Orny's Cycling Journal

Back on September 10th, I completed the 100-mile Livestrong Challenge Austin ride and raised $875 for the Livestrong Foundation.

Rather than give you the usual chronological ride report, I’m gonna organize this mostly by themes, in hopes that it will be both more effective and readable. Are you with me here? Let’s start with the elephant in the peloton…

The Decision

My decision to participate will surprise those of you who know my feelings about Lance Armstrong, the Livestrong Foundation’s disgraced founder. I don’t ever want to contribute in any way to the fame or fortune he has amassed from lying to the public and terrorizing the people around him.

So what convinced me to do the Livestrong ride? Here are the factors that went into my choice:

• Lance has left the organization and is no longer involved in any official way. After suffering due to their association, Livestrong have wisely distanced themselves from him, although he remains their largest financial backer.
• There are surprisingly few century rides here in Austin, and it’s been a long eleven months since my last one (back in Pittsburgh).
• I hate cancer even more than I hate Lance, and Livestrong does admirable work for cancer survivors.
• I have two friends who are Livestrong bigwigs, and their vocal support of the foundation earns it a degree of approval. My childhood friend Scott is on their Board of Directors and is a survivor of testicular cancer; and Steven, the leader of the Pan-Mass Challenge’s popular Team Kermit, is a Livestrong Ambassador (i.e. a distinguished volunteer).
• Along with Steven, several other PMC friends from Boston come down to Austin for the Livestrong ride.

So while I hate the idea of being associated with Lance Armstrong, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to take part in this ride. But I took perverse pride in wearing my 2011 PMC jersey during the event.

Poor Training and Lead-Up

Ornoth with Scott & MJ

Scott, Ornoth, & Steven before the start

Ornoth lined up in the VIP starting area

MJ & Scott, Steven & Ornoth ready for the start

Ornoth rolling out with Team Kermit

Rolling through the ranchland in Driftwood

Scenic level crossing on the Blanco River

ClimbPro showing Fulton Ranch hill

Team Kermit's Ornoth, Christophe, and Steve after conquering Fulton Ranch hill

Real-Time Stamina, estimating 21% or 17km remaining before bonking

Ornoth dragging himself toward the finish

Ornoth crossing the finish line

And having finished, collapsing

Not looking good post vomiting after the finish

Solar power gain, showing 71 minutes gained over a 9-hour ride

May, June, and July were filled with short rides focused on becoming Local Legend on the Ladera Norte hill. So I didn’t begin training for distance until August. And August’s training was cut short after badly throwing my back out. Right when my training should have been peaking, I was off the bike for ten days, while the small training effect I’d gained atrophied away.

Four days before the event, I was just getting back onto the bike when Team Kermit members started assembling in Austin. They were looking to meet up and ride every day, right when I would normally be tapering my training in order to be well-rested for the event.

Instead, on Thursday before the (Sunday) event, local Austin Kermit member Scott led a group of five of us up the Walnut Creek Trail, then back to 51th Street for lunch at Jewboy Burgers. Then on Friday I led a sightseeing ride up the Shoal Creek bikeway and back down Scenic Drive. We finished at event packet pickup, where I received a Livestrong Challenge cycling jersey and VIP rider bib tag #28.

I took Saturday off while the Kermiteers spent the day doing another long ride down to the Veloway park. I’d ridden 150 km in two days and was suffering for it. My back was still iffy, my ass was abraded, and my legs were too tired to tackle a hundred-mile ride without rest. At the same time, I hadn’t eaten or slept well, was already dehydrated, and down 1.8 kilos of body weight in a week. For the first time, my final ride prep included zip-tying a stuffed Kermit doll to my helmet, complete with white cowboy hat and rodeo bull-riding pose.

Quick Ride Summary

My Strava activity’s description summed my Livestrong Challenge up best: it was very good until it wasn’t.

After about five hours of sleep, I got up at 4:30am and set out in darkness at 5:45 on the 15 km ride downtown. I rode with Team Kermit from their hotel to the start, where we lined up in the VIP section before being set loose on the streets of Austin at 7:30am.

At the tail end of a brutally hot summer, the ride began under pleasant temperatures that warmed considerably, but not to the extremes that we’ve lived under for the past three months. South from Austin to Buda, then west and south through Driftwood.

Enjoying the freedom of having two water bottles rather than one, I skipped the first three rest stops out of a desire to stay ahead of the pack and beat the time limits for the 100-mile route, which the organizers had shortened by 30 minutes. So my first break came two hours in, after 57 km, (or 72 km if you include my 15 km commute to the start). As you might guess by such a long stretch without a break, I had been feeling good thus far.

