A Post From Mark About Sunday April 2

Who wants to ride on Sunday morning from Kaldi's in Chesterfield valley. We can do the Babler Ride. Let's plan on leaving Kaldi's by 9:00. Don't forget it is Daylight Savings Time so 9:00 will be an hour earlier this Sunday. Be there for breakfast around 8:00.

Mark

Saturday April 1st Ride Option With Alan

Alan is riding again. He is riding out of Columbia Il, this Saturday. I can't join him because of my team ride, but if your interested give him a call.

Roark

Saturdays Ride April 1st

Folks,

You know I am doing my MS 150 first team training ride this Saturday April 1st. My thoughts are, if any of you are interested to ride to the starting point from my house. The starting point is the Lewis & Clark center at the confluence. Its about 23 miles from my house to the confluence. This makes for a relatively flat 66 mile ride. I need to be to the start about 9:30, so we would need to leave my house at 7:30. If your interested in riding with me, let me know.


We have space reserved at My Just Desserts for lunch.

Good news for those of you who liked last years jersey. I am working with the graphic artist again. Our theme is cycling along the Mississippi. We have already received commitment for slots, from sponsors for a subsidy of $40 per jersey, up to a maximum of 35 jerseys. Two slots are still open.

April 1st DRS Team Training Ride

April 1st DRS Team Training Ride

Once again I will be leading the company sponsored team, I am a glutten for punishment. DRS did up their donation. I have planned the first of the season team training ride on Saturday April 1st. I have copied below information from the email I sent out to my team.

Everyone is welcome to join us. If your interested in longer miles, there is the possibility of starting from my house at 7:30 am and riding out to the Confluence to meet the group. Afterward we all ride back to my house. Since I plan to bring Joseph and a friend, I have to first make sure they get a ride to the start point, before I can ride from my house.

The ride is meant to be kid and spouse friendly. We currently have about fifteen showing interest

From the email:

The ride will be approximately 20 miles round trip. The terrain will be mostly flat, traveling the levee tops along the bike trail from the Missouri & Mississippi Confluence to Alton and Back. We will have lunch at “My Just Deserts” in Alton; plan on some great pie. This will be an easy ride to help get everyone back onto their bikes.

Please RSVP as soon as you can, so I can reserve enough space at “My Just Deserts” for our group. You’re welcome to invite friends, whether or not the friend is considering the MS 150.

We will be starting at 10 am from the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center near Hartford, Illinois show on the map below. You can plan to visit the museum before or after the ride. We will meet in the parking lot. The map below shows the location of our start at the intersection of New Poag Rd and Highway 3. If you want more information about the museum

http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/section1/illinoiscities/Woodriver/interpretivecenter.htm

The new Confluence Tower might be open, plan to visit.

http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/section1/illinoiscities/towers.htm

Saturday March 25 - Sunday March 26

GONE TO CINCINNATI !

RIDE!

HAVE FUN!

DO IT WITHOUT ME!

ROARK

Ride For Saturday May 11th

Looking ahead to this Saturday, if it doesn't rain, the weather looks to be excellent, no tights!

So here is my thought, a city ride with some hills thrown in! We will loop through Clayton, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, The Hill, Soulard, Riverfront, Downtown, and Forest Park. Tentative start time 10 am from my house.

Some of the hills to keep building on last week include:

The climb from N Ballas up West Adams into Kirkwood.

We will tour the Hill to climb a Hill

Lastly don't forget that lovely short climb up Washington Ave from the Riverfront

Ride This Saturay March 4th

Time for the first ride in March (ok John and I already got ours on March 1). My thought, lets start training for Colorado. I still have that extra hilly route into St. Albans on my PC. We can start from Kaldis in Chesterfield Valley at 10 am.

Roark

Lets Ride Saturday Feb 24th

Folks,

The weather bird whispered:

Feb 25 Saturday
Plenty of sun. Highs in the low 50s and lows in the low 20s.

That translates into lets ride! I have two routes planned but never used, the Heather Hills with Grants Trail Route, and the new extra Hilly St. Albans Route.

Let me hear from you if you want to ride this Saturday, and which route is prefered.

Roark

With the thought everyone has been off their bikes for too long, lets plan on a city ride. The Holly Hills with Grants Trail Loop I described a few posts back. If your coming, plan on my house at 10 am. This puts us in range to hook Mike on about 11:00 am. We will skirt around Soulard.

Roark

ITS COLD OUTSIDE

GONE SKIING!

See ya all with warmer weather next weekend!

Rooms for MS150

Folks,

A heads up, I reserved my usual block of 20 rooms at the Midway Budget in for Check in September 8, and check out September 10. You can wait to get your room from the block, or better reserve a room now outside the block. That way there can be more of us staying at the hotel. If you want to reserve a room now the number is 573-445-9565.

Ride?

Ok, we haven't been able to ride the last two Saturdays due to rain. Here is the good news, rain is not predicted for next Saturday, the bad news is a high of only 37 degrees is predicted. So I leave it up to your input, on when, how, and where we ride. Options include a ride starting out at Babler with Hills that John emailed. Other choices include either of our last two weekends cancelled rides. That would be the hilly route into St. Albans or the city loop that does Holly Hills and Grants Trail.

Saturdays Ride - Jan 28

Time to think of Saturdays ride. Thought we might mix the terrain a bit, with the Holly Hills Loop. We should be able to get in 40-50 miles. Some city flat miles, changing to a few hills as we climb up Holly Hills and head to Webster. Of course we can get in two coffee stops. Let me know your thoughts.


