Bike MS 2012

The weekend we all look forward to all year is here!  We arrived on Friday afternoon and had our traditional carboload dinner at Olive Garden.  This year we had two rookie riders (our sister Lisa and our dad's friend Craig).  We gave the rookies a little green cactus with a bright orange (MS Orange!) flower to signify that even though they are "green" they are hearty and will grow a beautiful orange flower if they nourish their fundraising efforts!  We gave the entire team a can of orange Crush soda because we are attempting to "crush" MS.  The next morning after our team picture we took our now empty cans of Crush and yelled "CRUSH MS!" as we crushed our cans and stomped them.  Go team!

After our Go Team! moment we broke off into three groups--the 100 milers, the 75 milers, and the rest of us.  This year it was incredibly hot (much hotter than in years past) and we had one of our rookies and a young rider so we rode until we made it to lunch and then sagged back to the fairgrounds.  We wanted to make sure we hit the fun part, which is on the 75 mile route.  Our young rider (Bethany) confirms that the fun part was worth it!  I was really impressed with our rookie (Lisa) because this was the longest bike ride she's ever been on but she rode up EVERY hill and looked like she could have kept going for another 25 miles at least.  Due to the thoughtfulness of my brother-in-law, Bill, I was able to ride a superlite bike this year rather than Senor Hyabusa (who is fairly heavy and whose gears are less than optimal).  He took the bike they had turned into a stationary bike (Big Red Hyabusa) and made it into a regular bike for my sister to ride so I could ride hers (Mt Fuji Hyabusa).  I had ridden this bike for a few miles last year but riding it from the beginning showed me how much I was missing by riding an older bike with bad gears!  Watching a recumbant bike ride by, though, made me want to get a cool, non-traditional bike so that along with the good gears I could also avoid the shoulder soreness, tush soreness, and numb hands that are par for the course on a long bike ride.  Anyone want to be my bike sponsor???  The only problem with the recumbant is that I couldn't ride it in triathlons.  We aren't sure, though, if the prohibition means that I couldn't ride in the race or that I would be ineligible for the top prizes.  Since I'm never in the running for the top prizes that wouldn't be a problem! :-)

Back to this year's ride, though.  We were at a fairly slow pace due to the heat and the overall experience level of our little group and so, yet again, it was looking like we were going to miss lunch.  We made it to Rest Stop 3 as they were closing up and eating lunch themselves.  The folks at Richards Brandt Miller Nelson were so lovely that they told us they had 4 extra lunches that we could have!  So this year we finally got lunch!!!!  And we ate it at lunch time!!!  This has been our goal for many years.  It was good to finally achieve it :-)  This year we made it back to the fairgrounds at about 2:30 or 3 and came in to a big crowd (usually the only people still hanging at the finish line when we come in are in our family).  We also had more time to hang out the fairgrounds and enjoy all of the events there (I think our kids spent at least 3 hours in the bounce house and bouncey slide).  This year Bethany got to go into the flying money booth and snatched $32 and both Lisa and Michelle won the bingo prize ($50 and $100 respectively).  Unfortunately we did not win a cool new bike this year.  Usually this is due to our general bad luck in raffles but this year it was due to the fact that they made the bikes a silent auction item instead of a raffle item.  That was a little disappointing but I had to remind myself that the outcome was the same--we were filled with desire but ultimately left the fairgrounds without a cool new bike!  Again, does anyone want to be my bike sponsor? 

Well, we also left the fairgrounds with lots of great ideas for next year's ride and fundraising.  I'm excited to start on that and to have just as much fun next year!  Come ride with us!