Fund Raising, TT, and Short Ride

Sunday, Aug 30th - We are just over 7 weeks away from our ride from San Francisco to San Diego which will commence on Saturday Oct 17th and end on Friday, Oct 23rd. Obviously this whole thing about creating awareness for CAF and raising funds. The picture on the right depicts the where we are at this point which is just a little over $500,000 or more than half way to our goal. If you haven't already, please take a moment and make a donation and or attend one of the many wonderful events being put on to raise funds.


We, the Ride Leaders, are hosting an event on Oct 1st with the theme of Rendezvous in the Ranch. There will be wonderful food, wine, beer, silent auction, raffle, 50/50 drawing, etc. Rumor has it that some special guests will be in attendance who are well know cyclists and won the Tour de France...can't say any more than that. Tickets are $40 for 1 or $70 for 2. Preregister at http://qmdc.kintera.org/rancho.


For the radio contestants this Sunday we had another Immunity Quiz which was to name all the cities we will be staying in on our ride down the coast this coming Oct. And the winner was...Adam Beck. He was the only contestant who got all the locations. This might have been in part because he did this ride a few months ago after raising funds for the Livestrong organization. Adam is a testicular cancer survivor with a huge heart, strong legs and determination. Check out his blog and see what he is doing to raise funds for this event. He has a BBQ Island he is having a drawing for, putting on a poker run and is working with Joy and her Beer Bash. http://qmdcbeck.blogspot.com/



TT is a Time Trail which can be any length and cover a number of courses. A good local TT is Torrey Pines which we did at the beginning of this training. Not as many people showed up, around 28, but that's OK. This week is suppose to be a time in our training to take it down a notch, let your body recover before we increase the intensity again.


Alex Hamlow came out to ride this short course with us this week which was a huge surprise. He was the one who crashed on Palomar Mountain about 6 weeks ago. He's been stationary training for the last 3 or 4 weeks and this was one of his first road rides. He posted an impressive 6:53 for his time. Under 7 minutes is cooking. Joe Y-Can-Not posted the best time at 6:15.

After we had short ride up the coast for a total of 25 miles. It was a beautiful day. As I was chatting with people there were a lot of plans of heading to beach with family before school starts this week.


This week 2 more people will be eliminated from the contest with 6 remaining. The announcement should be on Wed between 6:15 and 6:45 AM on the Scott and BR Show. You can listen on AM XX1090 or catch it via the Internet.

Full Boat and Inspiration

Sunday, Aug 23 - Elimination for the XX1090 radio contest was put off until this week when 2 people will be dropped from the contest. We'll have details soon as to when the announcement will be.

All the radio contestants were present and accounted for this week. That's a first. As we rolled out each group, 1-4, had a few of the radio people in them. They are also reaching out to help with flats and mechanical issues even to others not with QMDC. A lady was stuck with her car on the side of the road with a flat tire and several stopped to assist. She wanted to give them some money for their assistance but instead she was given a card and asked to make a donation to via the CAF site.

Pat Thomas, our Immunity Winner from last week, did a great job of adding some new details to our Immunity Pump. Kind of hard to see but he put his name plate on the front, a lizard on the bottom, rear view mirror and horn on the handlebars, reflector on the back and picture of the remaining 10 contestants in the contest on the handle bars. I'm surprised but this thing still pushes air.

To the left in this picture is David Lee. He completed this weeks ride of 77 miles and over 5000 feet of climbing using just his arms and no drafting in a group. He spent most of the route on his own. Try that week after week.

CAF sends us an email prior to each ride with the routes, some updates and maybe a note about a challenged athlete. This week there was a message from Rachel Cowan. Rachel is training for our event in the very flat state of Florida. With the hills we will encounter on route from San Fran to San Diego, she is being creative in your training regiment. But that's not the story.

Rachel is a quadriplegic. 13 years ago she was in a car accident. But again, that's not the story. Rachel has set herself a goal to raise $62,000 for the QMDC ($100 X 620 miles). I think that is the real story.

Most of her training is on a stationary resistance or rollers at this point. She just started using a hand cycle. You can catch more about Rachel on her blog @ http://mdcquad.blogspot.com/.

I'm looking forward to meeting her in San Francisco. That's the inspiration we all need.

Immunity and Ramona

Sunday 16 Aug - What a beautiful day for a ride. The weather was perfect with a high of 74 expected near the ocean and in Ramona, our turn around point, no more than 84. We couldn't have planned it better.

But first, Immunity for the xx1090 Radio Contestants. (By the way you can view their Pics and blogs by clicking the link for XX1090). Math skills were an important part of today's test. A clear container was filled with Accel Gel and the job of the contestants was to guess the number of calories. They had 5 minutes to do their calculations. Since the group is made up of variety of people from all walks of life it was very interesting to see each go about the process.

The winner was Patrick Thomas who missed the real count by only 270 calories. Great job Pat. He is immune from elimination this week and will be responsible for adding something special to the Immunity Pump. But, 2 people will be eliminated from the contest. Tune into XX1090, The Scott and BR Show, to hear who.

