Ashland, OH to Wheeling, WV
114.68 Miles
Our expected route today:
Cycling to raise awareness and funding for Lakeshore Pregnancy Center. Visit lpcenters.com for more information.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Day 4 - Here We Go!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Ashland, OH to Wheeling, WV
114.68 Miles
Our expected route today:
Ashland, OH to Wheeling, WV
114.68 Miles
Our expected route today:
Day 3 - Evening Report
The quote of the morning went something like "This should be one of our easier days".
Um yeah, so that’s not exactly how the day played out in its entirety.
Today’s Lesson: When cycling in a tight draft line to cut a heavy head wind, you always run the risk of rubbin’ tire with the guy in front of you and causing a collision. It can happen to anyone in a split second, trust us we know.
We were able to prove this true somewhere around mid-day today. We very successfully and impressively built a 3 man pile-up, relatively free from bodily harm of any of the individuals involved in the extravaganza. Every one of us was able to continue riding and eventually finish out the day. After we arrived, we did a little meet and greet with Ducia Hamm, Executive Director and Wayne Fannon, Board President of Ashland Care Center. Thank you both for coming out and meeting us at our finish line this afternoon. We appreciate you showing your support for what we are doing for Lakeshore Pregnancy Center of Holland, MI and Pregnancy Care Centers across the country just like ours and yours.
Thanks also to the local newspaper photographer who came out, we'd love to have a link to the article when it is published.
Once we rehydrated a bit and stretched it out, we headed to a bike shop that Driver Dave was able to locate. This shop was a professional grade place called Orrville Cycling & Fitness in Orrville, OH. Many thanks to Jon the Mechanic and Roger, Owner of Orrville Cycling & Fitness for sticking around hours after closing time to work our bikes all back into pristine operating condition again. Orrville Cycling & Fitness is by all of our standards, one of the most impressive bike shops we have ever seen. Not only because of how they hooked us up and treated us in a time of dire need, but the entire shop was incredible. If you need a bike shop and your near Orville, OH, Orrville Cycling & Fitness is the place to go, I trust they’ll treat you right just like they did us.
After the bikes were back in tip top shape, we needed to get ourselves back into presentable shape before heading to our host family for the evening. We grabbed a 10:30 dinner and headed on for showers. We were a bit tired of our lycra shorts after having wore them for 12 ½ hours.
I’m not sure how Cliff managed to convince him to help out a rag tag group like us, but John Allison hooked us up huge. He set it all up for us to take showers and clean up at the locker room at his church, Grace Bretheren. He set us up with the Ashland Care Center, who in turn set it up for the local paper to meet us at the finish line today. He set us up with Jim and Linda Streets to stay for the night. Thanks a ton John.
Jim and Linda, what a blessing you have been to us too, and as we understand it, you are to so many others as well. Thank you for your gracious hospitality. Wish we would have been able to spend more time with you than we did. We've been learning that plans have to be flexible on trips of this nature.
Today’s Stats:
Ride Time: 6:05:55
Today’s Distance: 93.84 Miles
Total Trip Distance So Far: 320.45 Miles
Average Speed: 15.3 MPH
Max Speed: 29.9 MPH
Road Kill Tally: Keep guessing, Cliff will let you know upon our return.
That’s it for now. It’s late, and though I am told we get to sleep in tomorrow, I was also told in the same breath that we need to be up by 7:00 AM. That may seem like sleeping in to some, but not to me, so good night.
Some pix:
The whole crew with our generous hosts Jim and Linda.
Our Friends at Orrville Cycling & Fitness. Thanks Jon & Roger.
Um yeah, so that’s not exactly how the day played out in its entirety.
Today’s Lesson: When cycling in a tight draft line to cut a heavy head wind, you always run the risk of rubbin’ tire with the guy in front of you and causing a collision. It can happen to anyone in a split second, trust us we know.
We were able to prove this true somewhere around mid-day today. We very successfully and impressively built a 3 man pile-up, relatively free from bodily harm of any of the individuals involved in the extravaganza. Every one of us was able to continue riding and eventually finish out the day. After we arrived, we did a little meet and greet with Ducia Hamm, Executive Director and Wayne Fannon, Board President of Ashland Care Center. Thank you both for coming out and meeting us at our finish line this afternoon. We appreciate you showing your support for what we are doing for Lakeshore Pregnancy Center of Holland, MI and Pregnancy Care Centers across the country just like ours and yours.
