A Video Review of 2014

2014 was a great year. We rode a lot of miles and raised a lot of money. The West Michigan team raised $143,000 this year. That brings our ten year total to $1,660,000. Thank you to all the donors that have made this possible. Last Saturday night our team celebrated this remarkable year. One of the things we watched was a video highlight I produced of the 2014 ride season. Have a look.

Also, over on the left side you'll see a new slideshow called "A Decade of the Ride". That includes some of the more fun photos from the past ten years of riding for the cure. Just click on it to see larger versions of the photos.

JDRF Ride #10 is in the books

One week ago today the sun came up over the Funeral Mountains in Death Valley and 300 cyclists headed out on the Ride to Cure Diabetes. 38 of those riders were affiliated with our West Michigan team. This was the tenth year for our team. Our first rides were in Death Valley and Ashville, North Carolina in 2005. With a few exceptions we were a fairly novice group of cyclists. But the experiences of that first year propelled us to grow as a team and as riders. When all the numbers are counted up at the end of this year the West Michigan team will have raised over $1,600,000 for diabetes research.

The official West Michigan team photo

Ride day was beautiful. In the seven times I've been to Death Valley it was the best weather we've ever had. The morning started cool and temperatures stayed below 90 until mid-afternoon. Temps did top out at around 100 out near Jubilee Pass. There was very little wind and that was a godsend. Normally we fight a strong headwind for the second half of the ride, but not this year.

Ian at Badwater Basin. 282 feet below sea level.

Our plan as a family was to do the entire 100 miles, including the climb up to the top of Jubilee Pass. Ian and I started out riding with a faster group and Mary was riding with a fast group so we got separated early on. Our group arrived at the Badwater Basin break point in a very good time. Just as we were getting ready to pull out for the next leg of the ride another group of our team mates rolled in and told us that Mary had been in a crash at the 8 mile mark. We got a hold of one of the volunteers (Thanks very much to all the volunteers.) and radioed back to where the crash had been. It seems that a teenage girl rider had stopped on the course and then turned right in front of Mary on a downhill. Mary couldn't avoid her and crashed into the girl. Luckily they both only suffered minor scraps and bruises. Although Mary cut her lip and bled for quite awhile. After she was bandaged up she got back on her bike (which was fine) and continued the ride. Since I knew she was coming but didn't know how bad she was injured I decided to wait at Badwater and told Ian to ride on. I knew this would mean I probably wouldn't complete the entire 100 miles, but I've gotten the century in Death Valley before. Ian still hadn't finished a century here and this was his third try. He took off with our original group and I waited for a hour for Mary to show up at Badwater.

Mary leading the pace line after her crash.

 Mary rolled into the break point banged up but determined to continue the ride. It turns out that a couple miles after the crash she also had a flat tire. This put us way behind schedule. There was no way we could make to cut-off time to do the whole 100 miles, so we decided to go for the metric century, which is 100 kilometers, or about 63 miles. We had a group of about a dozen riders that were all going the same distance. In a ride like this, with many different ability levels, the group would break up into smaller groups and then we would reconstitute at the next break point.

Our group on the way from Badwater to the finish line.

Our head coach, Mike Clark, calls the last mile of the Death Valley ride "the best mile in cycling". You've ridden many, many miles through the desert. It's very hot, you're very tired. The sea level sign is at the turn to head back down to Furnace Creek Ranch and the finish line. However, you have to ride about a two mile climb before you get to that point. Once you're at the sign, you take a photo with your riding partners and then coast the last mile into the ranch and cross the finish line to the cheers of the staff, volunteers and fellow riders. This was my seventh time riding that "best mile" and I teared up again as we crossed the finish line.

Megan, Jeremy, Tom, Linda, Mary and Sarah at the sea level sign. One mile to go.

