Day 1 and 2 of the PMC- no need for sunblock

Sorry for the delay in posting, got back too late yesterday from a social engagement....The 35th PMC is in the books! It was as always a fantastic experience but on Saturday we were thrown a curveball, or rather a spitball. To quote PMC founder, this past Saturday put a capital "C" in the Pan Mass Challenge, as we experienced the coldest sustained rain in the history of the ride (more on this part of the day later). The duck on this rider's helmet would be pretty happy most of the day as we headed out at 5:30 am on Saturday. It's an incredible sight as 4000 cyclists roll out of Sturbridge completely taking over Route 20.

It rained lightly on and off for the first 60 miles, and temps struggled to get out of the 60's. The riding was enjoyable enough and as always we were energized by people cheering us on along the way and local police officers waved us through intersections. Here we are in Franklin at about mile 42 (love this sign)!

Some towns really get into the PMC. One of our favorite places is Cherry Street in Wrentham. The street is lined with cheering residents and a marimba band and a children's bagpipe troupe! Very inspiring for us and inspiring and expiring for them as they play.

Talk about inspiring, my friend Michael did the ride with his 19 year old daughter Becca. Here she is smiling at the lunch stop but she was actually very cold at this point as the rain and wind was picking up. We honestly didn't think she would finish as she looked to be at the beginning stages of hypothermia, but she is clealry made of tougher stuff as she finished well. Yours truly experienced numbness in my fingers while having lunch, an ealry sign of hypothermia as it turns out.

So the deluge. The rain started getting heavy at about mile 80 for us, about 12:30pm. Pretty soon it was torrential- there were virtual streams on the road and you couldn't get more wet if you took a bath. We biked hard in order to stay warm and to get 'er done as quickly as possible. It was almost fun biking through the warm pools of water, except you didn't know exactly was underneath them. Here are John and I at the 110 mile finish line in Bourne. Very happy to be done, but drenched to the bone. Within minutes of getting off the bike, we both became uncontrollably cold, and we hustled to the dorm room. John later said I was slurring my speech (more than usual!), another sign of hypothermia. My warm shower never felt so good!! A rider I met on Sunday told me when she arrived at the finish, the volunteers took one look at her and brought her right to the medical tent to get her under blankets. Brrrrrr!!!

So why do we do this ride, and who are we riding for? We are riding for the many people we know, and who are friends know, who have battled cancer. Some of whom have won the battle and others who have lost. There are also riders themselves who are cancer survivors or who are currently battling cancer. They comprise the Living Proof team. My friend on the ride is a proud member of this team as is a rider who I met who lost his right leg to osteosarcoma and cycles the PMC with one leg (he has no prosthesis as his amputation was well above the knee). Truly inspring!! And it puts difficult cycling conditions right into perspective.

Many riders form teams who directly support pedal partners, often young children who are battling cancer. Their photographs can be seen here right before the Pedal Partners rest stop. Shown below is Evan's army posing with their pedal partner Evan.

Day 2 did not have epic weather conditions, but rather was a cloudy cool day of very nice cycling from Bourne to Provincetown. Cycling on the Cape is great fun. Not as flat as you would think, but with varied terrain, frequent water views, and very fun crowds of cheering onlookers. Our favorite are the hundreds of people who line "Da Hedge", a raucous group of fun loving crazies who scream at the top of their lungs at passing cyclists.

This year I convinced two co-workers to do the ride- Michael and Jim. Both of whom had never done a long distance road bike ride like this one before. Here we are posing with our Team Ironwood jerseys (Ironwood is our company). Posing with us is michael's daughter Becca. Hopefully they will do the ride again next year, despite their tough inaugural conditions.

Jim, my friend John and I rode pretty hard to finish out the last half of the 82 mile ride. Shown here are my friends John, Paul and linda and I at the finish. And yours tuly enjoying life at its fullest- a Harpoon IPA and a lobster roll.

Oh yeah, and Linda, Paul and I (and our friend Adam) road 290 miles from West Stockbridge to Provincetown. Another great PMC. We are looking forward to seeing how much the PMC raises this year and hoping we break $41million. All for an amazing cause! Many thanks to those who contributed to my PMC (and/or Anchor House) ride. If you'd like to contribute here's the link http://www2.pmc.org/profile/kc0258

Thanks for following along!

 

 

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Day Zero of the PMC- 100 miles down!

100 cycling miles today on the unofficial PMC day zero ride under the best cycling conditions we'll have all weekend. Tomorrow sounds like a slogfest, er sogfest. We started out in the cool morning air from our motel and biked 5 miles to the NY State border where we posed for the traditional starting photo. The riding crew for today from left to right is yours truly (3 year PMC rider), my three year PMC cycling partner Linda (7 year PMC rider) her awesome nephew Max, our PMC cycling buddy Paul (6 year PMC rider), and my friend Adam (5 year rider). I'd estimate that about 200 cyclists ride from the NY state border, out of the 6000 cyclists who ride the PMC. It seems to be a growing trend.

We rolled through the lovely western mass countryside, through towns like Lee, Lenox and Hunterdon. The weather got even better, sunny, temps in the 70's and low humidiity. And, I hate to admit it, we had a tailwind all day!

This year's Day Zero ride was made special because we had SAG support. Paul's Father-in-law, Lyle, a cyclist himself, volunteered to drive us to West Stockbridge and to stick with us all day, carrying our luggage and food and water for breaks doing the day. Hurray for Lyle!!

We felt great today, lucky to be cycling and fortunate to be doing it for such an important cause. The PMC is the biggest atheltic fundraising event in the US, raising more than $40million each year for the Jimmy Fund.

