I’ve made a personal commitment over the next five years to don my helmet and cycle to raise funds for cancer cures. To date, I’ve raised $3,478 and my family as a whole as raised $10, 478! We need to keep working together to conquer cancer for those struggling right now and for those yet to be diagnosed. To accomplish this I’ll be cycling The Ride to Conquer Cancer.

The Ride to Conquer Cancer benefiting Princess Margaret Hospital is a cycling journey from Toronto to Niagara Falls – a distance of over 200 km – that I’m embarking on to fight cancer. It will be a challenge in a number of ways, but with my bike, my helmet, and your generosity, a real impact will be made!

I’m asking my supporters to please make a donation of $218; one dollar for every kilometer I am committed to riding and eighteen for life! Of course any contribution is welcome as you support and generate the all-important funds for research, which will be allocated based on the highest cancer research priorities at The Princess Margaret and OCI. Click here to DONATE

I’m a firm believer that cancer does not stop at the U.S./Canada border. Because of that I’ve created Team US Cares to participate in The Ride to Conquer Cancer. The event is not just for athletes or cycling enthusiasts. It’s the ride for anyone who wants to challenge themselves for a great cause. All you need is motivation, a bike, and a helmet. The rest is history. To be a part of it and join Team US Cares, click here. (Team Password: kickbutt)

Now you have to admit, that unless you work for BNI (which I do), there probably isn’t a whole lotta reason to go to Upland, other than maybe the adult store located there, but we won’t go there now.

Add the Tour de Foothill to your reasons to head on over to lovely downtown Upland. This metric century is a wonderful community effort and a great little training ride. The sponsors and organizers did a fabulous job of keeping you pumped through-out the entire event. And I’m a sucker for high tech airplane-like porta-potty facilities with sinks in them.

The route boosts a decent climb (which I can’t remember at the moment), but I had not expected the ongoing false flats of 2 to 6% uphill grade. Remembering the first time Rachael and I did that on San Vincente and almost passed out the first two blocks, I smiled as we did most of our miles that way. I’m not sure how they managed it but the route back was also up grade for the most part.

I like this so much, that I plan to take my bike out to BNI (I’ll drive the 2 hours there – I’m not insane) and do the route again. I figure I can fake a work related trip by picking up some of Dr. Ivan Misner’s books for our members and then enjoy the rest of the day out there.

Also, since I do know the area and I do love a project, I’ll be organizing a pre-event dinner for next year. No reason to plan after the ride stuff, the event organizers did an amazing job on that.

Oh, and did I mention? This was my first finish line!

So, nu? How was the Solvang Prelude?
Rae and I decided we would take it easy after all. Being off the bike for so long didn’t seem like a snap any more and after all, our team was only doing a training ride of 20 miles, so we opted for the 50 miles route.

The ride out of the start was a nice easy flat warm up of about 5 miles or so, a little chilly in the early hours, with most of us piling on the layers. So we’re tooling along, thinking this is lovely, then the hills hit. Actually, the hills weren’t so bad if you took it evenly and paid attention to your gears, I did OK – which surprised the heck out of me. But I had forgotten about my total fear of going downhill. I got off the bike and walked the winding steep down hill, which also surprised the heck out of me.

We got to the first SAG and Rae wanted to call it a day. I felt that she was doing this for my benefit and to tell the truth, I really wanted to continue on. Since she said she was uninspired and not feeling “it” we took a little longer at the SAG stop than our muscles would have liked while we talked about it. The worst was over and we only had 14 miles to the next SAG I nudged, and so we went on.

About this time, the sun showed up in full force, folks were yelling for their buddies to slow up while they peeled. We were pushing water and energy drink to stay hydrated and the temperature rose while the shadows hide from us. I was extremely thankful that I had my arm warmers instead of a jacket. Those babies just slide right down to your gloves without missing a beat – takes more effort to drink and replace your water bottle.

We planed for 50, thought we’d stop at 20 and called it a ride at 40 – not too shabby for my first real event. I was pleased.

What made it a great event? Honestly, it was the group thing. While we all had different levels of skill and speed, some of us had the same love of good people and time together. Andy had stepped into the role of the big organizer (hey, isn’t that usually MY role?) and scheduled a whole weekend from Guadalupe to Santa Ynez of dinners out, wine tasting and for those fast guys wine stops on the ride. We loved it.

Its Friday here in Cancun, just one week away from my first metric, the Solvang Prelude. I’ve been training since the spring but have had to cancel every single event at the last minute. I am bringing Jack back to the US monday night, with high hopes of having him settled in by Tuesday so that I am physically and mentally ready for this.

I’ve only been on my bike twice since August. Once, a 44 mile leisure ride with Ramon and last Saturday for the 15 miles of flat laps. I’m starting to think this is a HUGE mistake. I just don’t see how I can hack it. I keep thinking that I should get miles in right up to the event but I know that is stupid because I’ll only end up wearing myself out.

I’m trying very hard to change my mindset and tell myself this is simply a warm up for the following week, the Tour de Foothills, another metric event for me. I tell myself that the Prelude will show me al the things I’ve missed about an organized ride and that I have to learn to make future events better. I tell myself that this will be Rachael’s first time back on the bike (although she may try this weekend while I am away) and that we should just plan to enjoy it until we SAG out, that there is no shame in that.

I tell myself all that, and yet I want it so bad. I want that bike under me and that feeling of accomplishment. I want my team mates to see that I am back, hitting the ground running. I want it all.

I am so glad I went to the Challenge to Conquer Cancer office. I wasn’t able to make the orientation meeting the week before, so I called them up and asked about flying in the following week for a quick meet and great, with a little info. I could use a little get away time and had a few people I wanted to see there anyways.

My hotel was just a few blocks from the office and enjoyed a lovely walk in the rain that did get me cold to the bone in only the way Canadian weather can. Actually, everything was just a few blocks from my hotel and I loved it. I was amazed to see bikes everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a city with so many condos right in the downtown area and a true bike culture like that. Washington had bikes everywhere but I suspect that was more out of defense against the traffic rather than just the way they wish to be.

My contact at the office, Erica, was out sick and the woman who took the time to meet with me in spite of being one person down, was slightly wounded due to a recent toe injury. She was great, big smile and all, got me informed and registered lickity split. I generally ride without registering one honoured teammate, the list is so long that I haven’t wanted to name one individual but instead have ribbons for my jersey with all the names of those who have had cancer. However, this one, on the heels of Phyllis’ death seemed to be the time to single out one person whose spirit embodies what this is all about – on June 20th – 22nd, 2008 I will ride in honour of Phyllis Kaufman.

Seeing the office was impressive, how they could accomplish so much with so little. I don’t mean it was thread bare with a cardboard table and a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, but they were obviously careful about where the money went and had good, well thought out workspaces. They produce two events a year, the ride and the Weekend to Cure Breast Cancer, with the Challenge Ride being new.

We spoke about the work they do and what the needs are of the volunteers as well as the teams. I’m very impressed that this goes hand in hand with my heart – that while you can focus on one type or another of cancer, there is a greater need to eradicate this killer and support those that have it; with the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto they can accomplish this on so many levels.

Armed with literature, door hangers and a tee shirt, I left a new team captain of Team US Cares and a real sense of what that means.

(*note, if you would like to join me one this ride and show that cancer does not stop at the US/Canada border, please click here to register and join Team US Cares — team password is kickbutt)