Before I move completely into the Fall mode, I wanted to blog a little about the Summer and share one of our adventures. With our three daughters all in college, my husband and I have been able to spend more time on our bicycles. We have been having fun exploring the many paved trails in Wisconsin and our favorites can be found in the North woods. We started biking in May with a goal of training for the 2015 Wisconsin Best Dam Bike Ride which is Wisconsin’s BikeMS ride to raise money to help find a cure for Multiple Sclerosis. This is something we have been wanting to do for years to honor my husband’s Mom who has been living with MS for almost 40 years. It seems as though everyone knows at least one person that is living with this diagnosis.
We joined our friends, Susie, Terry & Rachel Weber who rode for their 4th year. We all rode with Team CCC which is ‘Curt’s Conquest for a Cure’. We were the team with the ‘Dots’. My husband, Joel, is in the red. We will have him in Dots next year! This first pic is before the first day’s ride from Milwaukee to Whitewater.
We ride for Susie!!! Susie was diagnosed with MS in 1987 and there is nothing that is going to slow down this girl.
For each day, we are given different routes to choose: 50, 75 or 100 mile routes. We didn’t know just how we would do the first year, and we actually did 59 miles the first day. It was fun as our team had a meeting place (ok, a bar 🙂 ) at the end of the routes so we could ride over the finish line together. This year our team rode with 120 riders. Overall, there were about 1500 bikers riding for a cure. So how do you lock up 1500 bikes? we put them in the tennis courts at UW-Whitewater 🙂
Day 2 with our friends Paula and Tracy before we rode from Whitewater to Madison. Weather conditions were extreme with 30-40mph winds and temps reaching almost 90! so the 75 & 100 mile routes were eliminated. Wish we could say the wind was at our backs, but this was Not the case!
Lunch stop on day two was in Stoughton where we met Joel’s Aunt Lynn and Uncle Jerry for a visit. It was Jerry’s birthday, so of course a little bday card was fitting… just big enough to fit in my back seat pack.
With Susie by my side, we finished 61 miles on day 2! What an inspiration she has been for all of us.
We met up with the guys to ride over the finish line together and who do we see cheering us on… our three girls!!! So Surprised!!! They, too, have been seeing their Grandma living with MS all of their lives, and they know how important this ride means to all of us. Maybe we can get them to join us in the future.
Thank You notes for our sponsors were a must. Together, Joel & I raised over $1400, Team CCC raised about $100,000 and all together Wisconsin’s Best Dam Bike Ride raised approx $1.5 million for research for MS!
We will ride until there is a cure! #worldwithoutms
Thanks for visiting,
Rubber Hugs 🙂
Ann
Awesome achievement!