Tucson Ride Summary

"How was your ride?" 

Cold. Wet. Long.

The above question/answer refrain has been a pretty common exchange over the last couple of weeks. The Tucson JDRF ride was just about two weeks ago and it was the first time in the 31-year history of El Tour de Tucson that it rained - surprising most everyone.

The Death Valley JDRF ride was canceled due to the government shutdown and five of us from central Indiana (Danny, Dave, Kevin, Sam and I) decided to do the Tucson JDRF ride instead.  Although it was raining in Indy when we left, we were anticipating warm sunshine in the desert southwest, despite a rainy weather forecast.  We arrived in Tucson on Thursday afternoon and, with temps in the high 60s, were able to take a short ride around the resort in just our riding jerseys and shorts for the first time in more than a month.

Then the rain started on Thursday evening and continued through Friday and most of ride day on Saturday.

Along with the rain, the temperature never got much above 50. 

The cold temps challenged many and some riders were even pulled from the course with hypothermia. Some rest stops had space heaters or buses with heaters to help people get warm.







The ride was originally 111 miles, but got adjusted to 107 a few days before the ride.  Four of us planned to do the full mileage.

The ride course was designed with two portages across “dry” riverbeds.  They weren't so dry in the heavy rains.  Some riders made it across, but the water was too high when we got there so they re-routed us – adding 8 miles to the ride for a total of 115 miles.





The Tour is a major event for Tucson as one of the premiere riding venues in the country -- and is a timed event (e.g. a race).  There were about 9,000 riders in total, completing routes of various mileage.

Most of the day was spent splashing through rain covered roads, many of which were designed with dips to manage rain water run-off.














 As it turned out, doing the Hilly Hundred in October was great training for this ride.  It was also very cold and rainy for the start of that ride.  Then the month between that and Tucson was unusually cool which helped prepare us to dress for the cold weather.

 Flat tires were a common sight – Kevin got two in the first 12 miles and Dave got one around mile 50.  We were so cold standing in the rain changing the tire that a JDRF coach who stopped to help was asking questions to test our cognition – and gave us impromptu back rubs to try to get us warm





All five of us finished the distances we set out to do.  And all of us were very happy to get in out of the cold and be out of our wet riding clothes.

Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous day and we had a little time to enjoy the warm sunshine before heading back to Indy.








Tucson was new experience for all of us.  Being a part of a larger, timed event made for an interesting ride.  The JDRF coaches, volunteers and staff were wonderful and the accommodations were fantastic.  Although this wasn't the ride we set out to do, it was still for a great cause with great people raising a significant amount of money in search of a cure -- to turn Type 1 into Type none.

I may have been the one pedaling over all those cold, wet miles, but I carried your thoughts, prayers and support with me on each mile, and I would not have made it without you.  Thank you! 

Now we're ready for spring since we already have our sights set on Death Valley for next year!

P.S.  The ride photos were from the Arizona Daily Star

On the bike this week...

We have had a great week of riding!

ICC Joel Pritchard residing in Champaign, IL was able to join a small group for a ride on Saturday, 8/24/13 for a 70 mile ride from Carmel, IN.  That's a 4 hour drive for a 4+ hour ride!  Thanks for your commitment to the team Joel!

ICC Abbie McWilliams, Richard Shevitz, Amy VandeWielle, Nathan Saxe and Sam Scahill along with ICC friends Gary Baumann and Tom Berlier had a nice adventure ride on Sunday, 8/25/13.  We hit some challenging hills on a couple of our regular routes south of Indianapolis.  We finished with a little over 70 miles however the ride was a bit slower with 3 flat tires and numerous mechanical issues.  Our legs must have needed all of the breaks!  It was a good time nonetheless!

We had a record turnout at Blue Tuesday this week with 29 riders!  Wow!

Our destination rides are getting closer so we are focusing on longer climbing rides! 

Tailwinds!

