General Stuff

Thanks Sam for the reminder about the Blog. I had completely forgotten about this particualr forum. We sure have a lot of different methods to communicate and it is difficult for some of us old people to keep track of everything.

Congratulations to the LaCrosse riders. From all that I've heard it was a great ride from all aspects. Sarah has participated in a few rides over the years but never as a rider. She now knows what we have all experienced as riders. Welcome Sarah to an elite group.

Is there anyone interested in riding on the East side on Sat? I'm planning to leave 7:30 ish and riding at least 50 miles. Let me know.

Take care all and remember to ride often and safely.

Bob

Indiana Cure Chasers are in La Crosse, Wisconsin...

Our La Crosse riders are preparing for their bike ride on Saturday. They are ready even though it appears that they are exhausted just after registration...
But it looks like they recovered. It likely took just a couple beers Thursday night to get them back on their feet and ready for the tune up ride on Friday...Good luck Indiana Cure Chasers!

I don't think the heavy stuff's gonna come down for quite a while...

Sam, Penny, Tony, Bill and I met at Southwestway (SWW) Park today for our usual Tuesday ride. The weather looked great... blue skies, with puffy white clouds and a bit of a breeze blowing from the west.

We worked to stay together in the headwind and made it to Brooklyn and Observatory Hill. When we got to Brooklyn I mentioned to Sam that I didn't like the look of the big cloud back toward our starting point to the north. Penny, Sam and I climbed Observatory Hill, contemplated making a second ascent while Penny played in traffic, but decided to head back to get Sam home on time and avoid the weather. As we pedaled out of Brooklyn and looked at the big storm cloud, Tony opined that our cars were likely getting wet in the parking lot back at SWW.

As we made our way back north, most of the storm clouds stayed off to our east and we even saw a lovely rainbow at one point. But when we got about three miles from the parking lot, big drops started falling from the storm clouds overhead. At first the few drops felt pretty good and the temperature dropped noticeably. As we rode toward home, though, the skies got darker and the rain got heavier, and then the lightning and thunder started. As I passed the golf course, barely able to see the cars in the lot through the rain, I saw a lone golfer carrying his clubs and making his way to his car, reminding me of the Caddyshack quote in the title.

By the time we got back to the parking lot at SWW, I was completely soaked head to toe and it was still absolutely pouring down. We got our stuff loaded in our cars and headed home...

Thanks Sam, Penny, Tony and Bill for a great ride in spite of the weather... everyone's spirit at the end made it a lot of fun. And I'm sorry I jinxed us by mentioning the storm cloud back in Brooklyn...

Training schedule is now available on the blog

The training schedule link on the right hand side of the blog has been updated. If you click there it will take you to the recently revised schedule that Michael sent out. This document has schedules for each ride, page through to find the one you need.

We are still working on updating some of the other blog information, a change from Google has delayed our progress.

Alex & Sam

Fantastic Four!

Our first Team ride out of South West Way Park this morning and what a great day for it!

As promised by the weather channel the temperature was 55 as we saddled up and headed south on Mann Rd at 7 am on this foggy Mother's day morning!

The traffic was light, the company was great with Nathan, Kate E and Sam joining me (half of our riders were mothers!)

So we did something a little different this morning and may give it a go on future rides, as it got us off of Mann Rd and out of the traffic, but I am getting ahead of myself. We rode out through Booklyn, with a short stop at 44 to shed a layer as we were well warmed up by then.

A quick trip to the top of Observatory and we were headed back to SWW in short order. I commented that it seemed like the hill had gotten easier as Sam and Kate made it look that way. :) We followed Bottom Rd out of Brooklyn and were quite pleased to have another hill when we made our left off of Bottom to head back in the general dirction of home.

We zig zagged through the country, crossed Centenary Rd and then completed the ride staying north of Centenary on the roads less traveled. Nathan and I got a case of the droppsies, with me dropping the mirror off of my glasses (recovered) and Nathan loosing his glasses. (so if you find a pair of glasses laying beside the road (on Paddock Rd) they are Nathan's.

We sort of experienced some precipitation, enough to mess up our glasses, but it really felt more like condensation from the fog to me. We stopped briefly somewhere along the route and broke chomps, for our Sunday morning communion (I thought I videoed the event, but messed it up, next time).

We ended up with almost 32 miles and a 14.5 mph average, with an ending temperature of 59! All in all a great ride with great company!

