TEAM RIDE REPORT, 8-29-10

WOW!
Whatta ride(s)!
Whatta great post-ride bash!
Whatta great place to hang out on a hot-n-fine late summer day!

This weekend's training ride was one for the books for several reasons: Becky's longest ride (in tougher-than-average conditions!), 1st time our New Best Friend From Chicago Mary rode w/ us, 1st time @ Our New Fav Place on The Lake, one of the hilliest loops ever.....all in all it was an All Time Show-Stopper!

We met early-ish for the advertised "hilly" 32 mile AM loop. Present were:
Coach Did and trophy wife Kirsten
Chris and Becky M
Team Scheidel x 3
Bad Brad S
Tardy John J
Host w/the most Paul
Nicole
Scott P
Chuck B
The aforementioned N.B.F. Mary (on her 1st tandem ride ever)
and me....piloting said tandem.

The route was awesome - and as hilly as advertised. The water stop was much-appreciated and we got back to the cottage just in time to feast on both lotsa Subway (good training for DV!) and the hoots and shouts of arriving teammies.
The potential disadvantage of the 2-ride concept was readily apparant as we tried to pry happy butts offa comfy deck chairs and back in the saddle. Actually - I thought we did pretty dang good to roll only 20 minutes late! The "rolling" 40-ish mile PM ride was a biggie......check it:
Everyone from Ride #1 'cept Chuck, Brad and Chris +
Steve and Katie C
The lovely Linda - claiming her rightful place on the back o' the tandem so Mary was on her brand new bike for the 2nd time ever!
Nathan and Stewart
Brenda B
Mel W
Amy F2
Rob A (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Chris R
Linda T-P (who's responsible for our newest Team Rule - (s)he who lays out the loop must ride it!)
Kevin O
Mike H

By now it was hot. Damn hot to be precise. It'd be accurate to say that some folks were feelin' it and we made a few "game-day" calls w/ short-cuts and such but everyone got back and the cook-out/stuff-yer-BikeFace/swim/float/drift/eat too much desert fest commenced for real!

Massive, monsterous World's Greatest Team Kudos gotta be sent out to our incredible hosts! Paul and Kami (geez - I never even got their last name!) are neighbors of the T-Ps and have 2 kids w/ Type 1 so they've been JDRFolk for a while. They bent over backwards to welcome us to their little slice o' heaven there on Barlow Lake and we owe them BIG!

So - there you have it. A great ride and plenty of BikeFace in evidence allll day. Thanks to Linda and Scott for takin' point and for everyone that made a point of joining us.

Next Team Ride is this weekend - 9/5 @ Cindy Aley's up in Sand Lake. I'd say the odds of not ridin' up Fisk Knob are low at best! I'll be outta town but rest assured that I'll be missing you guys!

Watch for an e-mail later this week w/ details and if you haven't heard from someone on the Ride Committee by lunchtime Friday contact Coach Derek.

Be sure to keep an eye on the Team Blog (yep - that's this right 'chere!) and that e-mail I sent out last week w / the brand new ride schedule 'cuz there are lotsa chances comin' your way to ride w/your buds. Also - the MapleLeaf Metric, Harvest Tour, Apple Cider Century and Colorburst Tour are all 'tween now and DV as well! Let's get together and ride!

As I write this we are 2 Rides into the best season ever for JDRF. In 8 days we leave for Tahoe for Ride #3 and there are only 42 days before we leave for Death Valley! (And then only another 6 weeks 'til Tucson!) (Tuscon?) Let's keep it in the big ring huh? Riding, recruiting, fund-raising.............let's make sure that our Team remains the role model for the whole dang Ride Program!

One of my fav songwriters (Greg Brown) has this lyric in one of his tunes - " I know I say that all the time like everything else I say" and it fights really well right here: You. Guys. Rock. I'm so proud to roll w/ you all.............let's keep kickin' diabetes in the junk everytime we can, okay?

O-KAY!

See you on the road, be safe, ride lots, take care of each other................
Coach MC