Gran Fondo - FIrst Time

This weekend, there will be a number of Cure Chasers riding in the first annual Roll Fast Gran Fondo, leaving out of Fort Benjamin Harrison for a little 100+ mile jaunt through the countryside on the North East side of Indy!

We are excited to be a part of this epic event with a ICC presence and as it happens this ride matches with our distance goals for this time in our training!

Speaking of which, I have had the opportunity to ride with a couple of new comers to our team recently Brian Wuff (who put the hurt on me 2 Saturdays ago on his home turf ride) and Amy VanDewielle (new comer to the ride aspect only of our team but an important part for almost 3 years now :)) who joined a number of us for a 52 mile ride a couple of weeks ago with almost 4,000 feet of vertical and showed that she is not afraid to climb!
Then showing up the following week for a personal longest 75 mile ride, making the 2000+ feet of climbing on that route look easy!

Blue Tuesdays continue to be well attended and I am constantly getting comments from guest to our rides about how our team is a lot of fun to ride with and admiration for the communication and safety that we display on every single ride.

Way to go team!

Looking forward to seeing many of you at the Gran Fondo this coming weekend!

Michael

Training log for week of 5/27/13 - 6/2/13

Training log for week of 5/20/2013 - 5/26/2013

Training Log for the week of 5-13 thru 5-20

Post your training miles in the comments for this week and let us know how your riding is going Indiana Cure Chasers!

Training Log for the week of 5-6 thru 5-12

Tell us what you did Team!

We have a weekend Ride leaving from SWW at 7am Saturday morning, if  that is to early, let us know and we will loop back to pick up a second wave.

Some of our team is going to do the assault on Mount Mitchell on the 20th so we are doing some longer rides early to get ready!  This early season century has over 11,000 feet of elevation gain and finishes atop Mt Mitchell the highest point this side of the Mississippi!

Also, those of you planning to ride with the Cure Chaser Squad on the RAIN ride in July, it's not to early to start extending those miles.

But tell us what you did this week!

Sam and Michael

Blog Your Training

Hey Team

We know that all of you have busy schedules and often can not make it to any of the 3-4 team training sessions that we have every week.

I know for example, that Joel Pritchard (we miss you Joel) can not drive over from Illinois every week any more than Steve Lewis can drive up from Kentucky (nice to ride with your Saturday BTW Steve!)

I also know that you all realize that you need to train in order to meet your goals at your destination (for you national riders) and your goals for the season (for our state supporting team) and former riders, (because we know you still love us).  So what Sam and I would like to do is offer you a way to share your training with your team mates on a regular basis.

• This will help to keep you accountable for your training, give you an opportunity to log your miles/activity and encourage your team mates while staying a bit more connected.

• This also will give us the added benefit of looking for trends and opportunities that may help us to train together as the larger team on a more regular basis.

• In addition, you can share the blog on Facebook, with your friends and family, to use all of the teams experience and efforts to garner more support for your ride.  Gary Martindale always writes a really nice summary of his experience in Death Valley and shares that with his supporters. 

You can start the daily training blog if you are first on with a title like...

Training Tuesday 4-30-13 Blue Tuesday Hills

Did 32 miles to the top of observatory and back, my crazy team members talked me into riding the big hill 3 times.  You bet it hurt, but I am so glad that I did it!

Or

Wednesday Training 5-1-13

Trained by myself today, rode 10 miles through housing additions and on bike paths at a leisurely pace.  Got to see some real neat houses and got chased by a rabbit and a squirrel.  This brings my total miles to the season to 100!

These are just a couple of examples

You can also just post replys after the initial thread is started for the day so that we can see what our team mates are doing and thinking in preparation for their various rides.

You guys are a great team, let's let the rest of the world know just how great and make the Indiana Cure Chasers the team everyone wants to be on!

Another Blue Tuesday!

16 people turned out for Blue Tuesday this week that included former destination riders, Ted Schutzbank from the Southwestern Ohio JDRF team, old friends, number of new riders along with Veteran riders Gary Martindale, Kevin Garner, Jay Hancock and Richard Shevitz. and of course Sam Scahill and myself.  A great turnout and ride for the Cure Chasers.

