Saturday, June 6, 2009 - Tour De Cure

There are a few planning to do the Tour de Cure this year out of Grafton, Ill. Information can be found at the following link.


http://tour.diabetes.org/site/TR/TourdeCure/TDC355418030?pg=entry&fr_id=5609
"...early bird registration fee of $15 will be in effect until April 30th. After that your registration fee will be $25. All cyclists must raise the minimum of $150 to participate, in addition to the registration fee."


I believe those that have shown an interest to date are self-funding this ride in order to deconflict with MS-150 fund raising efforts.

If you are interested in doing this ride, drop me an email and I will create a separate distribution for those specifically interested in doing this ride.

mogman@earthlink.net

Sunday, May 3, 2009 - Bike MS Kick-Off & Spring Ride

Mailers have been sent out from MS Society for the Bike MS Kick-Off & Spring Ride. Ride starts and ends at Ghisallo Sports in Chesterfield. This is always a good ride with usually a pretty good rider turnout. If you want a good hill challenge, you can take the 35 mile option. Good ride to get out if you haven't gotten out yet this year.

http://bikemos.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?fr_id=11960&pg=entry

Registration is $5 in advance, $10 at the event.


mogman@earthlink.net

General Ride Info/Inquiry

Okay, who is getting out there these days and riding?

The weather is getting better, well, except for the 15-20 mph wind gusts experienced on the Monday night Mueller ride tonight (4/20). At least we avoided the rain clouds. The group at Mueller tonight was smaller than expected but the weather was extremely windy with very strong gusts and some rain clouds were looming overhead. Not likely a good mix for higher turnout. The lead pack of 6 to 8 or so riders (Momentum cycles was the majority of the lead pack) pretty much thinned the herd by mile 5. I know this as I was about the last one hanging on at that point. The lead pack pressed ahead wind gusts and all. It was 14-15 mph into the wind and 27 -30+ with the wind. No kidding!

Again, the weather is getting better, well, except for the bit of rain on the Eco Expo ride to Forest Park last Saturday (4/18). That was a soaker on the way down to Forest Park but the sun came out and provided some much needed warmth on the way back. There were actually over a dozen riders that took to the wet streets. Kind of funny watching the drivers take a second look at the intersections as we rode pass the crossing streets. Lone Wolf Coffee Company put out a good breakfast which turned out to be a fairly crucial source of warmth at the onset.

Okay, enough about the weather!

So, back to the original question of who is getting out and riding? Haven't had many riders showing up on Saturdays and suspect this is attributed to many things, not the least of which is the changing weather (oops..enough about the weather already!). Is anyone else doing rides on the weekends yet besides what I have been organizing out in West County? If so, what are your preferred routes? Would you like to offer up these as alternate routes so that we get more participation or at least move the route starts around to be a bit more accommodating?

Another possible option would be to run a Clayton Road or Conway Road corridor to allow riders to join in and drop back off when convenient. We could run that down to Forest Park and/or to the Arch and back if desired.

Also, we have the spectrum of life stages across the group so curious as to desired start times. We can accommodate early AM and late AM riders too. We can ride an early route (6:30 AM or so) as well as looping back to catch a later start time (8:00 AM or so). Just some thoughts to ponder here.

So any thoughts? If no ideas or suggestions at this time, I will just keep running the routes as I have been and/or start trying a Clayton or Conway corridor ride. We can adapt to later suggestions that may come in as rider counts go up (likely proportional to the temperature increase).

Safe riding and stay alert out there!

Mogman

mogman@earthlink.net

Saturday, April 18 Ride

There is an organized ride Saturday, April 18th starting at Lone Wolf Coffee Company. See following links for more information. It is free and breakfast is included!

http://www.lonewolfcoffeecompany.com/calendar-eco-ride.html
http://www.lonewolfcoffeecompany.com/pdf-files/eco-expo-ride.pdf

Route Start Time:
Register Starting at 8:00 AM/Depart 9:00 AM

Route Start/Finish Location:
http://www.lonewolfcoffeecompany.com/location.html

Note, I am planning to loop back shortly after reaching the Eco Expo as opposed to waiting for the official return time.

If nothing else, the later start time should have better temperatures than we have been experiencing the last couple of Saturdays (low 30s..burrrr!).

mogman@earthlink.net

Saturday, April 11, 2009 Ride

Route Start Time:
Depart 7:30 AM

Route Start/Finish Location:
http://www.lonewolfcoffeecompany.com/location.html

Route:
Chesterfield Loop 2009-04 (36.08 mi.)http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/mo/ballwin/198123932627513411
This route has some hills so if new season riders, we will adjust route and route distance to accomodate.

This route actually completes the loop at 33 miles but a secondary smaller loop is added to add a few more miles.

Drop an email if you might be joining the ride.

Weather:
Expected to be around 35 degrees at ride start time.


mogman@earthlink.net