Epic Ride & "Big" Things to Come

For those who know me, I have been a Big Brother through the Big Brother Big Sisters organization for about two years now. My "Little" Ike is 13, and we have become great friends over the past two years, working through the lows, and enjoying the highs. We hang out, have fun, chat, go to bike races, movies, he helps me with chores etc. He has matured more in the past two years than he knows.

The Heart of Illinois Big Brothers Big Sisters mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of children and youth, primarily through a professionally supported one-to-one relationship with a caring adult, and to assist them in achieving their highest potential as they grow to become responsible men and women by providing committed volunteers, national leadership and standards of excellence.

I have been nominated & received "Big Brother" Award of the year for 2009! I am kind of a "fly below the radar guy", but I thought this was pretty cool. I will receive the award the award March 27th at the annual Black Tie Dinner!

Headed down to Springpatch Saturday am, to ride with the Mack Crew. I knew this was going to be a long one, but oh well. Uncle Gary had Raymond, IL in his sights. High for the day was 67 degrees!

To put this in perspective, I have 36 miles on the road for the year. I have been riding the CT indoors, but this comes NOWHERE near what outdoors does to you. I also have not done this identical ride since March of 2004, a true 90 miler, into a 25 mph head wind. We took off with about 25 of us. Several miles down the trail, we hit about a block of pure mud. We all had to stop, take our wheels off, clean all of the mud out etc. Five miles into the ride, and you could not even recognize our bikes, they were that filthy!

18 miles into the ride, we hit a "mud patch" about 20 meters long. EVERYONE of us, with exception of Uncle Gary and maybe one other hit the deck. We ALL went down. You could not have seen this in a movie! It was nasty.

15 or so turned around, leaving 10 of us trekking to Raymond, into the wind. Robo & MarkShea did about 90% of the pulls. Man, they are in GOOD shape! The Turtle played conservative, as I have not ridden this far in almost 5 years!

Turn around in Raymond, 40+ miles to get home, with a tail/cross wind. 27-31 mph for the next 26 miles. I made it with Uncle Gary, Robo, MarkShea & JW for as long as I could, and got popped off the back of the blistering pace with 4.5 miles to Pawnee, the finish sprint. The Turtle was smoked!

Good miles, almost 90 for the day. Got home, washed the bike, came in, hit the jacuzzi, put the pajamas on, ate dinner and went to bed at 845pm, just to wake up and do it the next day with The Badger & Lotte, for another 40 miles.

Needless to say, I was pedaling squares on Sunday, and they knew it, taking mercy on my soul, like a wounded turtle in the pond.