Best Dam Bike Ride (part II)

Well, back from a wonderful weekend with a great group of people. As you may recall last week I wrote about a possible ride that I was doing this week. The catch is that I had to raise at least $250 (in less than a week). I kind of had my doubts but after just a couple of days I had reached my mark and the contributions continued to come in. I first wanted to give a shout out to all those that so generously gave. Thanks!

Now, I knew that I was going to ride and whenever I get to ride that is a GOOD thing. But I seriously had NO idea about this particular ride. This is THE biggest ride here in Utah. More than 3000 participants. It was amazing. There were many teams. Some as big as 150+. It was pretty cool. We decided to leave early Saturday morning instead of staying up there. Then we realized that MOST of the cool people camp at the Fairgrounds. It was a serious bike party. I don't know if other states have similar activities but this a pretty big party.

Saturday we had the option of riding, 40, 75, or 100 miles. Of course we wanted to be out there as long as possible. Few of you know that I was born in Logan so Cache Valley is home. We rode a basically flat course (a few rolling hills) thought the countryside of the Valley. Part of it was in Utah and part in Idaho. A number of tiny town none of which I had ever been (or heard of before). Towns like Cache Junction, Newton, Trenton, Lewiston, Cornish, Weston, Franklin, and Richmond. It was a beautiful day, good support, and of course awesome riding.

Afterwords, a big party complete with salad and lasagna, music, awards, and even the Harmons' guys, Bob and Randy on stage. We learned that the organization was planning on raising over 1.7 million dollars for the MS Society. That is the biggest fund raiser in Utah.

Today, we rode another 50+ miles namely up to Hardware Ranch. Another beautiful day and a great ride. This was my first back to back riding days at these kinds of distances. I have often thought of going on a multi-day cycling trip in Europe would be a dream but I'm not sure how your body takes that kind of a beating.

The only sad part was because of the large numbers there were a number of accidents. No one died but there were a number of "ambulance come and take people to the hospital" tragedies, I plan on riding next year and raising more money than I did this year. No pictures yet because Rich took his camera with him on his trip back East this week.