The weather was perfect in the high 70s and just a little bit of wind to combat.  We left SWW at 6pm sharp and quickly segregated into multiple pace groups with various target mileage in mind.

 

The slowest group is currently slated to turn around at 1 hour out and last night we did 24 miles with that group!  Not to bad for relatively new riders and the hill profile that our route presents.

 

The fastest and upper middle group made it all the way to the top of Observatory and back with in a 2 hour and 15 minute time span, with a distance of 32 miles.  So the distances I heard at the end of the night were 3 - 24 - 29  and 32, plus we all got back to SWW at about the same time!  Great job team and team leaders!

 

Our next planned group ride is this Thursday leaving from Performance South at 6pm sharp and will be mostly rolling hills at about 28 miles.  Looks like the weather will be great!

If you can't make it south, you can join Gary Martindale at the Nebo Ridge ride and pick your pace.  That ride starts at 6pm at the Nebo Ridge Bicycle shop and distances are 17 - 35 miles depending on which group you ride with.

If you happen to be running the Mini this weekend, be sure to stop by the JDRF booth at the Expo and say hello!  Amy, Sam and I will be working it along with Rebecca and Katie from the JDRF office!  We'd love to see you!

It's Been Great Riding Weather....... For March

 

 

We did our first scheduled ride out of Performance Bike in Greenwood last Thursday and it was really a fun ride in spite of heavy rain. Six of us left the shop at 6pm and headed south through Johnson and Morgan counties to inaugurate our new Thursday south side route, with cloudy almost threatening skies, warm weather and most of us with rain jackets on,,,, just in case.

We made it almost a half mile down the road before the clouds dumped  on us and inaugurated some of us in rule #9 The Rules because we got wet!

 

A good place to point out Sam's reminder on this week's email to make sure that you have at least a working tail light on your bikes every time we go out as Spring weather is unpredictable and at this point in the season a delay could put us home after dark.

 

Saturday Morning, we left SWW Park at 7am for a 50 mile odyssey into Morgan county, AKA our way past Wilbur route, this time in search of a hill called "The Wall".
It was a brisk morning with the start temperatures hovering in the low 30s but we threw some chemical toe warmers in our shoes and headed out.  I soon discovered that I had overdressed and had to tie my jacket around my waist to keep from sweating up a storm and being as wet as I had been on Thursday.  Everyone else seemed to be ok, I could have been so hot because I had the most fat :)

We crossed State Road 144 and made our first discovery that the flooding we had been hearing so much about was going to affect our ride.
So we altered our route and headed west up Kitchen hill, which I think all of us agree is the equivalent of Centenary without the traffic.

An hour in we were at the base of Observatory hill and made our first Category 5 climb of the day.
 (a note for those of you on the team who are riding Nashville and Death Valley, even though there is not anything quite as steep as these hills on those routes, anyone who has spent a summer doing these climbs and completed for example, the Jubilee pass climb will agree that this is great preparation both in fitness and mentally for a long Cat 2 climb like that)

We had 4 Catagorized climbs in total and numerous difficult climbs besides.
On the way back we decided to ride up SR67 on the shoulder to the base of Observatory as our planned route back was flooded and closed.  We won't be doing that again, simply because the shoulder is littered with trash and we respect our tires to much to put them through that again.

When we got to the top, Sam and I could not resist taking one more trip to the top of Observatory before heading back to SWW.  It was a fun albeit cold day!!

We had planned to come straight back on Mann all the way, but when we got to Fox Hill, the group decided that we had not yet climbed enough so we took a little detour to the top of Fox Hill and came on home that way.  By this time the temp had climbed to a balmy 49 (still felt like the 30s :)) but we were all still relatively comfortable.

