T-SHIRT SIZES DUE FRIDAY!

Great news! Our team t-shirts are almost ready to be printed. Color will be asphalt gray with white 'stickers' and black lettering, with black team sponsor logos on the back. We just need a bit more information from you.

Please e-mail Chris Radford (radfordoffice@aol.com) with your t-shirt size (American Apparel Sizing Chart) by THIS FRIDAY, JULY 2 at 9:00 a.m. If you're a registered member of the team for any ride in 2010, your shirt is *hooray!* free to you! Just take 30 seconds and e-mail Chris with your size this week. If we don't hear from you by this Friday morning, we will order you a shirt based on your jersey size and/or make a really good educated guess.

If you would like to order more shirts for family or friends, the cost to you will be $13 per shirt (this is ONLY for extras. Remember, if you're a registered rider on the team for 2010, your shirt is free!). Please let Chris know those sizes and quantities as well. Money is due to Chris by next Friday, July 9. Please send checks to Chris Radford, whose mailing address is in the e-mail you'll receive shortly from the team.

We have some friends and past teammates on this e-mail distribution list that aren't registered to ride this year. No worry though, if you're also interested in grabbing a cool shirt for $13, please do!

Please let us know if you have any questions!

Thanks,

Team Committee

MC, did, Nicole, Katie, Cindy, JD, and Tom

SPEAKIN' OF ROCKIN'...........

If it happens that you find yourself in the Holland/Saugatuck vicinity this Saturday (Oh, I dunno, like after a Team Ride or somethin') and feel the need to maybe treat yourself to a cold beer, a nice meal and m-a-y-b-e a little live music might I humbly suggest the Saugatuck Brewery just a few minutes down the highway? There's a rowdy little band playin' down there from 7pm - 11pm w/ a guitar player that you might recognize.

(Shameless Self-Promotion Mode - off)

TEAM RIDE COMIN' UP THIS SATURDAY! (Yup - Saturday!)

Hey Team!

Holy crap! It's nearly July! Ya know what that means?! That means that there are exactly 19 days 'til the VT Ride, 47 days 'til the WI Ride, 110 days 'til DV and 145 'til Tucson!

Better be getting the miles (and the money!) in, that's all I'm sayin'!

So - as the next step in our continual efforts in that regard we have a Team Training Ride set for this Saturday, July 3. Coach Did and I sure would like the pleasure of your company - both for the ride and the short-but-intense feeding frenzy that's sure to follow. Here are the details:

Where - Smallenburg Park in Holland. ( Map soon!)
When - We roll @ 11:00am, so get there by 10:30 or so to pump tires, etc.
What - We'll have @ least 2 route options so you'll be able to choose 'tween a 30-ish mile and a 45/50-ish mile loop.
Who - You! Not to mention your ridin' buds.

Speaking of the Post-Ride Refueling Frenzy - I'll bring stuff to make sandwiches, please feel free to augment as you see fit!

Note - I'm still working on the route(s) but it's looking like re-fueling options might be a touch scarce so come prepared! The longer loop will have at least 1.

I know it's the Saturday of a holiday weekend but I sure hope you can join us!

See you then. You guys rock like no one else, you're hip to that, right?

RIGHT!

Ride on........Coach Mike

TEAM RIDE REPORT - FATHER'S DAY

Hey West Michigan Rock Stars! Coach Mike here w/ the scoop on the latest ride enjoyed by members of the World's Coolest Team! Read on!!!!!!!!!!!

Despite the challenges presented by Father's Day (not to mention the activities of the previous day for some of us!) 'twas a good group that gathered @ Townsend Park last Sunday. As far as my weary-and-rapidly-aging brain can recall the group was comprised of:

Team Scheidel (all 3 of /em)
Tom Miller
Chris Radford
Brenda "It's my 1st team ride of the year" Bauske
Cindy "Hey Brenda close that gap!" Aley
Chris and Becky Machuta (welcome back Becky!)
Linda "glad I'm not on that tandem!" Clark
Cathy "I wish I wasn't either!" Tahy
John Jasker
Coach Did
Nick Murphy
Special Guest Rider Bonnie Stade
and me................

We did a 30-ish miile loop up and around Rockford and then enjoyed snacks and such in the sunshine before going our seperate ways.