A Fantastic Youth Ambassador Event!

The JDRF Ride season is officially kicked off with a stellar Youth Ambassador event!!
We rode as a team about 17 miles to just sort of shake the kinks out before heading over to Woodland Bowl, where Tony, Danny, Kevin and myself grabbed a quick bite before the start of the kickoff.
I would like to start by saying, as great as the youth ambassadors have always been and as helpful and encouraging as all these great kids have been, I think that 2011 is going to be a year by which all of the following years will be measured. What a great group!! I believe that all of the Cure Chasers (with the notable exception of the Warpools who showed up with their custom vintage bowling ball bags) biked better than they bowled.
We are hoping to have several events like this through out the summer and all of the riders are looking forward to the cards and letters that we know will be coming.
A quick word about my new Youth Ambassador Garrett Smith. He is seven years old and was diagnosed just a little over a year ago.
He is an amazing young man and has decided to take this summer off from baseball so that he can put all of his attention into fighting for a cure. Really!!! Just and example of what this young man has already accomplished, he sold over 2000 of the JDRF paper sneakers,,,,, whoa.... that's right, over 2000!! It is not hard to believe after spending a very short time with him Saturday, his persuasive powers are amazing!!! Did I say amazing twice?
Garrett is already a real champion in the battle for the cure and I am very proud to have the opportunity to fight along side of him. It was a real pleasure to spend a few short hours with Garrett, his four brothers plus Tim and Kris his parents who I am sure are very proud of all their kids a great bunch!!
So I know that I have been long winded as usual, when Kimberly said that she was going to have me come up and say a few words, Danny was quick to remind me, "Just a few words please." :)
.
So I will cut this off here with the promise that we will be posting more regular with the weather finally starting to improve!
I also would like to encourage all the other Cure Chasers to post about your YA experiences this last Saturday as by all appearances a good time was had by all!!

What a great weekend to ride!!!

7:30 Saturday morning, it was foggy and maybe even a little misty, but Lisa and Kate E showed up for our first "unoffical" JDRF ride of the season. We were very happy to be riding on the Monon as the visability was sketchy at best. So we started from the parking lot at the Jordan YMCA and headed north. We got lots of practice negotiating intersections, plus runners and walkers blocking the entire path and forcing us to work on our slow speed handling skills! The temperature actually was quite nice and we had a very pleasant ride all the way to the end of the trail at 161rst street in Westfield, where it terminates into a gravel bed that we promptly dubbed "The Alex Highway" in honor of one of the routes that we did last year when Coach Alex was trying to stretch us in preparation for our DV ride :) We made it back to the Jordan just ahead of the rain, thunder and lightening at about 9:15. The next day was another YMCA start point, as we met at the Anthenaum YMCA at 1pm for a spin class and Kate W decided that a road ride would better serve us as the weather was spectacular! So with sunny skies and temperatures at least in the high 70's we once again tackled the Monon, negotiating the Cultural trail to get to the southern most point. Today's group consisted of Kate W, Scott, Gary, Mark and Myself. Mark and Gary had already ridden from the northside to the spin class, so we just pointed them back the way they came. We had a great time catching up on lost time and again negotiating the various rolling road blocks that are typical of the Monon. We stopped and grabbed a bite to eat at a DQ that was just off the trail in Fishers (at least that is where I think we were) then said good bye to Mark and Gary. Scott, Kate and I pointed our bikes back the way we came and faced the Heinous headwind that Mark and Gary had told us about on our way north. We did a modified echelon to make a little better time as Kate and Scott had places to be and I had to work a fundraiser at Conseco last night.

Kate and I also discussed team nicknames for this year with 2 great names already

Scott "The Power House" Warpool

Gary "The Machine Tool" Martindale - I am sure other great names are to come through out the season!

Scott and Kate peeled off shortly before 16th street and I finished the ride just in time to change my cloths and head to Conseco with my lovely wife Melissa (who immediately scolded me for not wearing sun screen) WEAR SUNSCREEN EVERYONE :) When we got to Conseco, Nathan, Andy and his friend Cheryl were already there and chomping at the bit to start raising funds. We had a good night working with Paul in Pacer Combo, raised some more money for JDRF and enjoyed each other's company. I really enjoyed spending some quality time with my team mates and am looking forward to many more enjoyable rides like this through out the Season!

See you on the road soon!

Michael