All in all a great ride and we are planning on doing it again this next Saturday as one of our team members from Kentucky (Steve Lewis) will be visiting for the JDRF Gala that is this Saturday also!

Come out and join us, you can find the route from last week HERE !!

I hope to see you on Saturday!
Michael

Good afternoon Indiana Cure Chasers,  We had a great turnout to all of the rides last week as we were 50/50 with 2 rides on the road and 2 indoor training sessions.  Looking ahead for this week, the weather does not look promising so please be on the look out for a last minute change to an indoor training session if necessary.

Below are our opportunities to ride this week:
Tuesday, 4/16/13  - Blue Tuesday, 30 - 36 miles with challenging hills.  Bikes mounted and rolling out at 6:00 PM from Southwestway park 8400 Mann Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46221.  We will be leaving out of the parking lot located on the west side of Mann Rd. near the soccer fields.

Thursday, 4/18/13 - 32 - 40 flat miles at a faster pace.  Bikes mounted and rolling out at 6:00 PM from Performance South Bike shop parking lot. 8830 US 31 South, Across from the Greenwood Shopping Center, Greenwood, IN 46227

6:00 PM 27 - 30+ flat miles. CIBA sponsored ride from Nebo Ridge Bicycles 4355 W 106th St, Carmel, IN.  A, B, and C groups leave together according to estimated pace.  Wear your blue jerseys, meet and ride with Gary Martindale and other Indiana Cure Chasers.

Saturday, 4/20/13 - 45 - 50+ miles - hilly, moderate pace, endurance ride. Location: Southwestway park 8400 Mann Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46221.  We will be leaving out of the parking lot located on the west side of Mann Rd. near the soccer fields.  This will be an extended version of our Blue Tuesday ride and will include several challenging hills in addition to the ones we see on Tuesdays.  Departure time TBD based on the weather.  Will send more details towards the end of the week.

Sunday, 4/21/13 - 40 - 45 miles - flat, fast, endurance ride.  Afternoon departure from the north side.  Bikes mounted and rolling out at 12:00 PM from Coxhall Gardens, 2000 W 116th St  Carmel, IN 46032.

Make sure you have the following items:

• bike
• helmet
• 2 water bottles with your favorite sports drink
• nutrition (Gu or energy bars)
• tire change kit
• Bike Face!

Have a good week!

Hello All,  Just wanted to send a quick update about our rides planned for this weekend:

Saturday - Sam will lead an indoor training ride 10 - 11:30 AM at Performance South bike store, 8830 US 31 South, Across from the Greenwood Shopping Center, Greenwood, IN 46227.  Just a reminder that Performance does have some limited trainers available to use but please bring your own if you have one and don't forget your bike ;o).

Sunday - Michael will lead a 40 - 45 miles - endurance ride on the road.  Bikes mounted and rolling out at 12:00 PM from Coxhall Gardens, 2000 W 116th St  Carmel, IN 46032.

That's all for now!  Have a good weekend!

A Great Saturday for Biking

So this last Saturday, Nathan Saxe and I made plans to mark our Blue Tuesday route and sweep off Observatory hill for some fun early season activities!

My night leading up to this was challenging to say the least. I had successfully eaten Bazbeaux on Thursday and thought I would give it a go again on Friday.  For those of you who are not aware, Pizza is one of the bains of T1 Diabetics.  Friday I apparently went one slice to far and spent the entire night correcting for high BG (blood glucose).

By 5:30am when it was time to get ready to go and pick up Nathan, my BG was once again somewhat reasonable at 146.




I stopped and bought Starbucks, stocked up on paint and made it to Nathan's house only 20 minutes late.  Nathan turned out to be an old pro at managing traffic and with the 2 of us working together we had the route to Observatory Hill marked in not time.  The only hitch being when my Ominpod decided to quit on me right around 8am.

We sallied forth and completed our mission anyway & I just kept a close eye on my BG to make sure that I didn't go high again.  By the time I dropped Nathan off at 9:30 I was still only clocking an 88.