I refilled my bottles and marshaled some strength for the long, steep hill at the end of the next segment. I enjoyed the pleasant tree-lined streets near Wimberley, and a stunning level crossing of the Blanco River. Then came the 15% grade climb up Fulton Ranch hill, which is essentially the halfway point of the course. It was quite manageable for a cyclist used to the much lumpier terrain back in Pittsburgh. At the top, a water stop beckoned; I pulled in at 10:30am, having taken three hours to knock out 77 km (or 92 km).

While resting here, Team Kermit members Christophe and Steve rolled in, and we would leapfrog each other for the rest of the 110 km trek back to Austin. But this would be the point when things slowly started going to hell. The temps climbed through the 30s, and I was feeling the effort in my feet, legs, lower back, traps, and hands.

As my reserves dwindled, my speed and power dropped, and my horizon shrank to simply reaching the next rest stop. I hadn’t eaten any solid food during the whole ride, and was pounding fluid in an attempt to address both heat and thirst. Extended 15-minute rest stops and hand towels soaked in ice water were just enough to keep me from blowing up.

I stopped twice to battle fatigue and nausea during the last segment to the finish, but completed the final loop around Auditorium Shores. The event photographers captured my grim visage as I crossed the finish line at 3:07pm. I’d completed the official 158 km official course in 7h 37m, but had fulfilled my 108th imperial century by riding 15 extra km to the start.

I collapsed in exhaustion underneath the Team Kermit tent and waved off others’ attempts at congratulations, accepting only a folding chair and an ice-water towel. And then came that feeling we’re all familiar with: a particular certainty that it’s time to find a convenient but discreet place to deposit some biological material. So I staggered nonchalantly over to a nearby trash can and retched about three gallons of undigested fluid that I’d carried with me over the preceding few dozen kilometers.

So my Livestrong Challenge ended successfully but ignobly. I managed to recuperate enough to stand for a team picture before I said goodbye, then met up with my partner Inna, who mercifully drove me those extra 15 km back home.

My First Century in Eleven Months

This was my first 100-mile ride since October 2022. Eleven months is a long layoff; I haven’t gone that long between centuries in fifteen years (since 2007-2008)! You ask me how it went? Go back and read the summary: it was very good until it wasn’t.

Mistakes were made. Looking back on it, nearly all of them were about my personal physical fitness and decisionmaking, not my equipment or the location or the event. So I guess that would be the logical place to start…

My Fitness and Decisionmaking

A century always demands a lot of stamina and will power from me, but this was an exceptional case. Despite being one of the first dozen riders out of the gate, then skipping three rest stops, I only marginally beat the last finishers on the course.

I could blame the Texas heat, but even at 37°C (98°C) it was mercifully moderate in comparison to the seventy days above 38°C (100°F) that Austin experienced over the summer.

Or I could blame my age. After all, I’m only weeks away from my sixtieth birthday, and that’s the kind of thing that can slow a guy down.

While those are valid considerations, there was a whole panoply of other factors that impaired my performance, leaving me with weak legs and zero stamina toward the end of the ride.

Despite not doing any long rides in nearly a year, I barely did any lengthy training rides prior to the event. I went into it fatigued and dehydrated from too little sleep and too much riding just before the event. I was insufficiently fueled due to an irregular eating schedule and not eating any solid food during the ride. And I still had lingering injuries to my lower back and my backside (the latter attributable to insufficient time in the saddle).

But the biggest wildcard was hydration. Consuming two bottles over the first five segments of my ride – especially since the first segment was a casual commute – doesn’t seem like an especially egregious error. But it set me up poorly for the second half of the ride, where my perceptions of thirst and heat were clearly malfunctioning, causing me to take in more fluid than I could digest. This is the biggest thing I’ll have to monitor on future long rides.

There were lots of physical niggles along the road, of course. Early on, I had to make a quick roadside stop to flush some stinging sunblock out of my eyes. In my cycling sandals, some pain developed in my big toes, but I got away without a repeat of the abrasions I’d gotten on top of my feet a couple weeks earlier.

And I’d expected pain in my hands due to a slight change in my position on the new bike. I did have some discomfort, but not the severe palsy that I’d feared. It would be prudent to address this soon by buying new cycling gloves and plush handlebar tape.

The New Bike

Like its owner’s ride, my new Specialized Æthos was very good until it wasn’t.

