this cause--and to making it easy for others to be committed as well. He's an inspiration to me, and truly lives the mantra that you hear when you call his voicemail: "Remember, do good things!"

In the middle, a bit back, is his wife Joannie. I always say that behind every good man is an even better woman. Well, she's behind Arvin in this shot, but not in commitment and just interior goodness. I love them both.

On the right, the woman with the irrepressible smile (seriously, it's always emblazoned across her face), is Jennica. I met Jennica last year on this ride. Her story is that of a thriver, not just a survivor. She's kicking MS's butt daily. She rode the century this year (and kicked my butt, too) and just inspires me to make something out of this. I have what I call "a MOM-ent" each year I ride, where I think about my Mom and what she goes through, along with the thousands of others who have MS. This year, my "MOM-ent" was punctuated by the knowledge that I simply don't know what those who have MS go through, and, God willing, will never know firsthand--but I respect them, love them, and am inspired by their fights every day of my life. Jennica is nothing short of a poster child for making lemonade (with super sweet sugar and a strawberry garnish!) with the lemons of life.

Life's pretty good anyway. Knowing these three people is just gravy.

Santa Barbara at about 8 a.m.

I took this shot as we were getting geared up for day two of the MS ride last weekend in Santa Barbara. This is Leadbetter Beach at about 8:00 a.m. The setting is idyllic to say the least. This is day two, prior to the fires really taking over in Southern California, so what looked like it was going to be a wonderful day actually became a bit of a nightmare for many. What was to be 75 miles morphed into 30; and what was a slight ocean breeze became Santa Ana winds clocking in around 45 mph. They canceled the ride after 30 miles--and I started crying. I asked myself later why, and I think it had more to do with letting down my sponsors by not being able to ride the full distance than anything else. My Mom came through with the right comment at the right time on Monday night, though, as she said: "The fact that you're doing all of this is what matters" not the miles.

It's official, I'm 100...okay, I'm 97.69.

In the first of hopefully a bunch of MS Ride-related posts, here goes:

I did the Century Ride last Saturday at the Santa Barbara MS Ride. The was spec-ed at 99 or something, and my bike computer's calibration coupled with that fact means that according to Sigma, the maker of my cheap computer, I went 97.69 miles in about 7 1/2 hours, including stops. Things I learned on my second century ride:

- I still didn't train hard enough
- The hills are bigger in California than in Idaho
- The temperature in CA in October is hotter than in May in Idaho (Rupert, to be exact--site of my other century ride earlier this year)
- The downhills are the main reason why I ride bikes as opposed to running: in running, you run uphill and run downhill--in riding, your ride uphill and coast downhill. Not as easy as a workout, but it feeds my desire to try to maintain some semblance of being in shape and be lazy too!
- I'll do another one

I Feel Like I'm 100 Again!

I've decided to give the century ride another go this weekend as I participate in the Santa Barbara Start to Finish MS Bike Tour. So it's going down like this: I ride 100 miles on Saturday. Vomit. Ride 75 more miles on Sunday. Get heart transplant Sunday evening. Fly home Monday.

Wish me luck!

Don't forget to donate for MS at my site...and pass the link along!

Donate HERE

My First YouTube Upload...

I made this little video for my bike friends in California. They're doing a pre-MS 150 Ride get-together tonight in Los Angeles which I cannot physically attend. So I did this:

How do you spell B.S.?

According to the Associated Press, an arbitration court has voted 2-1 to uphold tainted results of a tainted investigation by a tainted lab in tainted France.

I spell B.S. with four letters: W.A.D.A.

Why would Landis, an elite, oft-tested world-class cyclist take the easiest-to-test-for substance on the planet in the middle of the biggest race on the circuit?

(For that matter, why would Vinokourov do the same thing in 2007?)

This is a witch hunt. Unfortunately, they've convicted a phantom.