By "only" riding a metric century we finished in the mid afternoon instead of close to sunset. For the first time ever I had a chance to quickly run back to the room and shower before returning to the finish line to cheer on our team mates who had ridden longer distances. One of the West Michigan traditions is that we stay at the finish line and cheer for all the riders as they come across. It's always one of the more emotional moments of the weekend. One of those riders was our son Ian. He completed his first century in Death Valley. He got a century in Nashville last year and had one other on a non-JDRF ride. But this was his first one in Death Valley and a great accomplishment

Ian crossing the finish line of his first Death valley century ride.

As powerful as riding in Death Valley is, the true purpose is to raise money to fund research into Type One diabetes. In that respect this ride was a huge success. The Death Valley Ride for a Cure raised over $900,000. The JDRF ride program for 2014 is on track to raise over five million dollars. Thank you once again to everyone who donated to the cause. Great strides are being made and soon we WILL have a cure, thanks in part to the dedication of the people I had the honor of riding with last weekend.

Team Scheidel - safe, sound and smiling

Thank you to our donors

We leave for Death Valley in 36 hours. To say we are all pretty excited would be an understatement. We've been training and fundraising since early spring and now the time of the ride is almost upon us. The best news is that Team Scheidel has exceeded our goal. As of tonight we are at $12,141. Thank you to everyone who has helped out with a donation to the cause. In no particular order here are the people who have helped us get one step closer to finding a cure for diabetes.

Tom and Mary wearing jerseys from sponsor XS Energy Drinks

Dan Ayers                   
Tom & Florence Scheidel                                 
David Pasciak                   
Allison Wheeler                   
Daniel Dillon                   
Christine Behrens                   
Mike Oele                   
Paula Briggs                   
Henry & Mari Wieten                   
John Despres                   
Kim Summers                   
Dennis & Kim Moline                                       
Pam Hanson                   
Tru Vue                    
Susanne Aldridge                                       
Patrick Scheidel                                       
Bill & Ginger Young                                       
Michelle Bassett                   
Pam Murray                   
Kim Summers                   
Anne Goetz                   
Linda Milanowski                                                        
Kim Monks                   
Catrina Chambers                   
Mary Koziol                   
Miriam Wyatt                   
Stacey Woock                   
Lake Michigan Credit Union                   
Anna Kirvan                   
Sally Story                   
Kimberely Markoff                   
Karen Sterling                   
Leo Isaguirre                   
Jacquelyn McCarty                   
Roy Dodman                   
Therese Kent                   
Michelle DeVries                   
William Totten                   
Debra Shaffer                   
Derek Dykstra                   
Stonecrest Productions                   
X- Cel Chemical Specialties                   
Chris Radford  

And all the people who made cash donations at Jake's Music Festival. We don't have your names but thanks for helping out anonymously.                

We roll at sun up on Saturday morning. Thanks again.

The stretch run

We are in the final countdown for this year's JDRF Death Valley ride. Our bikes leave tomorrow. We get on a plane to head for DV a week from tomorrow. A week from Saturday we'll be riding 105 miles in predicted 102 degree heat. After over 1,200 miles of training and almost $12,000 of fundraising it's almost time to ride. I am very excited.

My first JDRF ride was in Death Valley in 2005. It was also my first ever century ride and happened on my 48th birthday. October 18, 2014 will be the tenth annual ride I've done with JDRF. Death Valley seems like a great place to commemorate a decade of riding for the cure. There will be about 35 of us from West Michigan out in the desert. 10 years ago there were 14. We've gone from a confused little group of mostly casual riders to one of the top teams in all of JDRF. Since 2005 we've raised over 1.5 million dollars for diabetes research. That is exhilirating and humbling at the same time.

I'm going to try and get a little more riding in on my mountain bike before we go to Death Valley. I have done two rides on my road bike this week. Sunday was a 30 mile team ride in the Cannonsburg area. Quite cold and windy with over 1,100 feet of climbing, but at least it didn't rain. Yesterday I did a quick solo ride on the White Pine Trail south to the ballpark. It was one of the best average speeds I've had in awhile, 15.6 mph. Now that's not going to win many races, but I've been hovering in the 14 mph range for most of the summer, so it was good to see that better time. Of course, it might also be because of the new bibs and sunglasses I got from 3rd Coast Cycles.