We stopped for lunch at mile 60 in Amherst at one of my favorite places, Atkins Farm. By the time we got out, dark clouds were in the sky and it started to thunder. That motivated us to get moving and we pedaled hard to keep ahead of the rain. We were largely successful and pedaled hard to get to Sturbridge by 4 pm.

Funny photo sent from a friend today in reaction to the packing list I sent him as a first year rider. The caption was "Ken hauling all the stuff he needs for the PMC"

Speaking of the long haul, our extra day zero ride was totally dwarfed by a cyclist we picked up along the way- Veronica from California (formerly of Medfield MA). Who left from her driveway in Palo Alto and over 46 days biked to Stubridge to ride in her third PMC. Now she has bragging rights!!

We gorged ourselves on food and enjoyed free Harpoon beer. Comfy in our hotel room, we're getting ready for our 5:30 AM start with five thousand other cyclists. Excited about Day 1!! Other photos of the day:

 

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Day 7- Lansdale PA to Lawrenceville NJ: $517,000!!

The last day of the Anchor House ride is always special. It's a short ride 55 miles to the Picnic at the Dutkos' house in Hopewell through familiar roads in Montgomery, Bucks, Hunterdon and Mercer County. We road out with the young generation leading the way. It was amazing to see the confidence they have gained during the week. They are now seasoned veterans! A highlight for me was coffee at SAG 1- I hadn't had my morning coffee and there was SAG volunteer Bodo with Boxes of Joe from Dunkin Donuts. Made my and my riding buddy Eric's morning!!

Flash forward to the picnic, where our annual host family the Dutkos put out a fabulous spread of food and ice cream (!) and as always we get to enjoy their pool. Of course we swam in our biking shorts!

 

One of my favorite people on the ride is the guy I started riding the Anchor House with seven years ago, my good friend and long time Anchor House room mate, Jack Hayon. Jack's smiling face is a constant positive presence during the ride.

What made this ride so special all week was of course having our sons on the ride for their first year. Jack and I were beaming and fist bumping all week as we watched our sons cycle their first 500 mile ride and experience all the things that we love about the Anchor House ride. Our favorite Anchor House of all with no question!

 

From the picnic to our finish at the Quakerbridge Mall, we ride two abreast with a police escort for ten miles, with people cheering us on along the parade route. At the mall we were greeted by our family and friends. Shown below are two children I have known since they were babies, Stephanie (on the left) and Joseph (in the middle), the children of good friend Ken Naglak who celebrated his tenth year on the ride.

 

 

As per Anchor House tradition, the cyclists ride into the mall and are greeted by the cheering crowd as their names are announced. At the mall, we learned that we raised $517,000 (so far) for the kids of Anchor House. This is the single biggest source of funds for the organization and enables the House to do so much for children who are in need of a helping hand at a critical time in their lives.

 

 

 

Of course, this Anchor House meant so much for me because Adam was on the ride. A dream come true to spend this week with my son, and to share with him my love of cycling and the spirit of using your abilities to raise money to help others. I love you Adam and I am so proud of you- you are an awesome cyclist and of course a terrific son! Thanks everyone for following along. Stay tuned in two weeks for blogs from my third Pan Mass Challenge ride.

 

 

 

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Day 6- Lancaster to Lansdale PA: Amish Delight

Another lovely day in the Anchor House bubble. Temps in the high 70's, and a relatively moderate 70 miles and 3500 feet of elevation. It was truly a beautiful riding route today.

The highlight of day 6 coming from the South is riding through Amish country. Always a treat, and it was fun watching it through the eyes of Adam, and Ben and Sol Hayon for their first time.  I discretely caught the following photos of two horse and buggies. We encountered quite a few, as well as some of the most well kempt farms you will ever see.

A highlight was stopping to talk to three adorable Amish boys sitting along a fence. Joan went right up to talk to them and before long four of us were chatting with them and taking their photos (which was okay with them and apparently their Mom who was watching from a distance). The youngest one on the right was Amos and he was cute as can be.

Here's a Ben's eye view of Amish country, to give you a sense of the view from the saddle.

Today we road with our good friends Joan, Michael and Lindsey (shown below), and Eric, Annie, and of course our constant companions the Hayons. So much of the Anchor House ride is about your riding companions. Also shown is a photo of me and a long time friend, Paul Shapiro, who is riding in his fourth Anchor House. 

We came upon this gorgeous covered bridge later in the day. It had some of the finest truss work I have seen in a covered bridge. Inside it was a true work of art. 

Oh, I promised a photo of my boom bottle. This little gizmo fits into a water bottle cage and connects up to your iphone through through either a hard wire or blue tooth. The sound is terrific and the music becomes very motivating, particularly when your son puts together a 60 hour playlist of energetic songs. Everyone loved it, especially going up hill when randomly songs like "Move on Up", "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Higher Ground" are playing. Well played Adam!

We had our award banquet tonight. So far we have raised $497,000!!  Various achievements are annually celebrated. We celebrated a number of them: Adam stood up for "riders under 20" and "first year riders", and I stood up for "people who have ridden for between 6 and 10 years" and Adam and I both stood up for "parents and children riding together" and "people from out of state". Jack, Ben and Sol had similar celebrations. We all stood up for people who curse out loud at monster climbs. Of course, there are friends who celebrate ride milestones. Below Russ Buckley and Erin Drulis show off their plaques for 20 and 5 years respectively. Also good friends Newell Benedict and Ken Naglak celebrated ten years, and Debbie Pisacretta and Ken Natalie celebrated 20 years of doing the ride. Two other people celebrated 25 years!!

And of course why do we do the ride? The answer is always "For the Kids!" of Anchor House. Shown below is a note written for the riders by a current Anchor House resident. Reading it makes you want to cry and to do more for the disadvantaged children who are out in the world. All they need is a chance.