Here's the story of the ride that put Floyd into contention in the '06 Tour

Here's Floyd crossing the line in winning that stage

Lance Armstrong prophetic--unfortunately

Landis in yellow--where he belongs

Clever Bumper Stickers

My wife always gets on my case about slowing down for cyclists, but since I am one, I believe in karma--and in not getting flattened by a motorist. I figure if someone sees me seeing a cyclist, then I may exponentially help my own chances of being seen. That having been said, we always chuckle when we see the "Start Seeing Motorcycles" stickers.

We see them. On our recent cross-country drive, we saw them. We saw them without helmets in Idaho, Montana and Minnesota. (Didn't notice in North Dakota--we were too rapt in the flat nothingness.)

The bumper sticker that does stick out from our trek was found on one of those mobile houses classified as an RV. You know, the one that cost more than your house (and your neighbor's--combined)? It read:

"Zero to sixty in fifteen minutes."

I'm guessing his carbon footprint is bigger than mine. Chew on that, Al Gore. Hah!

What a Dope?

It looks like the Tour de France has gone from a bad scandal to worse. Today's stage winner and the leader in the GC, Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, has been "fired" by his team for "lying" about his whereabouts when he was on holiday. Apparently he had told Rabobank that he was in Mexico when he was, in fact, in Italy. Also apparently, what he was doing in Italy may be suspicious, although there's no proof. Yet.

The official TDF site is in denial. This link is from this evening at 10:25 p.m. EDT. Still no mention of their leader being out of the race. What I hate is that I was up at the crack of dawn this morning anticipating an incredible stage--one where Discovery Channel's Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer would give Rasmussen all he could handle as they tried to take a bite out of his leading time. As it turned out, the stage was all that and more. On the final HC climb, Spain's Contador, the American hope Leipheimer, Cadel Evans from Australia, and Rasmussen were locked into a major climber's duel. Evans got dropped and Contador attacked at least twice. Rasmussen answered. Then he dropped both the Disco riders like a bad habit and blew the stage out by a half-minute on his rivals--all in the last kilometer.

Now he's out of the race and the white and yellow jerseys are on the same back. I'm a cycling fan. I'm a cyclist (although not a good one--but an aficionado nonetheless). I'll watch the TDF--no matter what happens. But if I were working for the TDF, I'd be pulling what few follicles of hair I have left out right now wondering what the heck is going to be the next bad PR thing to drop in my lap?

Top Ten Reasons to Watch "Le Tour" This Year

10. Where else can you watch a team totally comprised of Basques, representing Euskadi, riding in orange?
9. George Hincapie is 100 years old and still hammering.
8. Will Alexander Vinokourov be avenged for having to sit out last year's tour because too many of his teammates were doping?
7. It's anybody's tour this year.
6. Levi Leipheimer is an alliteration. And a damn good cyclist.
5. The TDF starts in England (sorry, no Chunnel stage), moves to Belgium, rolls through Spain and ends in France--for 2100 miles. Now that's a bike ride!
4. Floyd Landis didn't cheat last year. I don't care what Greg LeMond says.
3. I like names like Haimar Zubeldia...and not just 'cause he's Basque. (Well, maybe...)
2. If you have millions of sponsor dollars laying around, you can scout the Discovery Channel Team. Disco is looking for a sponsor for next year. Got cash?
1. Your alternative is baseball.

Hidden Springs - Heaving Lungs

Went out for a Memorial Day ride with six others to Eagle, Idaho yesterday. What I didn't know was that we were going to Eagle, but that Eagle was not our destination. We ended up riding through Eagle on our way to Hidden Springs--via the very long Dump Hill climb up Seaman's Gulch Rd. I did this last September and it seemed easier back then. Of course in September I parked at the bottom of the hill and rode. Monday I rode to the hill and rode some more. I also wasn't a week removed from a century (gotta milk that, but this should be the last mention).

If you've never been to Hidden Springs, it's like Mayberry in the mountains. Cute little town but not one I'd like to live in, although when considering the move to Boise, I did look at a few houses. Funny that now I remember riding up that windy rode with my Realtor...and now I've ridden it. I think the grades are something like 11% - 18%...not for the faint of lung...or heart.