See comments for more details!

Official Start Time at My House 10 am for Saturday's Ride.

Holly Hills to Grants Trail Link...if we ride

Bike Tour of Colorado

Mark, Roark, Ron, (and Dan)

I have Dan and Nick's applications and money for the BTC, so we are half way on the 6. I just need to be able to hook up with the three of you Saturday. I was thinking before / after the ride Roark is proposing at Roark's house? If you are not doing the Saturday ride let me know, because we need to hook up somewhere. Mark if you'e not riding, maybe you can get something to Roark Friday? Ron, if you're not riding maybe I can see you Satuday after the ride? (ASAP).

I think I have now been converted to a hotel guy. Roark seems to have a pretty good plan. I'm willing to go all 5 of us in one room too. I think it won't be too bad, and it will be cheaper too. We will still wind up with 2 days of camping, which should be the right amount of fun too.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with NONE of the meal plans. I spoke to Nick, the guy who is our number 6 who did it last year, and he is not getting any meal plan either. Last year he did the dinner plan. He said it was good, but you didn't have much choice (you ate what they cooked), and it was a touch pricy. I think if we aren't out on the road forever (up early), we should be into camp in time to find a restaurant for dinner before the crouds are too bad. I think this way we will get more of the local flavor / variety. I'm sure we can wing it on lunch (but have power bars just in case). And I think breakfast we can wing it too, but it should be even easier if we are at some hotels. Even if we need to go the pop-tarts and instant oatmeal (and a microwave) route, I'm sure breakfast will work itself out. But I'm really thinking we'll find some restaurants in the towns before we head out, or maybe even things at the hotels.

That's about it for now. Call me if you need to work out a meeting place. 314-239-6229

Mike

Saturday Jan 21st Ride

Folks,

Its time to start thinking of riding this Saturday. Unfortunately, my wife is working and I can't abandon the kidlets all day Saturday. I was thinking about a short 20-25 mile loop starting from my house. Of course there will be time for some coffee. I could just break off at some point from a longer ride and head home.

Now for future considerations I have been working on a new Hill Training Ride into St. Albans. It looks to be VERY hilly.

Sunday's Ride

We haven't even made it till Saturdays ride, but the question is about Sunday.

I will be spinning with Cheri & Brain on Sunday Morning. I assume Mark will be joining us as well. That said I can ride in the afternoon, everyone at my house is out. If the weather is bad Saturday my plan is to move Saturday's ride till Sunday say at noon. If the Saturday ride goes off, then I plan an easy ride of some unknown flat route Sunday.

Roark

Start Time For Saturday's Ride

We need a start time for Saturdays ride. Since no one has suggested one, I am, 10 am. The start point is of course my house. We will be heading to the Chain of Rocks Bridge and back. We will either do the out and back option via downtown St. Louis, or loop out back via Bellfontaine neighborhood, using Johns route. If we ride out and back its flat. If we loop though Bellfontaine there will be some hills the last part of the ride. Not to worry I know coffee shops for both route options. Either way, figure about 50 miles.

Roark

PS: Based on Mikes request to find an alternative to the riverfront trail over to the Chain of Rockes Bridge I have consulted Google Earth. The route to follow is from Washington Ave - > N on Leonard K Sullivan -> W on Biddle Street -> N on North 1st Street -> W on North Market Street -> N on North Broadway -> East on East Grand Ave -> North on Hall Street -> East on Riverview Drive -> Down to Chain of Rocks Bridge

PSS: Some Zig - Zagging might be needed, no telling how good the roads are in industrial sections of North St. Louis

.

I thought that I would try to map out our route on Mappoint. I've also included the written version. This is pretty close to the route we took. (Mike and Roark can correct any of my errors.) It shows 47.5 miles. I logged 50.0.....pretty close. I've put it in a 'photo album' so it's on a web site. We may even be able to use this type for upcoming rides since you can print the pictures for the turn by turn directions.

Cheri

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/clopatin/album?.dir=/cf33&.src=ph&.tok=phftBREBKlWstsak

Weekend (1/14/06 - 1/15/06) ride(s)

Thought that I would start a new string of blogs to discuss this weekend's rides. Anyone have anything in mind? Sat is supposed to be rain. Sun is supposed to be sunny with high of 45. Should be eagles at Old Chain of Rocks Bridge if interested in that route.

Cheri

Sunday Ride January 8th

Folks,

I thought instead of all those emails, we would just blog our weekly rides, and our coffee shop evaluations. So this is it, the first post.

Just for the record, Sunday was a good day for riding. I spun with Mark, from 9 am - 10 am.

We all set out from my house at 11:30 am for a hilly St. Charles loop of 39 miles. We had eight riders; the only ones I knew though were Mike, Ron, Dan, Brian, and myself. I don't lead rides without a coffee stop, so we tried the Crooked Tree Coffee House at 559 1st Capitol Drive in St Charles.

The food was good, and even better they had eight types of coffee. I only got to try four flavors before I over caffeinated, choclaterazzmatazz will have to wait till next time. Service was a bit slow, but I thought the food was alright. We finished back at my house with 39 miles.

I might be crazy but that ride wasn't enough, Cheri gave me a call, that with temperatures hovering about seventy degrees, she wanted her chance to ride once Brian got home. Off I want again with the caveat, that my legs were worn out. With lights blinking in the rear, and headlights lighting the front I put in another 13 or 14 miles.

Just so you know we have only begun to try each and every one of the St. Louis regions indepdant coffee stops.

Roark