Thanks also to the local newspaper photographer who came out, we'd love to have a link to the article when it is published.
Once we rehydrated a bit and stretched it out, we headed to a bike shop that Driver Dave was able to locate. This shop was a professional grade place called Orrville Cycling & Fitness in Orrville, OH. Many thanks to Jon the Mechanic and Roger, Owner of Orrville Cycling & Fitness for sticking around hours after closing time to work our bikes all back into pristine operating condition again. Orrville Cycling & Fitness is by all of our standards, one of the most impressive bike shops we have ever seen. Not only because of how they hooked us up and treated us in a time of dire need, but the entire shop was incredible. If you need a bike shop and your near Orville, OH, Orrville Cycling & Fitness is the place to go, I trust they’ll treat you right just like they did us.
After the bikes were back in tip top shape, we needed to get ourselves back into presentable shape before heading to our host family for the evening. We grabbed a 10:30 dinner and headed on for showers. We were a bit tired of our lycra shorts after having wore them for 12 ½ hours.
I’m not sure how Cliff managed to convince him to help out a rag tag group like us, but John Allison hooked us up huge. He set it all up for us to take showers and clean up at the locker room at his church, Grace Bretheren. He set us up with the Ashland Care Center, who in turn set it up for the local paper to meet us at the finish line today. He set us up with Jim and Linda Streets to stay for the night. Thanks a ton John.
Jim and Linda, what a blessing you have been to us too, and as we understand it, you are to so many others as well. Thank you for your gracious hospitality. Wish we would have been able to spend more time with you than we did. We've been learning that plans have to be flexible on trips of this nature.
Today’s Stats:
Ride Time: 6:05:55
Today’s Distance: 93.84 Miles
Total Trip Distance So Far: 320.45 Miles
Average Speed: 15.3 MPH
Max Speed: 29.9 MPH
Road Kill Tally: Keep guessing, Cliff will let you know upon our return.
That’s it for now. It’s late, and though I am told we get to sleep in tomorrow, I was also told in the same breath that we need to be up by 7:00 AM. That may seem like sleeping in to some, but not to me, so good night.
Some pix:
The whole crew with our generous hosts Jim and Linda.
Our Friends at Orrville Cycling & Fitness. Thanks Jon & Roger.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Day 3 - Here We Go!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Bowling Green, OH to Ashland, OH
~ 96.66 Miles
Our expected route for the day:
Bowling Green, OH to Ashland, OH
~ 96.66 Miles
Our expected route for the day:
Day 2 - Evening Report
Another great day.
To start off, on behalf of all of us riders, I want to thank Dave Dreyer for doing an amazing job of taking care of us along the way. Dave is driving the van and trailer for us. It can't be the most exciting responsibility in the world to drive up ahead of us 15-30 miles and wait for us to ride past, only to do it all over again and again and again until we reach our destination each day. So, thanks Dave, you're doing a great job keeping us stocked up on water, food, stretch breaks, some great pictures and what ever else we need along the way.
This morning we rolled out around 8:00 AM. Once we got ourselves out of Jackson, MI, we were good to go. Getting out of Jackson, however, was a bit of a chore. Our best, most convenient way out would have been via a divided highway. Since we aren't technically supposed to ride on divided highways (and it really isn't a great idea as far as safety goes), we made our way through some mysterious backwoods roads that occasionally gave us no choice but to get chased by dogs that thought they were much larger and more intimidating than they actually were and ride on gravel, which isn't very cool, but we took it slow and made it back around to our route.
The terrain today was nice. Most of the time (excluding the gravel) we were on some nice roads with fairly wide shoulders and hills with very forgiving grades (probably nothing more than a 1%). There was a head wind out of the East most of the day, but we plugged through it when we needed to.