10 days until ride number 10.

A 100 mile week

According to Map My Ride I rode 100 miles last week. That's right where I need to be at this point in my training. I rode three times last week. I already wrote about the first two rides in my most recent post. Saturday I took part in the Cog to the Fly ride. It's a 14 mile ride from Brewery Vivant (a red rooster for a logo) in Grand Rapids to Rockford Brewing (a fishing fly logo). I started by riding from our house to Brewery Vivant. Before the official ride start we had Vivant's version of the offical beer of the ride. About 150 cyclists on a great variety of bikes headed through downtown GR and up the White Pine Trail to Rockford. Once at their beer tent we had RBC's version of the official beer. I then rode home for a total of 31 miles and a very happy belly.

Today I took a quick after work ride of 17 miles. It's getting more difficult to get those types of rides in. The sun sets about 7:30 which only gives me about an hour and a half of cycling time. That means we need to do longer rides on the weekends. But I do have almost 1,200 miles in so far this year and only two and a half weeks until the Death Valley ride, so a few less riding opportunities shouldn't be a big deal.

Finally, we got some good news this week. We are almost at our team goal. Mary, Ian and I each have personal fundraising goals of $4,000. That makes $12,000 for the family. As of today I am at $4,009. Mary is at $3,759 and Ian is at$3,848. That means we only need $393 to make the goal. You can help us reach that by clicking on Mary or Ian's name on the left side of this page.

17 days until we ride in Death Valley.

Different days, different rides

I've ridden Sunday and Tuesday so far this week and the two rides couldn't have been more different. On Sunday, Mary, LTP and I started early with the intention of doing a "simple century". It's a term the ladies came up with last year. They ride 100 miles but all along bike trails, so very little climbing and plenty of opportunities to stop, rest and eat.

LTP, Tom and Mary. Wet, cold and still happy.

We started out at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids and rode north along the White Pine Trail to Sand Lake. It was about 50 degrees when we started, but thankfully not raining. However, after we turned around and started heading back our luck ran out and the skies opened up. We had 25 miles in and we were 25 miles from our cars. The original plan was to stop at the cars for lunch and then ride south on Kent Trails to Byron Center and back. When we got to the cars we had the lunch and tried to dry out and warm up. It was time to head out again but the wind had kicked up significantly and the sky was still drizzling occasionally. Plus we were still cold and wet. We decided to call it at a half century and go home to warm up.

Yesterday I went out for a solo ride with the intent of staying off bike trails. I did one of my favorite loops which starts with climbing Post Drive to Pine Island Road. Then taking House Road which twists and turns, climbs and dips before ending at 10 Mile Road. I next made my way north to 12 Mile Road and took that until I turned south on Summit. Once I got into Rockford I either had to ride the WPT for a short section or venture onto a very busy section of 10 Mile. I did the short trail piece and got off quickly to ride up the Childsdale hill on my way back home. In all it was a shade over 19 miles with about 825 feet of elevation gain. If I were to extrapolate that out over a full century it would be over 4,100 feet of climbing. That was some pretty serious work.

We leave for Death Valley 3 weeks from tomorrow.

Longest Ride of the Year (so far)

On Sunday we did a three county team ride. We started south of Byron Center and ended up riding through parts of Ottawa, Allegan and Kent counties. We rode just a shade under 58 miles. That is my longest ride of the year by over 10 miles. The route also had over 1,900 feet of elevation gain. Plus the wind was out of the south west, so we had a stiff head wind for a good part of the day. However that also made for a really quick pace on the northbound legs. I had a couple of mile splits where I was doing over 20 mph. Rather than give you a turn by turn analysis here's a link to the Map My Ride page with all the info.

