Why Mark Needs No Excuse To Ride Ever Again!

Guys,

I hope you all read the post, cause now we know why Mark rides!

Potential Mrs. McCartneys queue up
By Ellen Futterman
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
05/30/2006
There are a few things you can count on in life: The sun rises in the east and sets in the west; what goes up will come down; and if there's a story about Paul McCartney in this newspaper, Linda Dana will check in.Dana, 49, of west St. Louis County, is the consummate Paul girl. She's a former president of the St. Louis Beatles Fan Club, and she once paid $475 to sit in the 14th row at one of McCartney's Chicago concerts.Dana and I first met in 1993 when the cute Beatle performed at the old Busch Stadium. We reconnected in 2002 before McCartney's concert at Savvis Center, at which time Dana made it clear that she was no fan of McCartney's then-new wife, Heather Mills. I believe Dana's exact words were, "She's a blond woman with a cause."Last week, in the wake of McCartney's separation after four years from Mills, I asked readers who would be a good match for McCartney. A day or so later, an email arrived from Dana, reiterating her "blond woman" line, pointing out that she had been right about Mills.

FULL TEXT GOTO:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/everyday/story/A4FA406680B2FF828625717A0032026E?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2C%22Dana%22

Plans for 80 Hilly Miles Saturday June 3rd

! CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGE VIEW

!CLICK BELOW FOR ROUTES QUE SHEET
http://www.geocities.com/rdweil@sbcglobal.net/New80HillyMiles.htm

Folks,

I just looked at my calendar, only a few more weekend to train before BTC. With that in mind, I plan on doing the revised 80Mile Hilly Ride from my house on Saturday June 3rd.

We will need to leave early because my Mom is in town for Joseph's graduation (with her new boyfriend too), and I said I would not ride. That of course is before I realized that I would be out of town Memorial day weekend followed by Mom's weekend.

Assuming the bears don't get too upset by my short absence, I plan to leave my house at 7am. With just some short rest breaks (read only one coffee stop), that gets us back to my house by 2 pm.

There will be at least 5500 Ft of climbing in the 80 miles.

Roark

Memorial Day Weekend & Lake Wobegon

Folks,

I am off to ride the loop around Lake Wobegon this weekend. So ride hard, ride far, ride fast, and ride without me!

Roark

Weekend Rides 5/20-5/21 & Mike's Insanity

Folks,

Here are my weekend plans for riding.

Saturday I am doing the Old St. Charles Loop, that starts from my house at 8:30 am. I will be meeting my MS150 team at 10 am in Creve Coeur Lake Park, and riding with them to Miss Aimee B's in St. Charles. After riding back to Creve Coeur Lake Park, and dropping off the team I will be going up Hog Hollow, and out to Webster to ride Marshall Hill and W. Adams. Total miles about 65. Cheri and Bill are joining me. I think most everybody else is doing the AYH Century ride (at their own risk).

Sunday I am planning to do the shortest version of the Fun Club Strawberry Festival Ride, with Maxine and Samantha. We will be tagging along (they don't know it yet) with Cheri, Amanda, and Melina. I am thinking to start around 9:00 am. No need to get up to early for 12 or so miles.

Now for Mike's insanity part. Mike will be returning from the Attack on Mount Mitchell in North Carolina. He has requested those of you planning to do the long version of the Strawberry ride wait for him to start with you at 9:00 am. He will not be going home first, he will be fresh off his long long drive, and long long bike ride with the long long climb at the end, to the Strawberry Ride Start. Let's just hope with all that long long stuff, he took a long long shower, and had a large large cup of coffee.

Mark, if you still want to do breakfast before the ride, lets plan so we get to ride about 9:00 am. That puts breakfast about 7:30 am I guess.

There is of course the possibility the Maxine and Samantha will pull out on me, then I will be doing the long ride.

Roark

The headwind was only bad for the last 90 miles

Hello all,

I thought I'd do a quick post and respond to some other posts and give you an update on me real quick.

I hope those of you who rode Saturday had a good day. More on what I did below. I won't be in town to enjoy the AYH century this weekend. I'll be off in NC climbing Mt. Mitchell. I've got my fingers crossed for nice weather down there. So far the long range forecast looks good. I might get out Monday for the St. Charles Co. soccer field hammer fest, and maybe for the Tuesday night ride that starts at the Synagogue in U-city. Wednesday night is Lynda's b-day, so the most I'll do is a hill workout on the trainer, and then 2 days off for rest and drving to go to NC.

By the way, Ron, the photo's of 3-state look fantastic. Thanks for sending / posting these.

This past Saturday I tackled my second long distance brevet. This one was 300k (187 miles). And of course I went to the baseball game on Friday night. The brevet started at 6am, so a 4:30am wake up call after hitting the hay at 10:30 was a heck of an early start! There were about 11 or 12 of us that started that morning. It quickly broke in to 2 groups, with me in the front group with 4 other guys. It was cold, damp and windy all day. It kind of felt like March all day. We started over in Edwardsville going generally East and South. We never got caught in the rain, but it was humid, cool and overcast all day. We had some tailwind as we started, and through the first part of the day. (The whole ride was in Illinios farm land, so not many hills, but nothing to break up the wind either.) The wind built in all day too. But this was a bad thing, because when we hit about the 100 mile mark we started to head West and North, and the wind that day was coming out of the NW. So by the time we made the turn we were dealing with steady winds of around 12-15 MPH, and I know a few gusts were getting up around 20 MPH. We dealt with that for about 90 miles straight, which was the better part of 7 hours.

Thank goodness I was with 4 other guys. It was a pretty good group of experienced / stronger riders. We worked very well together and stayed as a group all day. We stumbled back into Edwardsville at 6:08 PM that evening. 12 hours 8 minutes total, which includes stops. Our riding time was a bit over 10 hours and our average speed was about 18.4 MPH. ( Do your remember that "older" rider I told you about from the 200k? Get this - he rode the 300k the weekend some of us were in Chatt. He went solo, in on and off rain, in stronger winds, and finished in 12 hours 30 minutes. If I had been solo Saturday I'd have taken at least 14 hours. If it has been raining it probably would have been 15 -16.)

If anyone wants to join me :) , (you can join me for all or part) my next brevet will be a 600k over June 3 - June 4. That ride has a 40 hour time limit. It goes from Edwardsville to south of Carbondale and back. The riders will probably stop for the night in Anna, IL around mile 225. That way on Sunday we "only" have about 150 miles to get home (by 8pm on Sunday).

Talk to you all soon,

Mike

3 State Challenge Photo's

Here are some of the shots, we'll see how well this works.
I can only load five at a time and it's very slow.
I think I'll send all of them using the web site I used for the Maine shots.

Ron

Laumier Jaunt for Saturday May 13

Click On Map For Enlarged View!

A lovely jaunt with all the major hills of the 79 mile ride, with all the coffee stops, ending at Laumeir Park for the Art Festival. If we leave my house at 9:00 am, then we should be able to get to the art festival about 3:00 pm, with an hour or so for coffee stops along the way. This assumes a 15 mph pace. The distance 74 miles.

Saturday May 13 Ride

I think Roark is busy with mothersday activities this weekend. Lets get out there anyway. There is a Lewis and Clark "Departure Days" bicycle ride and recumbent rally or we can plan our own ride. There is the hilly babler ride or the ride to six flags with the hilly loop on the other side of highway 44.