Last week I accompanied my wife to the annual Silpada Designs sales conference. This is our second time to the conference, and again, it was a wonderful experience. Amy attended the conference, learned a lot, hung out with her team, and networked with many other independent Silpada reps.
I continued my training for the upcoming PMC, only a few days away now. I shipped my bike out early via Fedex Ground and it was waiting for me when we arrived on Wednesday.
Thursday I started a ride just north of Kansas City in a small town aptly named Paradise. 80 degrees, sunny, a cool breeze, virtually empty roads, and curteous drivers. Yep, Paradise!
I rode a loop through Trimble, up north and east to Plattsburgh, and then back south to Paradise. About 50 miles. Just a gorgeous day to be out on the bike.
Friday I headed south. Starting in a town about 15 miles south of KC, my intention was to complete a loop down to Peculiar. Peculiar is an interesting town, nothing overly peculiar about it, just another one of many small towns in rural Missouri. Peculiar is on a major north/south roadway, so it gets a fair amount of drivethrough traffic, and I believe it's also a starting point for a popular KCBC ride.
Well, I didn't make it to Peculiar...it was a hot day...a very hot day...at one point my cyclometer read 100 degrees. IIRC, last year I saw 102, so 100 wasn't so bad. :)
At about 20 miles, I stopped at a large industrial supply retailer, a shop that sells architectural stone and other goodies for landscaping. The retailer had a couple of wooden rockers on their large stone front porch, nicely shaded from the sun, and music playing through a set of outdoor speakers. This was an ideal place to stop and just relax for a while.
I then continued south towards Peculiar, but I never found my way there. I ended up getting somewhat lost, which interestingly, is not a real problem in rural Missouri. The roads are essentially laid out in a big grid, with numbered roads generally running east-west and lettered roads running north-south. I wandered for a while, made a few wrong turns and eventually found my way back to a familiar road.
Not far from my starting point, at about 5 pm, I saw another cyclist...the first and only other serious cyclist over the several days. When I commented on this to a bike shop owner the next day, he said "we don't ride in the heat...we get out early and finish by 10 am." I was starting way too late to see any other cyclists.
That Friday evening, as I was having dinner, the KC Critical Mass group went by...a collection of riders on really interesting bikes, everything from old Schwinn banana seat bikes, to fixxies, to tandems, and everything else you can imagine. They were having fun...
Saturday I took my last ride in KC...a beautiful 35 mile loop north of the city. Another hot day, but this year I brought my Camelbak and had plenty of water.
Sunday Amy and her team and I visited the Silpada corporate headquarters, and then headed home. American Airlines was kind to us, upgrading us on both segments from KC through Chicago and then home. I guess I was one of the few Platinums on the route...
Five days to the PMC. I'm ready, the bike is ready, I've raised $3,200 to date, about a third of the way to my goal this year of $10,000. I expect to make it...most of my donations come in just before and after the event.
I remind myself that the PMC is not about the ride. It's not about the bike. It's about raising the money for cancer research, and for me specifically, it's about enrolling people and getting them involved in the event -- as sponsors, as volunteers, as riders. If you are interested in being part of this ever-growing team, drop me a note and we'll find an opportunity for you to contribute.
And of course I'd appreciate your financial support. Fully 100% of all donations go directly to fund cancer research. This year I expect the PMC will raise somewhere between $35M and $40M in total, and your $10, $50, $100, or $500 donation is critical to our success.
http://www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=LL0033
Thanks!
Lee
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