One month and one day until we ride in Death Valley.

1000 in 2014

Make that 1,001 miles to be accurate. On Tuesday night Mary and I rode south on the White Pine Trail until it ended at North Park bridge. We crossed the river and continued south through Riverside Park. We then took the new trail "connector" east along Ann Street. We then followed the new sharrow markings to Seward Street and rode all the way to Bridge Street before turning around and heading home. In all it was a 23 mile ride and gives me 1,001 miles for this cycling season. Last year I hit 1,000 on August 31, so I'm a few days later. But last year our JDRF ride was in mid-September and this year it isn't until mid-October, so I'm actually ahead of last year's pace.

I put the word connector in quotes above because I question the wisdom of making Ann Street the connecting link between the White Pine/Riverside trails and the west side of Grand Rapids. Cyclists have to navigate a busy 4 lane bridge over the river, then cross an expressway entrance/exit ramp, and finally cross the Ann/Turner intersection which includes a separate right turn lane that avoids the traffic light. While this route eventually gets the cyclist over to Seward Street, there is no flow to the riding and it doesn't feel particularly safe. While I applaud the city of Grand Rapids for trying to tie the trails and surface streets together, this particular connection could use some work.

Three rides in three days

Now that was a weekend. I got a lot of riding in. On Friday I did an 18 mile solo ride. I went south on Grand River Drive to Knapp. Took Knapp to Pettis and then north to Cannonsburg. I then climbed up Blakely so I could get the 7 Mile Hill descent. By the way, the descent of 7 Mile is much more fun than the climb.

On Saturday I rode at Merrill Trails with Scott and Linda Poeder. It was only about six and a half miles, but Merrill is a very technical trail, so it was quite a workout. Plus it was a beautiful day to ride. We toasted our success with a frosty beverage on the deck at Rockford Brewing Company.

Yesterday, we had a small group of five that went out for what turned out to be a 33 mile ride. We started east and went past Luton Park. Then we went north past Meyers Lake and turned west on 12 Mile. We had to make several turns to keep moving west, but we eventually ended up out on the ridge among overflowing apple orchards. We also happened upon Schwallier's Country Basket, a farm store that was giving away free samples of freshly picked apples. They were so good.

In the final tally I rode three consecutive days for a total of 57 miles. On top of that I feel like I could ride today. I think that means that my bike fitness level has finally returned. Which is about on schedule since they say it takes a year to come back from a major injury and it was last September that I crashed in Nashville. So it's good to be feeling good and I'm looking forward to riding in Death Vally in 5 1/2 weeks.

Happy Labor Day

Last week was a good week for riding. I got out three times for a total of 83 miles. That's right where I need to be in training at this point in the season. Today Mary and I decided to ride up to Sand Lake via the White Pine Trail. The weather people were predicting thunderstorms around 2:00 so we decided to head out about 11:00 a.m. It's a 38 mile round trip so we figured we could make it easily before the storms rolled in. It was warm and sunny when we started, but we could see some gray clouds to the west. As we rolled through Cedar Springs on our way north we felt a dew raindrops but nothing significant. Our original plan was to stop for ice cream in Sand Lake, but once we got there we decided that we better keep moving. So we stopped long enough to use the rest room and eat a snack. Then it was back on the bikes to head south and try to beat the storm. We failed. As we got back to Cedar Springs the winds kicked up and we luckily found a little gazebo along the trail, just as the heavy rain hit. We stayed relatively dry, but the air was cooling off considerably. As we waited for the storm to pass we saw several other bicyclists who had been out on the trail when the storm hit. They were soaked. After we waited about a half hour the rain stopped. We headed back south although there was some intermittent thunder and lighting. Bikes have rubber tires so we were safe, right? The weather kept getting better and warmer as we got closer to home. When we rolled into our neighborhood it was as sunny and warm as when we left. And we haven't had any rain since. I guess we should have waited and done an afternoon ride.