Party and Ride

I can not get over what beautiful weather we have been having this November. Last night was our Ride Team End-of-the-Season Party at Rosewood Pointe in Holland. It was such a nice evening we sat around a campfire outside and even played horseshoes on the beach. Last year we were shoveling snow at the same party. The big announcement at the party was that the West Michigan Team raised over $200,000 this year for diabetes research. That gives us over one million dollars in our five years of riding.
Speaking of riding Mary and I took a little trip on the White Pine Trail this afternoon. Our JDRF teammate Linda Thompson-Poeder joined us. We rode 20 miles, taking the trail from our house up to Russell Road and back. We would have gone farther, but we ran out of daylight. That is the major difficulty in getting mileage in this time of year. Even if it's warm the sun sets by 5:30.

Best day in a month

What a fantastic day. Over 70 degrees and sunny. In November! So we had to ride. Mary and I got on our seldom used road bikes and ripped off 17 miles this afternoon. We rode the infamous Pettis/Egypt Valley/Cannonsburg loop. Lots of hills. It's a variety of rollers mixed with extended climbs. I'm not really sure why we wanted to punish ourselves, but it felt really good. I mean seriously, we should have done an easy ride on the White Pine Trail. Although I'm sure the WPT was over-run with walkers, strollers and roller bladers today. So it was great fun to be out on a beautiful day working our way through the hills. We did see a few other riders doing the same thing. Smiles all around.

Leaves be damned

It was such a nice day yesterday and we've spent so much time lately raking leaves that we said "to heck with it" and went for a bike ride instead. Mary, Ian and I got out our trail bikes for some Sunday afternoon fun. First we rode to the home of one of Ian's friends and dropped him off. That friend's neighborhood is on top of the Childsdale hill. Our neighborhood is at the bottom, so we started with a nice little climb. Then we took the express downhill and hopped over to Rouge River Park and did the nature trail loop. It was a little muddy with quite a bit of standing water, thanks to all the rain we've had recently. But it was great fun. The Rouge River was also running high and fast because of the rain. It would have been a fun day to be out kayaking as well.
11 1/2 months until Death Valley 2010!

A rare ride

It has been tough getting out to ride this October. We've had lots of rain. And when it hasn't rained I've had to rake leaves. We have lots of trees at our house and they drop lots of leaves. I once read that a mature Maple tree has 250,000 leaves. Of the 30+ trees on our lot, nine of them are Maple trees. So I get to rake a lot. But Wednesday was a beautiful sunny day so I jumped on my bike at lunch time and rode a quick 16 miles. I traveled north on the White Pine Trail through Rockford and then returned home. I rolled over many crunchy leaves as I dodged a plethora of walkers. Question: Why don't walkers feel the need to follow the same trail etiquette at cyclists? Regardless it was a great ride and it felt wonderful to be outside on my bike again.

Film wins another award

We just got word that our documentary "More Than 100 Miles: Riding to Cure Diabetes" won a Silver Screen Award at the 2009 Nevada Film Festival. No prize money comes with that, although I do get a free VIP pass to the festival and banquet on November 21st. Anyone want to donate a plane ticket to Las Vegas?

Death Valley Days

From Death Valley Ride 2008

Even though Mary and I aren't heading to Death Valley this year, 11 members of the West Michigan team are. The majority of our team fought the cold and rain in Killington, Vermont back in August. Our teammates will be fighting 102 degree temperatures and relentless sun this weekend. Our thoughts and prayers will be with them as they ride 105 miles in one of the most desolate areas on the planet. Having completed four century rides in Death Valley I know what kind of pain they are about to endure. But hat pain will help ease the pain of all those suffering with Type 1 diabetes. To my teammates I say have a great ride, I wish I was going with you.

ACC (and we ain't talkin' college basketball)

A foggy morning at the start of the ACC

The Apple Cider Century was a great ride this past Sunday. The weather was gorgeous. It didn't rain and temperatures ranged from cool in the morning to pleasantly warm in the afternoon. Mary and I rode with a bunch of our JDRF Ride team mates. She did the metric century (61 miles) with Brian and Heather, while I completed the full 100 miles with Mike, Linda, Cathy, and John.

Mike and Cathy on the tandem, Linda chasing them

It felt great to get a century ride in this year. I was very disappointed after Killington having ridden only 62 miles. I know nobody else felt that way, but I tend to be my own harshest critic. Not only did I complete my seventh century ride on Sunday, I did it in my best time ever, just a shade over 8 hours. That was probably my last big ride of the season. Our Death Valley team mates leave for their ride in just a little over two weeks. I wish them warm sunny skies and minimal winds.

Tom and Mary after their respective century rides

Over 6000

Today I rolled over 6000 miles on my Cannondale. The computer showed 6017.5 at the end of today's 24 mile ride on the White Pine Trail. That's in just a little over 4 years. But considering I don't put many miles on that bike from November through March that's a pretty good number.
September has turned into the nicest month of our summer. Warm and dry during the day, not to mention sunny, then cooling off at night. Unfortunately, it's also dark by 8:30, so it's getting hard to get those post work/dinner rides in. We are registered to ride in the Apple Cider Century next Sunday. My plan is to do the full century since I don't have one yet this year. I'm hoping next Sunday is as nice as this Sunday.

Great day for a ride

Even though our JDRF ride is completed we still have team members who will be riding in Death Valley in October. So we are still participating in team rides. Today's was a nice 42 mile ride with several rolling hills. The ride started from Townsend Park and we were running late. By the time we arrived the team had already taken off. Fortunately they left a tip sheet and route map for us. I took a quick look, recognized the route so Mary and I took off north up Ramsdell Road. The route called for a loop that ended at 9 Mile Road, so we figured we'd ride the route backwards at that point and meet up with the team instead of trying to catch them. When we got to 9 Mile I took a closer look at the tip sheet and realized the team had started south on Ramsdell. We had ridden 4 miles in the wrong direction. So we turned around and backtracked the route eventually meeting up with the team on Honey Creek. So we turned around and rode the second half of the route with our buddies. They all ended up doing 45 miles, we only managed 42. It was a perfect day to be out, much better than the last time we all got together for a ride.

Jake's Music Festival on 09/19/09

Photo by Kevin Owens

Jake's Music Festival takes place in just 8 days. This is our fifth annual celebration of local music. We have a great line up of bands featuring everything from family friendly groups at 5:00 to some of the hottest bands in the area. You can find a full listing of bands at our festival blog.

Thanks to our main sponsors Frames Unlimited and Magic Hat #9. Because of them 100% of all ticket sales goes directly to our local chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. And those tickets are only $8 this year. We'll also be having a silent auction and adult beverages at the newly renovated Wealthy Theatre concession stand.

Some come early and stay all night, or just drop in to check out one or two bands. Either way you'll have a great time.