No flats, crashes, unfortunate wildlife encounters or UFP sightings to report - all in all it was an uneventful day!

Next Team Ride is Saturday July 3! Details will be forthcoming soon!

See you guys soon. Keep on riding, fund-raising and rockin'!

'Cuz that's how we roll!

MC

DEATH VALLEY THURSDAY RIDE DETAILS

Okay - many of you have heard talk of a little ride idea I've had percolatin' around in my addled brain for an additional challenging ride while we're out in DV. This is the "unofficial official" announcement of said ride:

The plan is to ride from Furnace Creek up to Dante's View, then back down to the intersection by the Furnace Creek Inn and then out along the course, up through Artists' Pallette and back to the Ranch. This will be a tough ride - tougher than doing the Ride on Satuday! The climb to Dante's View will be several magnitudes of difficulty beyond Jubilee Pass - my rental car barely got up it at all when we were out there over Christmas. The view is awesome - and worth it - and Artists' Pallette will be a blast, but this ride is sort of a butt-kicker and only for you if you're looking for a challenge and confident of your ability to recover in one day and be ready for Saturday. My best guess is that it's gonna be 80-90miles, maybe a few more. If we have any support at all it'll be up @ Dante's - but, again, this is pretty much self supported and way outside of any official JDRF business!

Logistics will be challenging as well - we'll need to fly into LV on Wed. I'll rent a van. We'll need to be prepared to handle our bikes getting out there as well - as of right now I have no info on how bike transportation will be handled for DV (assuming that you are on the "Gold" fund-raising package) nor can we count on the Bike Room being fully operational. We'll also need to find lodging for Wed night @ the ranch, which I've been told might be an issue. There are alternatives - we stayed @ a casino a few minutes outside the park over Christmas, it was cheap and just fine.

So - I need to know who's interested. Allow me to re-iterate that we'll be on our own from JDRF's standpoint and might be unsupported as well. Jus' sayin'.

It will be hard. It oughta be fun. We will feel it in Friday (and hopefully not Saturday!)

So - let me know if you wanna be in the loop as to ongoing developments, plans, etc.

I hope to see everyone this Sunday - have I mentioned lately how hard and much you guys ROCK!?!?!?!??!?!??!

'Cuz you all for dang sure do!

See you soon, keep riding, fund-rasing, rocking and all that.......

Coach Mike

Hey, whoa, time goes like real fast, man

So, here I was, loafing in my hammock, thinking I was caught up on this, that, and the other thing, when, SPLAT, it hit me! Squirrel poo!

Er, no.

We have a Team Ride this Sunday! We'll be riding from Townsend Park (that would be here) with a rollout time of 11 am. Several distances will be available, so you'll be able to get some riding in with your favorite folks AND get home in time to do some cool Father's Day stuff, like loafing in a hammock, eating medium-rare steak, and possibly smoking a pipe.

See you Sunday!

Weekend Update!

Like I said it was indeed a full weekend of pedalling!

Saturday we had Cindy n’ Greg, Tom, Ian, Brad, Linda T-P, Stewart, Melanie and Scott, Rick, and me rolling out from the West Side Christian School for the 2010 100 (and then some) Grand. And not too many miles in we had a chance to say hi to Bonnie, too.

What? I missed someone?

Oh hells yeah! Our own Kaat, celebrating one year of one-a-month (or more) century riding! Sweeeet. Some people start riding a bike and after a couple of years they try a century, maybe!

Anyway, it was a fine day for riding, and the 100(and 8) Grand is a nicely put-together tour, if a bit sadistic – really, do we have to have the hardest hills in the last 20 miles? We had a couple of firsts out there, with Stewart completing his first century ride (despite a rear tire that was determined to thwart him), and Ian, who was 14.997 years old yesterday, completing his first metric century. Nice job, guys! And let me repeat my thanks to Brad for his excellent all-day impression of a brightly colored locomotive. Imagine how fast he'd be with shaved legs!*

So, that's 108 miles on Saturday.