It looked like Pæthos came through its first century in flying colors, to the extent that I had very little to say about it, other than that it suited me well and earned my full confidence.

Two weeks before the event, I’d gotten a flat on a pair of brand new tires. That got me so worried about the rough chipseal of Texas back roads that I’d carried two spare inner tubes, in addition to a pump, a CO2 dispenser, and a Shrader-to-Presta adapter in case I needed an automotive air compressor. That was all overkill; Pæthos appeared to handle everything that was thrown at it.

Just before the ride, I’d also converted from one water bottle cage to two, which was a big win. That gives me the flexibility to ride farther unsupported or without stopping (e.g. skipping three water stops). But it also gave me the option of carrying both sport drink for hydration and clear water to pour over my head and body when the heat was at its worst. And I did lots of that on the Livestrong ride!

But those Texas roads did get me in the end. After I got home, I noticed a break in the carbon rim of my rear wheel, which most likely happened due to a rock strike somewhere along the Livestrong route. I took it in to Specialized to see if it was rideable or a case for a warranty replacement, and they chose to replace the rim. Pretty ridiculous that my first set of carbon wheels lasted a mere 4,000 km.

The New GPS Bike Computer

This was also the first century-length test for the Garmin Edge 840 Solar that I picked up last month, which delighted me in nearly every way. On top of flawlessly handling mapping and turn-by-turn navigation, it now sports graphical data fields (e.g. power and heart rate charts), and the new ClimbPro feature, which tracks your location on an elevation profile of the current climb.

While cool, I had already tested that stuff; I was more eager to try out some other features that could only be done on a century-length ride. After all, I couldn’t finish my full review until I’ve put it through all my typical use cases.

Top of the list was battery life. The battery on my old Edge 820 had deteriorated to the point where I had to plug it into a portable USB battery for any rides longer than 90 minutes. The new unit claimed 26 to 32 hours, and I finished my 10-hour day with a whopping 72% charge remaining. I think I can finally leave my USB charger at home for good!

Of course, that includes the benefit I derived from the unit’s solar charging feature, which in Texas is a painless way to give the battery slight boost. Over 9h 15m the unit gained about 72 minutes worth of solar power, or about 8 minutes per hour. Not revolutionary, but not trivial either!

The other major feature I wanted to test was Garmin’s new “real-time stamina” estimate, which supposedly learns your physiology and provides a real-time guess about how long you can go until exhaustion. At my first rest stop, it estimated that I had 55% stamina remaining, and – ominously – that my reserves would run out 40 km before the end. I monitored that number all afternoon as it fluctuated, but it consistently told me that I’d have nothing left in the tank for the last 25-35 km of the ride, which is exactly how things played out. It was surprisingly accurate, given the variables that it didn’t know about, like fueling and hydration.

One feature came as a complete surprise to me. When Kermit team leader Steven texted us to ask where we were on the course, I deliriously scrolled down through the usual canned, stock responses for something appropriate as I continued pedaling. At the bottom of the list was something my old unit had lacked: the ability to actually type a freehand text response right there on the head unit! So I was able to pound out a response that truly captured my feelings in the moment. In response to his “How far out are you??”, I answered “Lifetimes”.

The only glitch I had was a minor one. I’ve always had an alert set to pop up when I reached the 100 mile threshold, but it never showed up on the new computer. I’ll have to re-test that, the next time I get the opportunity to pound out a hundred-mile ride.

My Friend Scott

As I mentioned above, my childhood friend Scott is on the Livestrong Board of Directors and is a survivor of testicular cancer.

Our friendship goes back fifty years to 1972: 3rd grade back in Maine, Cub Scouts, then French and several other classes through middle and high school. After going separate ways for college, 25 years later we rediscovered each other and our common commitment to cycling to combat cancer. In 2008 he rode the Pan-Mass Challenge, so it seemed appropriate for me to take part in his preferred event, especially since I’m now based in Austin.

I ran into him and his partner MJ outside the hotel as we were both heading to the start, and got to chat with them a little more just before we lined up for the depart. It was the first time I’d seen him in ten years, and it was wonderful to touch base, although it was much briefer than it deserved… Hopefully another time.

Steven and Team Kermit

My friend Steven is both a Livestrong Ambassador and the captain of the Pan-Mass Challenge’s very popular Team Kermit, founded in honor of – and continuing in memory of – his son Jared. I have several connections in the group and have ridden alongside numerous Team Kermit riders in the PMC all the way back to their founding in 2005. Most recently, I’ve nurtured friendships with several Kermiteers by riding with them virtually on the weekly PMC Zwift indoor trainer rides.