I won't divulge the details, but ask Mark about a very specific riding technique he should be pretty keen on by the time our little adventure is through. If his memory needs any jogging, it has to do with a vital step involved in the whole stopping process when you have clip in pedals. Sorry Mark, but how could I possibly resist. Maybe I'll go back and edit this out of today's post for a small bribe, but don't count on it. Like I said earlier today, pride isn't a terrible thing to lose. I think this still stands, despite how terrible it may be for me to blog about it. Just remember that I've fallen over 1x so far on this trip too.
We arrived at our hotel around 4:30 PM, checked in and did some chilaxin' until dinner. Tonight for dinner we partook in a place I like to frequent quite regularly, Chipotle. It was gooooood, though we felt like we needed more calories, so most of the group went to Bob Evans for a bit more to eat.
Here are some of the stats for today:
Ride Time: 6:34:05
Distance Today: 106.85 Miles
Total Trip Distance So Far: 226.60
Average Speed: 16.2 MPH
Max Speed: 31.2 MPH
Road Kill Tally: Submit your guesses to Cliff. He'll reveal the final count after the trip.
Here are some pix from today:
Look, now I have a unique patch (of sorts) on BOTH arms.
Bob & Caleb getting ready to get back to it.
Look, they are actually riding.
We promise, we're riding our bikes on this trip, it just happens to be easier to take our pictures when we're not bulting past at the speed of light.
Goodbye Michigan...
...hello Ohio.
John decided it might be good to put sunscreen on.
Lunch time with Bob & Caleb's family.
Mark is now happy.
Mmmmmmmm.
Still riding.
You guessed it, more riding.
To start off, on behalf of all of us riders, I want to thank Dave Dreyer for doing an amazing job of taking care of us along the way. Dave is driving the van and trailer for us. It can't be the most exciting responsibility in the world to drive up ahead of us 15-30 miles and wait for us to ride past, only to do it all over again and again and again until we reach our destination each day. So, thanks Dave, you're doing a great job keeping us stocked up on water, food, stretch breaks, some great pictures and what ever else we need along the way.
This morning we rolled out around 8:00 AM. Once we got ourselves out of Jackson, MI, we were good to go. Getting out of Jackson, however, was a bit of a chore. Our best, most convenient way out would have been via a divided highway. Since we aren't technically supposed to ride on divided highways (and it really isn't a great idea as far as safety goes), we made our way through some mysterious backwoods roads that occasionally gave us no choice but to get chased by dogs that thought they were much larger and more intimidating than they actually were and ride on gravel, which isn't very cool, but we took it slow and made it back around to our route.
The terrain today was nice. Most of the time (excluding the gravel) we were on some nice roads with fairly wide shoulders and hills with very forgiving grades (probably nothing more than a 1%). There was a head wind out of the East most of the day, but we plugged through it when we needed to.
I won't divulge the details, but ask Mark about a very specific riding technique he should be pretty keen on by the time our little adventure is through. If his memory needs any jogging, it has to do with a vital step involved in the whole stopping process when you have clip in pedals. Sorry Mark, but how could I possibly resist. Maybe I'll go back and edit this out of today's post for a small bribe, but don't count on it. Like I said earlier today, pride isn't a terrible thing to lose. I think this still stands, despite how terrible it may be for me to blog about it. Just remember that I've fallen over 1x so far on this trip too.
We arrived at our hotel around 4:30 PM, checked in and did some chilaxin' until dinner. Tonight for dinner we partook in a place I like to frequent quite regularly, Chipotle. It was gooooood, though we felt like we needed more calories, so most of the group went to Bob Evans for a bit more to eat.
Here are some of the stats for today:
Ride Time: 6:34:05
Distance Today: 106.85 Miles
Total Trip Distance So Far: 226.60
Average Speed: 16.2 MPH
Max Speed: 31.2 MPH
Road Kill Tally: Submit your guesses to Cliff. He'll reveal the final count after the trip.
Here are some pix from today:
Look, now I have a unique patch (of sorts) on BOTH arms.
Bob & Caleb getting ready to get back to it.
Look, they are actually riding.
We promise, we're riding our bikes on this trip, it just happens to be easier to take our pictures when we're not bulting past at the speed of light.
Goodbye Michigan...
...hello Ohio.
John decided it might be good to put sunscreen on.
