Perfect night for a ride

The temperature was just right, mid 70's with no wind. It was after 6:00 p.m., so the heading home traffic was home. Even though it was not a very restful weekend I had plenty of energy. So I chowed a Cliff bar instead of having dinner and jumped on my bike at 6:30 for an hour ride. I kind of did a reverse loop of my normal northeasterly route. I headed north on Kuttshill and turned left to climb the Childsdale hill. It's definitely an easier climb going that direction. I jumped on the White Pine Trail for about a mile and got off as soon as I got into downtown Rockford. When it's nice outside it's downright dangerous to ride a bicycle on the trail through there. I went across town and turned onto 11 Mile at Northland Drive and headed east. Took that all the way to Meyers Lake Road and turned south.Turned back west on Kies and then to Courtland and Kroes past Rockford High School. I ended up pulling into home with 16 miles under my tires. That gives me 200 for the season. I'm looking forward to many more miles in the coming months.

Second team ride of the season

The ride from Ada Park on Sunday was the flat route out to Saranac and back. There was an optional hill climb on the way back if one so desired. I did not desire. We had 27 people from the West Michigan Ride for a Cure team there. The three of us on Team Scheidel really spread out across the course. Ian and I took off with the lead pack. I stayed with them for a little over 8 miles before I got dropped. Ian kept the pace for about 25 miles. I guess we've reached that point where the son is faster then the dad. Of course, when it comes to my speed on a bicycle beating me is not that great of an accomplishment. The large group was spread out all over the route. Mary was between the middle and rear having a great time talking to team mate LTP through most of the ride. Because we all turned around at different points we all ended up with different mileage totals. Ian was our champ with 29 miles, I had 27 miles and Mary completed 25 miles.

First team ride of the season

The 2012 ride season is officially under way. We had our first team ride last Sunday and over 30 people showed up. It was cool, sunny and windy day in Grandville. Our hosts, Steve and Katie Clark, laid out a looping route with 12, 20 and 27 mile options. I went for the 27 mile. I was feeling pretty good until we turned into the wind for the second half of the ride. At about mile 22 I was wishing I had taken the 20 mile route. But I persevered and finished with a pretty decent time considering the wind and the fact that I am really not in mid-summer riding form yet. Our next West Michigan team ride is this Sunday, leaving from Ada Park. It might be the easy and flat route out to Saranac and back. Or we may take to the hills on Snow Avenue. Knowing our coaches I'm betting on hills.

Jake's Music Festival is a great sucess

Delilah DeWylde stands on her stand-up bass during Jake's Music Festival.

As you probably are aware the main point of this blog is not to tell you all about my prodigious cycling ability. (That would be a very short blog.) The true nature is to inform people about what we are doing in the fight against Type 1 diabetes and to raise money for the cause. Our family's major fundraiser is Jake's Music Festival, a benefit concert held at the Wealthy Theatre in Grand Rapids every April. This was our eighth year and we had 17 different acts performing on stage.The music ran the gamut from Celtic and rock-a-billy to jazz and hip hop. All the performers are local musicians who donate their time to be part of the cause. This year's festival raised over $5,000 for diabetes research. With that and some other early donations we are over halfway to our family goal of $12,000. Thanks to everyone who supported Jake's Music Festival.

If you weren't able to attend but would still like to donate please click on one of the "Donate to..." links on the left.

First group ride

Last night was my first ride of the season with someone other than family members. Ian and I met up with JDRF team mates Cindy and Linda and Linda's friend Tom. The five of us started at Ada Park and rode to Saranac and back. This is a pretty straight, flat route. In fact, local bicycling clubs use this stretch of Grand River Avenue for time trials. We had a nice little paceline going and finished with an average speed of 16.5 MPH over 28.5 miles. Not blazing by any means, but a healthy pace for this early in the year.

After the ride we discussed how different this spring is from last year. It was very cold and wet during the spring of 2011. I think I only had about 200 miles in by June 1st. I have almost half that already and spring is only two days old. Although those of us who have lived in Michigan most of our lives realize that this warm spell will not last. Even though it has been in the 80's all week we could have snow next week and on into April. That's why it's important to get the miles in now while the sun is shining.

Riding in shorts in March in Michigan

Who'd have thunk it? The unseasonably warm weather in Michigan this year has given us an early start to the riding season. I have ridden in March in the past. But it's been while wearing lots of layers and cursing the wind, cold and gray skies. On Saturday the temperature flirted with 80 degrees. Mary and I went out for a ride in shorts and summer weight jerseys. No arm warmers. No jackets. No wool hats. It was glorious! We did a 22 mile loop to the north and east of our house that took us out near Meyers Lake. On the way back we rode the portion of the Cannon Trail that goes through a wetlands area. We heard some very noisy waterfowl at one point. It appeared to be "duck wrestling".

Saturday was my third ride of the week, giving me 60 miles for the season so far. A far cry better than last spring. In fact it isn't even spring until tomorrow. Another event on tomorrow's calendar is our son Jake's 21st birthday. He was originally diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was six years old. It's sometimes hard to believe that Jake and our family have been dealing with diabetes for 15 years. The reason we ride is the hope that we'll find a cure before another 15 years go by.

New bike shop in town

Some of the offerings at last night's Grand Opening.

Yesterday was the grand opening of Central District Cyclery, a new bike shop in downtown Grand Rapids. The shop is located at 52 Monroe Center, right in the heart of downtown. The shop carries bikes by 616 Bicycle Fabrication, Traitor Cycles and Linus Bikes. Along with bike sales and service they are also offering rental bikes. This will provide a great way for out of town guests to check out the Grand Rapids area without driving all over the place.

The shop is owned by Nate Phelps who is very involved in the mountain biking community. He has served as the president of both the West Michigan Mountain Biking Alliance and the Michigan Mountain Biking Association.I first met Nate a few years ago and I worked with him on producing a documentary about the Grand Rapids Bike Park. You can see a preview of the film, called Urban Dreams, by clicking here.

Congratulations to Nate and his crew and good luck with the new shop.

Rolling with Team Scheidel

Mary, Ian and I went out for our traditional first ride of the season on the White Pine Trail yesterday. That beats our first time out last year by exactly a month. We also went farther this year, logging 20 miles on a beautiful first day of Daylight Savings Time afternoon. It's good to be getting an earlier start to the season since the West Michigan Team this year decided to make Lake Tahoe our main ride. That happens in September, four weeks earlier than Death Valley. As coach Mike Clark points out, that's one less month to train and one less month to fund raise.

When I started the ride yesterday the odometer on my bike computer read 9,195 miles. That means this season I will roll over ten thousand miles on my bike. Those miles include several century rides is Death Valley, numerous metric centuries in Michigan, Indiana and Vermont, and many, many training rides. I had about 300 miles on that bike when I did my first century ride in 2005 as part of the JDRF team. It's amazing to look at the number now and remember all the miles that went into getting there. This is going to be a great season and we are going to raise a whole bunch of money to help find a cure for Type 1 diabetes.

More funny bikes

I don't ride a lot in the winter. I do try and get on the indoor trainer (hate it) and I went out on my mountain bike on one particularly nice Saturday afternoon (48 and sunny). But generally I just wait till the weather warms up. Which means there isn't a lot to post on this blog. But to be fair to my regular readers I like to provide some interesting content during these slow, cold winter months. I found the following cartoon on imgur.com. Enjoy.

Benefits of a Bicycle

This graphic has been on several different blogs but I couldn't find the original source that deserves credit. Never the less, enjoy this homage to two wheeled transportation.