While I’ve never ridden the PMC as part of a team, I thought it would be fun to bolster Team Kermit’s numbers on the Livestrong ride, so I registered as an official team member. The days preceding the ride were spent tagging along – and even leading – some fun local sightseeing rides for our traveling visitors. Taking charge was local Austinite and Team Kermit member Scott.

Riders Christophe and Steve I only knew from the Zwift group rides, so it was nice to put names with their faces. They rode with me for the second half of the century route, and their companionship was absolutely invaluable.

I’m very much a lone wolf, so there were several times when I felt awkward as a member of a team, especially a team who decorates our helmets with large, stuffed Kermit toy dolls, which gets a ton of attention and comments! But they’re truly good people, and I was happy to be allowed to represent them.

Riding in Texas

This was my first century-length ride in the Lone Star State, which I view as a milestone, since it’s such a vastly different environment from my familiar riding in the Northeast.

My top concern was the Texas heat, especially after months of temperatures hovering at or above 40°C. Riding in that kind of heat is seriously dangerous, and I wanted to be sure my first long ride offered the kind of generous support you get on large charity rides. Wisely, most centuries down here take place in the spring and fall, and we were lucky that event day hovered just below 40°C. But temperature concerns will always be present for every ride I do down here.

My second concern was the roads, not knowing quite what to expect in terms of traffic, surface quality, and space to ride. In the end, those things all vary. There were trafficky bits and quiet bits; there was smooth tarmac and ample rough chipseal; broad roads with dedicated bike lanes and narrow, single-lane roads without even a shoulder. Finding quiet, comfortable roads for long, solo rides is just going to require some investigation.

Once outside of the city and its immediate suburbs, the terrain was mostly what I’ll call scrubland. Plots of large ranches with low, hardy, weatherbeaten vegetation like juniper (which Texans call “cedar”) and live oak. There aren’t a ton of rivers and creeks – and those are nearly all dry after the summer’s heatwave – where you often see dramatic exposed limestone. It has a lot of character, without being entirely desert or prairie. The Blanco River crossing was really interesting, and I even shared the road with a roadrunner while climbing out of it.

At a macro level, riding in Texas is going to take some adjustment, but it should be amply doable, with careful scouting and route selection, and more experience managing my hydration.

Livestrong: the Event

This was also my first Livestrong ride. How was that?

The route was mostly fine. My only complaint was is that because the start/finish is downtown, a large percentage of the ride was urban and suburban strip mall hell, leaving less than a third of the route for scenic rural country roads. The entire second half of the ride paralleled ugly Interstate 35 on the run back to Austin. But the scenic bits we did get were thoroughly pleasant.

Ride support was generally great, with no less than nine water stops spaced about 16 km apart, well-stocked with ample ice and wet towels, although no cola was available until the end.

As a rider, the cutoff times for the century route were not especially generous, particularly after they were shortened an extra 30 minutes. Fortunately they weren’t an issue for me, though.

The fundraising minimum (ZERO!) was surprisingly welcoming, with premiums offered at varying – and entirely voluntary – fundraising thresholds. By raising $875, I earned an on-course tribute sign, a tote bag, a tee shirt, a cheap mini Bluetooth speaker, the ubiquitous water bottle, an event cycling jersey, and a finisher’s medal, plus the right to line up in the VIP section at the head of the ride. That’s a much friendlier model when compared to the PMC’s $2,000 to $6,000 fundraising requirement just to participate!

Unlike the PMC, where thousands of spectators — often former patients and their families – line the entire route and thank you for riding, community support was mostly non-existent on the Livestrong ride. Other than the crowd at the start/finish, a few bystanders waving from nearby bus stops, and water stop volunteers, during the entire ride I only encountered one couple sitting at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, cheering their hearts out. The two events couldn’t be more different in that respect.

It all adds up to a mixed picture: a well-run and rider-friendly event for an organization that has wisely distanced itself from its shameful founder, and which Scott and Steven have convinced me does admirable work helping cancer patients and their families. And even if it’s no Pan-Mass Challenge or Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I’m very likely to participate again in the future, for the same reasons I outlined above.