Sunday, of course, we had the marina version of Tour de Taco, and let me list the available facilities we enjoyed: grills under a gazebo, a pool, a playground, showers, wonderful soft grass, big carts for hauling coolers, and indoor parking! Seriously, the "host amenities" arms race has been taken to a new level! Despite unseasonably chilly weather we had fine turnout, in the persons of:

Cindy "Sandpaper" A.

Katie C.

Linda C.

Lynne G, who will be scoping out the new ride venue in Vermont in a few weeks

John "sad cookie" J.

Nathen K.

Chris "two tubes" M.

Stewart M.

Nicole N.

Chris R.

JD

And a bevy of Special Guest Stars:

Greg E.

Patti B.

Heather A.B.

Brian B.

Kathy H.

Berger & Joy

Aaand coachy types MC & did.

We covered, um, well, I dunno how much we covered, given the variety of route options available - somewhere between 18 and 51 miles, I guess! We certainly managed to dodge some weather bullets; I remain amazed that we didn't get poured on, and even more amazed at how we finished in full sun. MC rotated his hat into "grill chef" position and began producing vast quantities of fajita chicken for folks to tuck in to as they rolled in - and for arriving guests that included three-fifths of the remaining Machuta clan (continue beaming healing rays at Becky's elbow!), Ellie & Anna, a trio of Scheidels, Mrs. did and the didlet, and of course Maggie S.

Our next team ride is on Sunday the 20th - yeah, that's Father's Day. We're gonna try a new sorty "loopy" approach to routes that will easily allow shortening the ride. Hopefully that'll allow you to be able to get to any Father's Day festivities you've got planned - we'll let you know details later this week or early next week. Something relating to this that we'd like you to think about is how you'd like to structure your rides - who do you like to ride with, how fast do you want to go, etc. We've noted that our rides tend to get kinda fragmented, so we're thinking of sending folks out in smaller groups rather than in one horde.

We're also hoping that this approach will bring out some of the folks we haven't seen much of this year - we'd love to see everyone at some point!

On the "upcoming events" front, please watch your email! We have the Holland Hundred coming up in July, which will have some fund-raising opportunities for you.

Also, there are some fund-raising deadlines coming up that you need to be aware of, too - meeting those deadlines allows the chapter to make your travel arrangements earlier, which usually means cheaper, which means more money to researching a cure to Type 1 Diabetes!

Y'all continue to rock!

Coach did

*I kid, I kid. Except for when I don't. And even then I do. Sometimes. We're bringing a razor to Vegas.

six/one/ten team note

Hiho, everybody, and welcome to June! MC and I hereby declare that Riding Season is completely and unreservedly open, not that it was much less so yesterday.

It’s gonna be a very full weekend of riding for more than a few of us, so, let’s do some organizing!

First off, Saturday, we have the 100 Grand ride – just to reiterate, if you ain’t on the list, you will have to pay for your registration (looks like that’ll be $25, or $20 if you’re a Rapid Wheelmen member). The course opens at 8 am; I’m thinking that we want to be rolling pretty much right away, so if you want to ride with a group (and who wouldn’t?) let’s meet at 7:45 outside the registration area and head out on to the course at 8. The start/finish is at West Side Christian School, here : http://tinyurl.com/100GrandStart.

Sunday is the deservedly famous Tour de Taco ride. This year we’ll be riding from Eldean’s Shipyard (here: http://tinyurl.com/Eldeans) with an 11 am rollout time so be there by 10:45. We may be parking in the building on the south side of the road there, just so you know – how cool is indoor parking? Zowie. As for routes, we’ll have a 50ish mile main route, a 40ish mile shorter option, and the promised “100 Grand Recovery Ride” as-flat-as-possible 20ish miler. Please note that the longer loops we’re planning are a bit light on places to buy food for the first 30 or so miles, so plan to have some riding food along with you.

Post-ride, we’ll have, uh, post-ride festivities! In the grand tradition of the TdT, Coach MC will rotate his helmet into “grill chef” position and provide grilled meats and related tidbits; co-hosts John Jasker and JD Stone will be providing soft drinks. You are encouraged to bring a dish to pass! In addition, we’ll have access to the pool and to a very nice playground, so your family is more than welcome to attend.

Since this is a pretty involved post-ride shindig, we’d really appreciate having a headcount - please email me by the end of this week with an RSVP!

Happy Riding, rock stars!