Onto the ride. We started in Flower Hill Mall and headed south to the 56 bike path where we turned east. At the top of the path we turned right on Black Mountain Rd and had a nice fast down hill to Mercey/Scripps Poway Parkway which we then took again heading east. This is really the base of the climbing of the day. We took that to the top where we had a chance to refuel and regroup at our 1st SAG stop. On the way up I had a flat and used both my spare tubes, Steve a radio contestant from last year along with Pat Thomas and Mark VanDierendonck, stopped to help.

We then took the 67 into Ramona, rode around the town and then took Highland Valley Rd back toward the coast. There is a screaming down hill in there where I hit 56 MPH on my new Trek Madone 6.9. I love this bike.

We popped out on Pomerado Rd and went over the I-15 to a park where we connected with our second SAG stop. There we waited a few minutes for a Rob Lindbloom, one of the radio contestants, and Mike Hower, Ride Leader, who had a flat. Only 20 miles left at this point.

As we started to head back to our starting point I notices a few less people in Group 3. Apparently some had taken a wrong turn in Ramona and skipped the around town section. As miles clicked by a few riders where starting to slow down. We did a lot of climbing and that depletes your energy especially if you don't eat and drink on the road. Mike Hower, Doctor Mike and I split up to work with small groups which had formed.

Back at the start I saw a lot of smiles. It was a challenge but everyone did great. See you next week.

Immunity Pump and Kitchen Creek

August 9th - Check out the Immunity Pump. Brian Brillo, last weeks winner of the immunity challenge, had a task to do one better than Joy Muehlenbein...I think he did. He's pictured here with Scott Kaplan. Brian added handle bars, reflectors, streamers, brake handles and water bottle cage complete with CAF water bottle. The thing still works as well. Very, very impressive. It's a work of art.

I must stay that I am very pleased with the work this years contestant are putting into this challenge. It's not easy to know what is right and wrong but they all are focusing on the elements which are important; CAF, QMDC and XX1090 (the Scott and BR Show). By the way, you can view the Final 10 on the web page now.

Kitchen Creek is a ride that many seasoned cyclists from the San Diego area will be familiar with or have heard of. It starts in a remote location, Pine Valley just off the 8 about 40 plus miles out of town. You can image that as you head in that direction, towards Arizona, that as the temperature rises it becomes more desert like. Reports indicated we would see upper close to 90 degrees today.

However, as riders started to show up the temperature was a cool 50 plus degrees. Makes you think you should start this ride with some arm warms or vest. That's a mistake. Within 10 minutes you will be plenty warm since immediately we start to climb. But before we get a few blocks out of town I hear, what sounds like, a gun shot. Someone had a flat. Since we are at 3000 feet above sea level you need to put a bit less air in your tires. My guess would be over inflation.

After making the left onto kitchen creek road and half way up this climb....I have a flat. I was keeping pace with the 1-2 group at this point but now they are over the top. I check for what may have caused the flat (nothing), pull out my spare, make the change and pump up the new tire. It goes flat as well. OK, frustration is setting in. Adam Beck had stopped to help and then Joe Weickgenant showed up. Joe offers a tube and since I use a very long stem, 80mm on my ZIPP wheels, a valve extender was needed. We give that a go using a floor pump that a nice man stopped and offered us. Finally, success. I was ready to call it a day after 3 flats but am back on the road.

We climb the rest of the way together and catch group 3 and some of 2 at the SAG stop just before turning onto Sunrise Highway. By now we have climb about 3000 feet and up in the wooded area providing some coolness to the temps.

The rest of the ride was pretty much rolling hills, some fast down hill and a bit of flat. The wind picked up some but not too bad. We split the group into two small ones to accommodate the skinny roads.

Upon returning to the starting point there were a lot of smiling, exhausted, faces. I think we all feel a sense of accomplishment when we finish something like this. We climbed over 5300 feet in 57 miles way above sea level.

Immunity and Clinic

Sunday Aug 2 - This week we didn't ride but instead had a clinic at Fitness Quest 10 put on by Pat Jack. Pat did a fantastic job of explaining why we should all be hitting the gym and or doing something other than cycling, showing us different exercises and making it a lot of fun. I would highly recommend this to anyone in any sport. It you don't use it you will loose it. Fitness Quest 10 trains the everyday athlete (we are all athletes) as well as those at the Pro level. You never know who you might see there.

But before we started the clinic I had the radio contestants for XX1090 and the Scott and BR Show arrive early. The Immunity Pump was up for grabs. I administered a test consisting of 5 questions about the Scott and BR show and 5 questions about CAF. Several of the questions you could actually add more points to your total. The winner was...Brian Brillo. Brian now is immune from elimination this week. The group of 15 will be reduced to 10 so 5 people, I'm sure, are on pins and needles.

Brian also has the Immunity Pump and the responsibility to add his touch to it. Joy Muehlenbein (Check out her blog) did a great job of "blinging" out the Immunity Pump.

Be sure to tune in this Wednesday to the Scott and BR show to see who remains in the contest. The show runs from 5-9 AM but the announcement should be between 6:15 and 6:45 AM. You can catch it via the Internet if your company allows that or 1090 on your AM dial.