Once we finished the marking, we took a little extra time to make the hill safe for cyclists by sweeping off the nearly complete covering of sand that made climbing the hill the hill a bit sketchy to say the least.

When I got to Performance for our last scheduled indoor ride of the season, Sam already had everything set up and we had a great 1 1/2 hour ride with our youngest rider ever, Moses Weaver on the training wheel trainer!

After the class, we took a couple of minutes to make a really hip video, that we will be debuting here in just a few weeks.  It was a lot of fun, the camaraderie was great and 4 of us committed to do the Observatory ride immediately following.... which we did!

We had a pretty serious headwind/crosswind on the way out (20 mph sustained or so - very noisy) so Sam suggested that we work a rotating pace line and we really pulled off  a pretty nice one for a bit.

We kept a pretty leisurely pace out and back, the weather was great and we made it up OH pretty much without incident.  However, Melissa's prediction that if was going to take 4 hours rather than the 2 1/2 I predicted proved to be true.  Good job wife! :) you were right!

This Tuesday kicks off our beginning of the season Blue Tuesday, with this same route every Tuesday until the government takes our daylight away again.

Looking forward to seeing you guys and gals out there!

Good afternoon Indiana Cure Chasers,  We hope you were able to get out on your bike this past weekend as the weather was almost perfect!  Perfect would have been no head wind!  We ended our indoor training sessions this past Saturday at Performance South Bike shop with a Harlem Shake video on the bike.  It was a lot of fun!  Performance South is allowing us to continue to use their space for indoor training as needed.  We may have some bad weather to avoid in the future so we will consider indoor training on rare occasions!  If there is a change in plans, we will communicate that at least 24 hours in advance when possible so please check for an email if you are unsure.  Or feel free to contact Michael or Sam directly.

Below are our opportunities to ride this week:
Tuesday, 4/9/13  - 1st official Blue Tuesday ride outside this season.  30 - 36 miles with challenging hills.  Bikes mounted and rolling out at 6:00 PM from Southwestway park 8400 Mann Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46221.  We will be leaving out of the parking lot located on the west side of Mann Rd. near the soccer fields.  Thanks to Michael and Nathan for going out early this past Saturday to mark this route for us!!

Thursday, 4/11/13 - 32 - 40 flat miles at a faster pace.  Bikes mounted and rolling out at 6:00 PM from Performance South Bike shop parking lot. 8830 US 31 South, Across from the Greenwood Shopping Center, Greenwood, IN 46227

Saturday, 4/13/13 - 40 - 45 miles - endurance ride. Bikes mounted and rolling out at 8:00 AM from Southwestway park 8400 Mann Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46221.  We will be leaving out of the parking lot located on the west side of Mann Rd. near the soccer fields.  This will be an extended version of our Blue Tuesday ride.

Sunday, 4/14/13 - 40 - 45 miles - endurance ride.  Afternoon departure from the north side. Will send more details later this week.

Make sure you have the following items:

• bike (preferably a road bike or any bike that will allow you to keep the same general pace as others on a road bike ;o)
• helmet
• 2 water bottles with your favorite sports drink
• nutrition (Gu or energy bars)
• tire change kit
• Bike Face!

We hope you are able to join one, some or all of these rides!

Tailwinds!

Good afternoon Indiana Cure Chasers,  Well it looks like another couple weeks of indoor training.  It is supposed to be spring! C'mon man!

Your opportunities this week:
Blue Tuesday, 6:00 - 7:00 PM - indoor training at Performance South
Thursday, 6:00 - 7:00 PM - blazing saddles - indoor training at Performance South
Saturday 10:00 - 11:30 AM - endurance indoor training at Performance South

If you have not been to an indoor training session, you are really missing out on a great workout and lots of fun!  We are currently planning to video record a Harlem Shake video at one of our upcoming classes so be on the look out for more information on how you can be part of the fun!