Lunch time with Bob & Caleb's family.
Mark is now happy.
Mmmmmmmm.
Still riding.
You guessed it, more riding.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Day 2 - Here We Go!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Jackson, MI to Bowling Green, OH
~ 102.36 Miles
Our expected course for today:
Jackson, MI to Bowling Green, OH
~ 102.36 Miles
Our expected course for today:
Day 1 - Evening Report
We were off, and now here we are, in Jackson, MI that is (not quite to Baltimore yet).
We set off this morning from the Holland Lakeshore Pregnancy Center around 8:00 AM.
Many thanks to all of you who showed up this morning to send us off and or provide us riders with a great breakfast. It was a good start to a great day.
We also want to send out a special thanks to Congressman Pete Hoekstra for joining us this morning at LPC and for the first leg of our ride. Congressman Hoekstra, we understand you have a busy schedule and truly appreciate the time you spent with us today. Thank you.
A special thanks to Pastor Josh Wierenga from Real Life Fellowship as well for coming out and sending us off with an encouraging word of prayer. I appreciate you man.
When we departed this morning we were expecting to ride approximately 106.75 miles to our hotel in Jackson, MI. Due to the need to improvise our route a few times because of gravel roads or missed turns, we ended up riding around 120 miles (you'll have to excuse my guestimation as I can't quite recall what the odometer on my bike said, I am quite comfortable on my bed right now and can't say I feel like going out to the trailer and checking). One might think "What's an extra 13 - 15 miles when you've already gone more than 100?" True enough, but I think it's safe to say that we would have been glad to get off the saddle 13 - 15 miles sooner. Overall though, we can't come up with anything worth complaining about. Today was a great day. God is good. We had no major set backs. No injuries. We couldn't have asked for better weather. The terrain was fairly tame. And we all closed out the day feeling pretty good considering the fact that we just cycled around 120 miles.
Here are a couple of pictures that Dave got today before the camera batteries gave out. Hopefully we'll have more in days to come with fresh batteries.
The Crew:
We had to stop occasionally to refill on H2O:
Our Fearless Leader:
D-Rock:
Our "Bean Counter" Cliff:
Loading up on carbs with the never ending pasta @ The Olive Garden:
We set off this morning from the Holland Lakeshore Pregnancy Center around 8:00 AM.
Many thanks to all of you who showed up this morning to send us off and or provide us riders with a great breakfast. It was a good start to a great day.
We also want to send out a special thanks to Congressman Pete Hoekstra for joining us this morning at LPC and for the first leg of our ride. Congressman Hoekstra, we understand you have a busy schedule and truly appreciate the time you spent with us today. Thank you.
A special thanks to Pastor Josh Wierenga from Real Life Fellowship as well for coming out and sending us off with an encouraging word of prayer. I appreciate you man.
When we departed this morning we were expecting to ride approximately 106.75 miles to our hotel in Jackson, MI. Due to the need to improvise our route a few times because of gravel roads or missed turns, we ended up riding around 120 miles (you'll have to excuse my guestimation as I can't quite recall what the odometer on my bike said, I am quite comfortable on my bed right now and can't say I feel like going out to the trailer and checking). One might think "What's an extra 13 - 15 miles when you've already gone more than 100?" True enough, but I think it's safe to say that we would have been glad to get off the saddle 13 - 15 miles sooner. Overall though, we can't come up with anything worth complaining about. Today was a great day. God is good. We had no major set backs. No injuries. We couldn't have asked for better weather. The terrain was fairly tame. And we all closed out the day feeling pretty good considering the fact that we just cycled around 120 miles.
Here are a couple of pictures that Dave got today before the camera batteries gave out. Hopefully we'll have more in days to come with fresh batteries.
The Crew:
We had to stop occasionally to refill on H2O:
Our Fearless Leader:
D-Rock:
Our "Bean Counter" Cliff:
Loading up on carbs with the never ending pasta @ The Olive Garden:
Monday, August 31, 2009
Day 1 - Here We Go!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Holland, MI to Jackson, MI
~ 106.75 Miles
Our expected course for today:
Holland, MI to Jackson, MI
~ 106.75 Miles
Our expected course for today:
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