Great Day for a sweet little Metric Century!

A smooth Sea never made a skillfull Mariner

 Cure Chasers overcome adversity and have a great time,,, all the time!


Getting ready to leave my house at 5:45am this morning for our 60 mile training ride set to start in Carmel on the Monon Trail, at Bub's Burgers and Ice Cream this morning, things were looking great!  The weather was perfect, overcast, not to hot, I was ready ahead of time due to last nights preparations, out the door ahead of schedule with Starbucks on my agenda on the way to my ride!


Then I turned the key on my Ford Cure Chaser dedicated SAG vehicle and things started to go downhill.


Nothing!!  No interior lights, no ding, ding, ding warning me that I have my key in the ignition, all dressed up in my Cure Chaser costume and no way to go!


Fortunately the lovely Melissa had got up at the same time so she volunteered to help me jump my truck, which I tried to start by letting it roll down the drive and dumping the clutch, still no go.

Victim of Borrow and Switch

The next thing I found out was that someone from Melissa's work had swindled her out of a practically new pair of jumper cables.  She had been kind enough to lend her jumpers to a massage therapist who returned a jacked up broken and corroded pair instead,,, no good dead goes unpunished.


No problem, it only cost me a few minutes figuring this out, so I got my better pair of cables and eventually due to not being able to get a good jump off of her car, had to decide to switch vehicles and take the swaggin wagon instead (my Dodge Stealth Conversion van).  This involved waking my sister up to move her car.  Pushing and Parking the Ford Pickup in the street in front of my house and transferring the contents of my pickup to the swaggin wagon.


Finally at 10 minutes before 7, I'm on the road.  No coffee, late and just doing what I can.  I had stayed in touch with the crew to let them know that I was in a spot of bother, but that I would be there as soon as I could.


7:30 am unloaded, saddled up and we are on the way,,, The team was very gracious not to give me to hard of a time and we rolled.

Morning nutrition

 7:35 am realized that I forgot both of my fully loaded water bottles at the Van, but not to worry, Jimmy Shugars  had a children's size Camel Back that he was happy to loan out so that they didn't have to wait any longer on me.


The weather was perfect, just a few sprinkles, nice temp and great company!  We got to do a little cyclocross on the Monon, gravel, sand, deep gravel, loose gravel, washed out ruts and finally grass, before we ended up on the MS route (MS for Michael Schwab - someone was kind enough to put my initials on this route, so that we had clear direction)


We made it to Cicero in great time, Edson Ortega had never been there before and commented what a nice little town it was.  I have to say that I agree!  We stopped for coffee and to get the water situation under control, as I had been rationing until we could get my supply up to snuff. (stuffed a bunch of Nestlé's water in my Jersey pockets put my quad espresso Americano in my 2nd water bottle holder and we headed north to Arcadia! 

Kevin Garner USA Cycling Level 3  Coach

We had not gone far before I realized that they had not put the small Americano in my Medium Cup but had filled it all the way to the top (just trying to be kind to me I am sure) but the net result was that I got hot coffee all over me.  I'll have to say that certainly does wake one up :)


We really were still making great time, the SAG stop had been relatively short and we didn't realize it but the wind had been at our back all day, so we were sailing!  Then the pavement disappeared.  We talked it over  and decided to forge ahead on the planned route.  I have to say that we did a lot of gravel riding today on our road bikes and everyone on the team handled it like pros!


Finally we reached our northern most point and turned to head back to Bub's.


We hadn't gone 2 miles back south when Kevin Garner and I noticed that we had lost Edson and Matt Weaver. We stopped to wait while Jimmy Shugars, Gary Martindale and Tony Gabriel rode on.  We figured it wouldn't take long and that we would work together to get back in the group.


But we soon realized that Matt and Edson were not coming and started riding back on the route the way we had just come.


It wasn't long until we found them!  Matt had broken a spoke, that put his wheel way out of true so it was seriously rubbing on his brake and almost to his frame.  After some quick mechanic work that involved the use of a knife to surgically remove a sensor that was no hitting a spoke and totally releasing the rear brake, we were on our way again.
The lost squad gave me a call looking for us but we did not figure out until much later that they had gone off route and were waiting on us at a location that was not on the way back to Cicero.
So we made arrangements to meet back at the coffee shop and subway strip mall in Cicero arrived and waited for about 5 minutes before the lost boys showed up.
This was when things got exciting,,, I'm not sure what Jimmy Shugars did in that Subway, but he was in a real hurry to get in, took a long time to come out and said he was pretty sure that we were banned as a team from ever going in there again.

The Lost Boys

In our haste to get out of there with this news, Gary crashed his ride in the parking lot, in an unfortunate declipping accident,,, ,on the take off?  He lacked the common decency to stay on the ground long enough for me to get a picture and document the incident, but the good news is that his bike was unharmed in the fall... oh yeah and Gary was unharmed as well aside from some serious bruising to his pride.
Finally we are on the last leg of our trip.  About 5 miles out Gary realizes that his bike may have been unharmed in the meeting with the pavement, but one of his cycle computers was now permanently off network and likely still lying in the parking lot in Cicreo.
No ride would be complete if someone didn't have a flat and Kevin came through just before we got off the graveled part of the Monon.
He had driven to Cincinnati the day before to pick up a brand new Trek Madone road bike. (BTW it looks like a sweet ride) But now he has to take it back because he apparently pinch flatted and we had the icing on the cake for our ride.

Kevin Garner fixes flat tire

 

His new bike has an interesting idiosyncrasy with the rear brake mounted on the bottom of the frame instead of just under the seat. This IMHO makes it a lot simpler to change that tire as you can turn the bike upside down and the brake is right there to release, so you don't have to forget about that step or putting it back when you put the wheel back on. (we never figured out how to release it, so we are hoping it still works,,,, maybe it self adjusts. this needs more research)
With all the adventures of the day, we arrived back at the starting point shortly after noon and no one had time left in their time bank for the day, so we all headed home instead of to Blu Moon for coffee and brunch, with the promise from most of our riders to meet again for Blue Tuesday!
In order of contribution
Late for Ride - Michael Schwab
Most forgotten gear - Michael Schwab
Broken Spoke Award - Matt Weaver
Lost Boys - Tony Gabriel, Jimmy Shugars, Gary Martindale
Parking lot Crash - Gary Martindale
Flat tire Award - Kevin Garner
Best/Only new Rider - Edson Ortega ( this was a long ride for Edson, he has also come a long way since I first met him - great job Edson)
Great job to the whole team for working together, taking care of each other and being great guys to ride with!
See you on Blue Tuesday at SWW!
Michael

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!