The Need For Speed
I rode my bike to work this morning because I’m only a mere 3.2 miles from work this week. It’s nice on the way to work because it’s all downhill. I was at work in all of like 12 minutes because I had to obey traffic laws and stop at all the stop signs and lights. But I did get to have some fun as well, being an all downhill ride, I had the opportunity to assume a position in which I was pretty much laying over the handlebars. In doing so, and still pedaling, I was able to get up to a max speed of 28 mph. I couldn’t quite push it to 30 mph but I’ll try it on my ride tomorrow morning. But it was so nice to feel the wind against my face and to know that I was creating it. It was beautiful.
On an average though, I was riding at 15 mph. That’s decent but for a downhill I know I can push the average to a higher speed since I can push 15 on the flat road and ride it for a couple miles before it wears me out. So tomorrow morning I’ll try to push the limits and see what I can come up with. I’d like to breach 30 mph, that would be ideal and it would be pleasuresome.
Mom freaked out, when I told her my max speed this morning she was like “Courtney, please tell me you don’t want to do that.” (speaking of the speeds I was obtaining) I just had to be silent because I do crave speed. We’ll see what kind of speeds I can accomplish tomorrow. A tail wind would be wonderful. It would help me go even faster.
Introducing Diabetes Posts
When I started Ride to Remedy I had decided that it was going to be all about my quest to help cure diabetes by riding my bike in the Tour de Cure across the US. While I will continue doing this, sometimes there just isn’t much to say about my rides. For the CA ride I was blogging every ride in which I trained, for the CO ride there wasn’t many rides in which I trained because I knew I could do 30 miles (if I could do 35 miles in CA why wouldn’t I be able to do 30 miles in CO). My next ride is in Oct in Fort Worth, TX and thus far, I’ve not ridden since my CO ride 2 weeks ago.
There is something important to me that I decided I should be blogging about between Tour de Cure’s and training rides and that’s diabetes itself. It is after all, the reason I ride. If I didn’t have it myself I wouldn’t be nearly as affected by it as I am now. Sure, my uncle has it, but would I have noticed if I didn’t have it myself, probably not. I would’ve been the self centered, self absorbed person that I can be (usually on a daily basis).
Without having diabetes myself, I wouldn’t have the connection that I have to the numerous diabetics and influential people in my life today. As such, I’m going to start posting about this disease that I have, the effects that it has on me, what I see it doing to people around me, the lack of proper medical support, and anything else that crosses my path concerning diabetes that I think is worth blogging about.
Photohunt raises sponsorship to 30%
There was a photo scavenger hunt over on </dream.in.code> and I thought I’d go ahead and participate. I really didn’t think that I’d win but I was going to put forth my best effort because the prize money was set at $100 (and I was going to apply it to the CO Ride if I won). I had one hour for lunch and 9 pictures to take (when I got in my car to go get my pictures I already had three that I had taken while in the office). The hardest one for me on the list was going to be the sombrero (or so I thought). It turned out that none of them were exactly hard. It took me a while to think about where to find a sign that had “DIC” in it. After walking the block where I work and looking for “DIC” on a sign a co-worker suggested I go to the phone book. That worked great. I found where I needed to go and from there I mapped where I needed to go to get the rest of my items.
Within an hour, I had my nine pictures and had gotten back to work. I quickly mailed the photos from my phone, to my email, where I downloaded them, so that I could then turn around and upload them to my flickr account. And I got this done just in the nick of time too. There were other people on the hunt, of course. But while I was out there was a conversation about how Chris doubted that anyone would get the pictures the same day of the hunt announcement and if someone did he’d double the $100 that was initially set for prize money.
I got my pictures posted on </dic> just barely before another guy and Chris asked how I wanted the cash. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind donating it to my CO Ride. And of course, he did. So, thanks to </Dream.In.Code>, I’m at 30% of my fundraising goal for the Co Tour de Cure.
Seven Cycles Custom Road Bike
With this grand idea of mine (riding in a Tour de Cure in every state) comes an imminent need for proper gear. I have a bike that I fit (when I say “that I fit” I mean that I bought a bike from the shop that overall seemed like the most proper fit but it’s not quite right) as opposed to a bike that fits me (a bike that’s built for the length of my arms and legs and the range of motion in them). The problem is (because of my strangely short legs in proportion with the rest of my body) I’ll probably never be able to walk into a bike shop and buy a bike that fits my needs off their floor. I’m most likely going to need something custom (which is painful to think about because of the cost, but I’m willing to go there, eventually.), so how convenient is it that Outside magazine had a little blurb in it about a Custom Built Seven Cycles bike (road or mountain) that I could win (or you, anyone really).
All I had to do was write an essay, 200 words. That’s really not too difficult, I ramble and at a good pace too. After reading the official rules and discovering that 50% of the score would be based on relevance to theme (which I assumed this was a theme of my choosing because I don’t recall them providing one) and the other 50% would be based on the need for a Seven Cycles Custom Bike, I decided I had myself a good case. I had a theme (the Tour de Cure what else) and I had a need. I think I put it nicely in 197 words 
We’ll find out though, because even though I thought my essay was good, I’m a horrible writer and there are (as there always is) people that probably had better essays.
Regardless, here’s the essay I submitted:
For 15 years I’ve had a disease which has controlled my life. At the tender age of 11, most of who I had been was stripped from me. The little girl who was constantly outside on her bike, rollerblading, swimming, and running around, was now limited in what activities she could do. Yet, I refuse to be limited any longer. I am returning to the athletic kid I once was, however what I’m doing is not simply for pleasure. I have a goal to ride in a Tour de Cure in every state to help cure diabetes.
A custom road bike from Seven Cycles would help me immensely in meeting my goal. It would ensure a proper fit, putting me in a position that is not only efficient but also provides suitable aerodynamics which would allow me more time in the saddle and would prevent injuries from having a bike that I fit instead of having a bike that fits me. A custom Seven Cycles road bike would allow me to ride longer distances in the Tour de Cure thus bringing more awareness of diabetes to the communities in which I ride.
I should know by July 16th whether I won or not. And regardless of winning, I will still ride.
DreamInCode.net takes me to 10%
I get an IM today from my friend Chris who I hear from, from time to time, mostly we talk about DreamInCode (his baby) or work or life in general. And today didn’t begin any differently we spent a decent amount of time talking about DreamInCode but then he asks me how my new site is coming along. Now mind you, I hadn’t told him about this site (RidetoRemedy), so I was completely caught off guard. Our buddy Markus had apparently mentioned it to him (which was good because I wasn’t ready to reveal it, but what Chris revealed to me in our conversation will help me immensely).
Chris verified after viewing it that it was diabetes related and of course I confirmed it and we get into this conversation about other diabetics on the web and the amazing things that they were doing with their websites (diabetes related or not) to help support diabetics and diabetes in general. It gave me a stepping stone because I now I have people that I can talk to for tips and whatnot in getting this site off the ground. We talked a lot of geeky stuff, SEO, keywords and the like. But of course, the most important things are content and networking (which he gave me a lift on).
But when the conversation was all said and done, he said “I still owe you a donation, let me know when your next ride is” I told him about CO and he generously gave 10% of my goal.
Thank You Chris and DreamInCode.net