Epilogue

So there you have it; it was a landmark ride. To encapsulate, it was:

• My first Livestrong ride
• My first imperial century in 11 months
• My first century of 2023
• My first century in Texas
• My first century on Pæthos, my new bike
• My first century with my new Garmin bike GPS
• My first event as an official member of Team Kermit (or any team, for that matter)

While this century included a grim struggle and an ignoble footnote, I hold to my words that it was very good until it wasn’t. Troubles aside, I completed the course safely and enjoyed the overwhelming majority of it, and gained lots of lessons to bring forward for future rides. I enjoyed it immensely and am glad to have done it.

The first weeks of focused Dirty Dozen training are interrupted by the final long charity ride of the year: the Woiner Foundation’s 3-2-1 Ride.

At this time of year a completely flat metric century requires very little effort, so I don’t worry about any physical impact on my training. The biggest risk is if the date collides with one of the Dirty Dozen training rides, which this year it did not.

The Woiner Foundation supports research and treatment of pancreatic cancer and melanoma. Although I registered and fundraised for last year’s 3-2-1 Ride, I couldn’t participate because I had to unexpectedly fly to Maine to take care of my mother. So participating in and completing the 3-2-1 Ride was one of my expressed cycling goals for 2017.

Ornoth Starting 3-2-1 Ride @ Ohiopyle

Misty Morning Yough

Yough at Ohiopyle from GAP trail

The Red Waterfall

For the event’s fifth year, in addition to the traditional metric century route starting in Connellsville, they gave top fundraisers the option of an 80-mile VIP ride starting in Ohiopyle, the site of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house, as well as a memorable stop for me during the 2000 DargonZine Summit. Between the ride itself and the additional 14 miles of riding to and from the start at Heinz Field, I figured I’d extend it for my sixth (and final) century of the year.

Friday’s pre-ride packet pickup should have been named “luggage pickup”, as I collected my bib number, VIP rider’s jersey, a windbreaker, the event tee shirt, two water bottles, and two goody bags full of keychains, chain lube, sunblock, coupons, event info, assorted flyers, etc. I was given the choice of any bib number from 2 to 50, and opted for number 11.

Saturday was the off day between packet pickup and Sunday’s ride. But it was also the date of the first Dirty Dozen group training ride of the year. I attended that, which was of course a hard workout, covering four of the thirteen hills. Not ideal preparation less than 24 hours before a century…

Sunday morning I was up at 4:30. The temp was only 45 in Pittsburgh, and a stingy 37 in Ohiopyle, necessitating extra cold-weather gear. However, it was supposed to be 67 by the time we finished, and that huge temperature spread meant that I’d eventually have to stow all my extra gear, as well. The extra-quiet 5am ride to the start was cold, but I was fine except for my ears.

After checking in, I waited until the last minute to put my bike on the truck, thinking “last in, first out”. There were only about 25 riders on the bus to Ohiopyle, but that included FOAF Jen Braun.

During the 90-minute bus ride down to Ohiopyle, as the sun reluctantly rose I kept an eye out for fog. There was a lot of it around, especially in the valleys. Eventually we were deposited in a river outfitter’s parking lot, and I led the group march up to the bathrooms.

As planned, my bike was the first off the accompanying cargo truck. I grabbed it, did my final setup, and rolled out a little before 8am. No ceremonial group start for this group! Before leaving town, I stopped briefly to get some photos of the river and a selfie in front of the former Ohiopyle train depot at the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trailhead.

After that, it was just a whole lot of crushed limestone rail trail, with virtually no other people in sight. Although I wouldn’t call the scenery monotonous, it was definitely mile after mile of the same thing: a steep wooded hillside going upward on my left, a flat spot for the trail, and then a wooded hillside sloping down about 50 feet to the Youghioheny River on the right, with more woods on the far shore. It didn’t seem deserving of the local nickname “the Yough”, which is pronounced “Yuck”.

A little earlier in the year the trail would have been inundated with wildflowers; a little later, and you’d have beautiful fall foliage. But despite the odd timing, it was very scenic. There wasn’t much fog, which I ascribed to the rapidly-moving water, but the misty morning still provided ample photo ops.

About 18 miles into the ride we crossed through Connellsville, where the metric century riders had started their ride. There was a little more foot and bike traffic on the trail near these small towns along the way, especially as the day warmed up. However, past Connellsville the trail wasn’t quite as scenic as that section starting out in Ohiopyle.

The riding was easy, with the early sections being an imperceptible descent transitioning into pan-flat. My GPS registered a stunning 3.3 feet of climbing per mile, making it by far the flattest ride you’ll ever find around Pittsburgh. It was very comfortable riding… at least at first.