Good ride. I really earned my Memorial Day bratwurst to be consumer later that evening. I had two. Mmmm...

I'm a 21st Century Man

Last Saturday I fulfilled what I had jokingly referred to as my final opportunity to accomplish a New Year's Resolution for 2007: I completed my first century ride on my roadie.

The ride encompassed a thrice-round 33-mile loop in Rupert, Idaho. It's sponsored by the town as part of Rupert Days and it looks like there's a local bike shop guy by the name of Rock who owns Rock's Cycling and Fitness on Main St. in Burley. You ride for free, but make a donation to Bikes for Kids. I dug up an old article that looks to chronicle the genesis of the idea.

The group that did the century was about 30-strong. We finished our second loop about ten minutes before the strong riders finished their century. It was incredibly windy out there as we pushed south and west, but the going was great on the north and east legs. I rode with two friends I've met since moving to Idaho, both of whom I've spun with all winter and now just look to get out with in the good weather.

Next goal? Who knows...a double? Am I that crazy?

Update: By the way, I'm the good-looking one in the picture...

A Note from Mom

A rather neat little "coincidence" happened this evening. I knelt down for bedtime prayers with my son who is three. He always asks for a little guidance, so in asking God for help, I asked him, who do you want God to help? He answered, "I want Heavenly Father to help Grandma get better."

I got an email from my Mother after my son went to bed regarding government funding for MS research, which included this link. Please visit the site and sign the petition. MS has robbed my Mother of mobility and a normal life for the better part of the last decade. It has done similar things to others I know. I've always said that there are more "glamorous" causes. One fact remains, however: No one chooses MS. It happens as a result of genetics, not choice. It slowly debilitates and eventually, because at present there is no cure, finishes its work with the affected.

Help fight MS...and thank you!

MS Bike Tour

The weekend of October 21-22 included a trip to Santa Barbara for me. I participated in my fifth MS 150 Bike Tour in California. The more I ride the more humbled I am by those who ride with me. This year was no exception.

I've ridden since 2003 with the "Rockin' Jalapenos" a group of friends I connected with at the Palm Springs Challenge that year. As head Jalapeno Arvin Torio said, "we would stop at the rest stops and he (me) would be there every time...it was like he was stalking us!" Thanks for not getting a restraining order on me, Arvin. I've ridden three tours with the Peppers, but this was our first Santa Barbara ride, defecting from the Orange County/San Diego Bay to Bay after two rounds.

The route was much more difficult this time, with major climbs both days, something lacking in the OC ride. It's a fledgling effort, marking a comeback for the LA Chapter after two years out of the MS 150 business. The volunteers were energetic and resourceful (PB & honey sandwiches at day two's big stop). And there will be growing pains, but the tour was overall a qualified success.

The Peppers had an additional advantage over the other riders, though. We had THREE SAG vehicles. Two hubbies and a brother of riders provided motor support to our team (in addition to illegal traffic control and much in the way of action photos). That was huge.

At the end of each day, Santa Barbara Body Works volunteered for hazardous duty and provided sports massage services post-ride. I say hazardous becuase normally when I go to the spa for a massage, I'm recently showered and clean. After 75 miles, we were all a little gamey...but they gave us the rubdown regardless. Kudos to SBBW.

The highlight of the ride for me had to be having the honor of riding with Jennica on our team. She was diagnosed with MS recently, and, due to support and programs from the MS Society, has been able to find hope and support. I only pray we augmented the resources she's already benefitted from. I was definitely inspired riding with her. It put life and all of this into perspective. An interesting happened to me at church on Sunday, too. A man mentioned that his daughter's sister-in-law was diagnosed on 10/27 with MS. I was grateful to be able to know enough to give him some info as to who to contact, what resources the NMSS provides, etc.

I'll try to post other links to the photos for the ride. I can't wait to go do it all again next year.