Reminder:
Just a quick reminder of our 2013 new rider benefit program sponsored by Cohen and Malad, LLP.  This benefit is a $1,000 jump start on fundraising for any new rider added to our team this year. We have lots of folks that have expressed an interest in this program however we still have a few spots open.  We will not be able to commit the funding to individuals unless they sign up and register for a destination ride. 

2013 Ride Venue Webinars:
JDRF has scheduled webinars next week that will provide information on the JDRF destination rides.  This is a great opportunity to hear more detail about your ride venue of choice, specific course information and overall ride day logistics. This opportunity will not only help better prepare you for ride day, but it will also help answer any questions you might have if you are undecided about registering for a 2013 JDRF Ride. Please click HERE for more information and the times/dates for these webinars.

Have a great week!
Sam

Good afternoon Indiana Cure Chasers, The anticipation of spring is building and it will be here before you know it. Hopefully your bike is tuned up and ready for the road. If not, now is a good time to get it ready. Performance south is offering all Indiana Cure Chasers signed up for a JDRF destination ride in 2013 an extra discount including bike repairs and tuneups. So make sure to talk to Mary (the store manager) and identify yourself as JDRF rider at the time of purchase in order to get the discount.

Your opportunities this week:
Blue Tuesday, 6:00 - 7:00 PM - indoor training at Performance South
Thursday, 6:00 - 7:00 PM - blazing saddles - indoor training at Performance South
Saturday 10:00 - 11:30 AM - endurance indoor training at Performance South
They have some trainers available, but it is nearing the end of the season, so if you have one bring it with you to insure your spot

Reminder:
Just a quick reminder of our 2013 new rider benefit program sponsored by Cohen and Malad, LLP. This benefit is a $1,000 jump start on fundraising for any new rider added to our team this year. We have lots of folks that have expressed an interest in this program however we still have a few spots open. We will not be able to commit the funding to individuals unless they sign up and register for a destination ride.

Did you know:
Did you know that climbing out of the saddle (standing) is considered less efficient? Climbing in the saddle (seated) requires less energy, less oxygen, and the heart rate is generally lower. It is instinct to stand up when you your leg muscles fatigue and you feel like you can not push the pedal over any more. The next time you feel the urge to stand up try one of these tricks instead of standing:

• If you are taller - shift forward in your seat a bit or if you are shorter - shift back in your seat a bit. Keep your hands, arms, and shoulders relaxed. (do not hold the handlebars in a death grip)
• control your breathing (slow it down - this helps you stay relaxed too)
• Pace yourself and slow your cadence (in other words, do not pedal as hard as you can before you need to)
• Change the position of your hands on the handlebars

As of now, there are no plans for a ride outside this weekend. I will be heading out of town this weekend after indoor training on Saturday at Performance south however Michael will send an e-mail out if he is able to ride. I know he is not available to ride on Saturday so it would be on Sunday if at all however Sunday's weather is not looking promising at this point

Have a great week!
Sam

Death Valley in 3D

Hey DV riders

I was surfing the web looking for some interesting double century rides and stumbled across this 3D map of a double Century that uses part of the ride we will be doing in October  on the Adventure Corps Website (the company that used to produce this event for JDRF)

http://www.adventurecorps.com/deathvalley/southernroute200.html

Also some helpful information about the dryest place on the planet!
http://www.adventurecorps.com/dvspring/index.html

If you are a first timer on this ride, check out this information.  Adventure Corp really has their act together for this type of ride and are an excellent resource

Death Valley is a very harsh enviroment, but has a tremendous magesty many of us on the Cure Chasers team going back year after year.

Things to remember for our October ride, this course is not flat, you will need to ride one of our regularly scheduled hill routes on a consistent basis to be well prepared for this ride. (actually it is a good idea to ride hills for any of the JDRF destination rides as all of them have a climbing element that it is important to be prepared for)

Blue Tuesdays are going to be moving to SWW Park starting April 9 so mark your calander and don't miss our first Blue Tuesday real hill ride of 2013!

See you all soon!

Michael