One of the downsides of the 80-mile VIP route was that there were no extra water stops; we wouldn’t reach our first one until mile 45, at Cedar Creek Park in Port Royal. By then it was 10:30am and I needed food and fluid, since my winter gloves prohibited eating anything I carried with me while riding. Sadly, all they had were unripe bananas and a horrible sugar-free “electrolyte drink” with the same nutritional “benefits” as the emetic ipecac. No sports drink at all! I settled for one Rice Krispy Treat and unadulterated water.

Rolling on, things got uncomfortable. The lack of any descending meant it was impossible to coast. I had to keep pumping my legs incessantly, which began to grate after three or four hours. And getting out of the saddle to stretch only reminded me that I’d climbed four of the steepest hills in Pittsburgh the day before. On top of that, the unforgivable lack of food and drink left me weaker and more depleted than usual. And with the temperature rising through the mid-60s, I was starting to poach inside my winter gear, despite the easy pace.

It was all topped off by the frustration of being unable to operate my bike computer, because the touchscreen wouldn’t respond to my full-fingered winter gloves. In a deliriously joyful flash of insight I realized that if I bent down toward my handlebars, I could operate the touchscreen with my one bare extremity—my nose!—but the screen became unreadable after three or four swipes of a sweaty, greasy nose.

An hour and a half of that kind of thing, and I arrived at the second rest stop: in Boston (PA). This is where everything turned around and started going right for me again. To begin with, Boston was my first sighting of familiar territory; it was the farthest I’d ridden down the GAP (or up the Yough) from Pittsburgh, which meant the end was getting closer.

It had turned into a beautiful day, so I stripped off my excess gear: winter jacket, arm warmers, winter gloves, and leg warmers. It felt great, but it took some time and effort to jam all that stuff into my saddle bag and jersey pockets!

More importantly, there was food! They had a variety pack of snacks, so I ate a bag of sour cream & onion potato chips, and a bag of barbecue potato chips, and a bag of cheese curls, and some of the dried fruit left in my pockets. Although they still only had water and that ipecac drink, I spent $2 on a bottle of Gatorade from the trailside souvenir shop, so I was able to get back onto my regular fueling protocol.

Things got even better after convincing myself to get back on the bike. The trail transitioned to asphalt, making for a much smoother and easier ride. While the crushed limestone surface hadn’t been bad, I’d worried about the chance of getting a flat tire.

In no time we reached McKeesport, which is my frequent turn-around point on my excursions from Pittsburgh. A few days earlier, there’d been a big coal train derailment that had caused a detour for trail users, but we used the usual route, seeing only a few workers finishing some cleanup.

90 minutes later, at 2pm I crossed the Allegheny and rolled down toward Heinz Field. I passed under the finish line balloon arch, but the event photographers weren’t in the mood to capture that moment. Still, I claimed my VIP finisher’s medal and rolled over to the food tent.

I spent some time munching at the finish line, cheering riders coming in and giving feedback to Ric, one of the event’s founders. I made sure to emphasize the near-fatal drink mixes.

After not-quite-enough rest, I hopped back on the bike for the ride home. Instead of going directly, I went up the Allegheny, climbed up through Highland Park, and across town. That added just enough mileage for me to finish with an even 100 miles, completing that sixth century of the year.

Not yet complete, however, was the desperately-needed cleaning of the bike, which—after 65 miles on a crushed limestone bike trail—was absolutely filthy. Ugh!

As expected, the 3-2-1 Ride was a nice experience, and I enjoyed being able to participate, after having been out of town last year. It was fun being able to ride back from Ohiopyle, over a long section of the GAP trail that I’ve never seen before. Although it shares the late-season time slot, it didn’t interfere at all with my Dirty Dozen training. It was nice to support a small but growing grassroots cycling fundraiser early in its history. And I added another $590 to my already impressive sum of money raised for charity, and specifically for cancer research, treatment, and prevention.

Yes, Virginia, Lance Armstrong doped.

Beyond that egregious violation of sporting ethics, Lance Armstrong also ruthlessly strongarmed teammates to cover up his systematic criminal activity. He attempted to bribe both international and US anti-doping officials to cover up his cheating. He repeatedly and shamelessly lied under oath, then venomously lambasted—if not outright sued and tried to destroy—anyone who dared question his selfrighteous integrity.

These are facts.

Lance Armstrong is a thief, a liar, a cheat, and an amoral fraud, and he has been that way for his entire professional life.

Quelle surprise.

Why in the world is this still news to anyone, and why does anyone care? He is completely irrelevant to me as a cyclist, and he continues to be a huge and unavoidable liability to those of us working to raise money to eradicate cancer.

Can we please stop giving this walking foreskin a spotlight and the international publicity platform he craves and so undeservedly profits from?

Follow this link for my full 2011 Pan-Mass Challenge ride report, including writeup, photos, and GPS logs.

Follow this link for my full 2009 Pan-Mass Challenge ride report, including writeup, photos, and GPS logs.

Follow this link for my full 2008 Pan-Mass Challenge ride report, including writeup, photos, and maps.

Most of you will have already gotten this via the email I sent to all my contributors, but I thought I’d post it here as well, just so that I have a record of it in my blog.

Each year I send out a final debrief after the Pan-Mass Challenge presents the Jimmy Fund with the proceeds from the year’s ride. Here’s a description of what you and I and the thousands of other riders, sponsors, and volunteers achieved in 2006.

If there’s a theme for 2006, it’s breaking records. Having raised $23 million in 2005, the PMC began this year with a $24 million goal. That in itself would be a new record, but even before the ride began, the organizers openly increased their goal to $25 million. And at last Thursday night’s check presentation, PMC founder Bill Starr announced that we’d eclipsed even that, surpassing $26 million in 2006 alone. That’s the largest single gift ever made to the Jimmy Fund, and more than twice the amount ever raised by any other athletic fundraiser in the nation. For the complete story, I encourage you to read the PMC press release or view a two minute video story about the check presentation from NECN.

My personal experience also exceeded expectations and broke records. I started this year with a brand new road bike and a goal: raise more money for the Jimmy Fund than ever before. In 2005 I raised a surprising $3,850, but this year I hoped I could raise $4,000, which would bring my lifetime fundraising to $20,000. You came through with an astonishing $6,260, blowing away my most ambitious goals and beating my prior fundraising record by more than 62 percent!

And when your donations broke $6,000, I became what’s called an official PMC “Heavy Hitter”. I haven’t ever mentioned Heavy Hitters before, because I never dreamed I’d qualify for that elite status, which requires raising nearly twice the fundraising minimum! Heavy Hitters get commemorative biking shorts, are invited to a special celebratory dinner, and their names are listed in the PMC’s annual report.

So the first and most important thing I want to say in this email is: thank you. I am truly blessed to have so many incredibly generous friends, and you should take a great deal of pride in the life-saving research you have made possible.

You may get tired of hearing and reading my thanks, but I can’t say enough about everyone who sponsored my ride, and I want to thank certain people in particular. Profuse thanks go to Nicole, my friend who was undergoing chemo who let me tell her story in my fundraising letters. I also want to recognize David, who lost his mother to cancer earlier this year. I want to thank Randy, my employer, who encouraged my coworkers to sponsor me, then generously more than matched their donations. More thanks to my perpetual #1 sponsor, Liam, for breaking a record he already owned for the largest donation I’ve ever received. As always, I have to recognize Sheeri for driving me around and all the support she provided over the PMC weekend. And I want to express my sincere gratitude to all of my nineteen first-time sponsors, to the twelve people who have sponsored me in every one of my six PMC rides, and to the dozen other people who made a larger donation this year than they had before.

I’m incredibly proud that I can say that over the past six years I’ve raised $22,325 to improve the state of cancer research. treatment, and prevention through the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. However, that’s entirely due to your generosity; without your support, I wouldn’t have done anything.

Looking back on 2006, it was a record year in nearly every category. In past years I’ve had 35-40 sponsors, but this year I had a record 50 contributors. In addition, the average donation I received went up again this year; it has gone up every year like clockwork, from an average $63 per person back in 2001 to over $125 per person in 2006.

But in addition to fundraising, I managed to set a few records on the bike, as well. Over the past twelve months, I rode 4,600 miles, which exceeds my previous record by 800 miles (21 percent), and brought my total riding over the past six years to 20,000 miles! That’s an average of 65 miles per week, every week: summer and winter. It’s also a whopping 1.2 million kilocalories: the caloric equivalent of 341 pounds of body fat, 375 gallons of ice cream, 7,500 ears of corn on the cob, or over 16 thousand Lindt chocolate truffles!

Along the way, I set a new one-day record by riding 153 miles in a single day, after earning my first cycling medal by completing the Boston Brevet Series 200k in May, a ride I’d wanted to do for years. With the help of a 28 mile-per-day commute, I also set new monthly mileage records in eight of the past twelve months: November, December, March, April, May, August, September, and October.

After all that, I probably don’t need to tell you that the new bike I bought a year ago has been absolutely great. The poor thing’s already got 4,000 miles on it! But I anticipate a very restful off-season for us both.

I received a lot of positive feedback from the voice posts I left on my LiveJournal during this year’s ride, as well as the PMC route map I put up. Since you guys have been so good to me, I thought this might be a good time to ask if you had any ideas about other ways I could make the ride more interesting for you. More photos? More voice posts? More (or fewer) email updates? A map that shows my progress throughout the ride? More descriptions of events preceding and post-ride? Is there anything you’d be especially interested in hearing or seeing about the ride? Let me know, and I’ll see what we can do for next year.

And if you haven’t read it yet or seen the photos, feel free to peruse my description of this year’s ride, which you can find at: http://users.rcn.com/ornoth/bicycling/travelogue2k6.html

This end-of-year update ends on a bittersweet note. Nicole, the friend whom I rode for this year, finished her chemo last spring, has grown back her hair, and has already been to India twice since then, so she’s doing exceptionally well.

At the same time, I have a friend (and two-time PMC sponsor) named Christine whose fiance was treated last year for Hodgkin’s Disease. Ken became quite a cancer fundraiser himself, promoting Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, a free summer camp in northern Vermont for kids who have cancer. Although Ken was given a clean bill of health last summer, just hours before I left for the PMC check presentation last week, I learned that his cancer had recurred and metastasized.

It was a very, very unkind reminder that no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars we’ve raised, cancer is still an elusive and prevalent threat. However much we can celebrate this year’s recordbreaking event, there are many more miles to be pedaled and dollars to be raised, and I hope I can count on your support again next year, as I ride for Ken and Nicole and David and all the people in my life whom cancer has touched.

Thank you again for your generosity.

Saturday I went to the Pan-Mass Challenge’s check presentation ceremony. Although this was my fifth year doing the ride, it was the first time I’d ever been to the check presentation.

It was, as you can imagine, very inspirational. Billy Starr, the founder of the PMC, told us that the Dana-Farber had been named one of the top four cancer hospitals in the country for the third year in a row. He also revealed that this year the PMC was able to reduce overhead so much that they were able to donate an unbelievable 99% of every dollar raised directly to the Jimmy Fund.

Edward Benz, the President of DFCI, talked about how dramatically the human genome mapping project had improved the direction of cancer research. He also reiterated his message from last year’s check presentation: “The PMC has made what we do at Dana-Farber possible. When they write the history of how cancer was conquered, the PMC will be in chapter one.”

Four veteran riders gave brief speeches. Known as the “Cyclopaths”, they are all over 70 years of age, and have done more than 20 PMC rides since joining the event back in 1984. They shared treasured memories and laughs, but the most poignant moment came when one of them shared his memory of when polio was commonplace, and its subsequent eradication. His hope was that someday our generation would be able to tell our children that there once used to be a disease known as cancer, just as his generation can now say about polio.

Finally, after a brief dramatic skit, this year’s check was revealed: $23 million. As a bare number, it doesn’t really mean much, but think about these facts.

• That’s the largest sum ever raised by any athletic fundraising event anywhere.
   
• That’s more than twice what any other US athletic fundraising event has ever donated to charity.
   
• It’s the largest gift that the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has ever received in its sixty-year history.
   
• And, as is true every year, the PMC is the Jimmy Fund’s largest contributor, generating half that charity’s annual revenue.

Backed up by facts like that, it should be obvious that the PMC has a very real and tremendous impact on cancer research, treatment, and prevention. And that makes it easy for me to feel like I’m making a real and meaningful contribution to that cause.

I wasn’t brought up in a very philanthropic family, and raising money to fight cancer through the PMC is one of the few charitable things I have ever done. But the PMC has become a very, very important part of my life.

I derive a lot of satisfaction from riding, but I couldn’t do it without the financial support of my sponsors. The tremendous feeling of accomplishment and pride I take in being part of this cause and this wonderful organization is their gift to me, and I am genuinely honored by that gift.

As Billy Starr has said before, the ride is our reward for all the hard work we did fundraising. Well, I think I need to extend that, because the ride is really just a small part of it. The sense of satisfaction, pride, and accomplishment that comes with being part of an organization that does so much to combat such a horrific disease: that’s the greatest reward of doing the fundraising. And I owe my contributors thanks for blessing me with the ability to experience such incredibly meaningful and inspirational work.