This year I'm doing a video report of our Seattle to Portland 2-day, 200+ mile bike ride. Be gentle with my experimentation in movie making and spelling skills, and if you have not donated already please consider supporting this ride, by making your contributions here.
I have shared the pictures of ride here.
Showing posts with label stp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stp. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Sponsor my ride - help a cause!!
Every year I do the Seattle to Portland bike ride as a part of fund raiser. Next weekend I will be testifying my bike + butt endurance skills for 202 miles between Seattle and Portland. If you are interested in supporting Asha for Education and it’s cause of bringing change through education in India please support my ride by pledging and donating here. One of very personally gratifying things I was able to do with support of Asha was to help sponsor a school for hearing impaired back in my home town.
Enjoy the long weekend and happy Independence day.
Enjoy the long weekend and happy Independence day.
Monday, July 16, 2007
STP2007 and a new bicyclist!!
Wow~ this weekend was awesome STP weekend!! The 206 miles to portland where really fun and amazing. Maris actually finished it in style almost doubling her bicycling lifetime career miles!! The first leg until seward park was a little sketchy as Maris constantly complained about her arms and i was a little worried if we can make it! But the fast stretch from Seward park to kent convinced me about athletic abilities of Ms. first time biker on a brand new unridden K2 whirlwind! We took all the designated stops and tried to sample the un-impressive STP food. I almost wished i packed some stuff but unfortunately the food on the ride was so good in previous years that i didnt feel like carrying weight. This year was a disappointment not only in terms of quality but also the limited food!
After meeting our whole group of Wheels of Change riders at the REI stop we continued and kept meeting our fellow fund-raisers until Centralia - the official midpoint. It was amazing to see such a hugh group ride great and keep a good pace!
The 7 miles from Centralia to our camp site in Chehalis were quick. After arriving there at 7 we found that we had less than an hour to get food and take a shower so without ado we got on it! Too bad that we didnt have enough time to enjoy the swimming pool of this amazing town. At about 9pm we set up out tents and then pulled our mats out to enjoy the dawn lying on the grass it felt amazing!!
Next morning we started our ride to Portland at about 7:00am (even though the original plan was 6am ;),...). We kept a very decent pace and my about 10:30am we were at the lunch stop and met up with other riders from our group. Unfortunately one of the riders Arvind had to stop due to knee pain but man! he was a tough guy to make it all the way to 145th mile, even though he was not feeling that great!
After almost an hour+ lunch stop and a little treatment to Maris' hurting knee we scurried to get to the Lewis Clark bridge so that we can enter Oregan! and if nothing else just make a ride from Seattle to Oregan!! The passage over the bridge was a little spoky as my metal water bottle came off and almost hit a rider on a recliner. The dude was really mad at me, i feel sorry especially since we met up with this guy on and off on the ride and he kept cheering us up as well as our fundraising cause! Well i did talk to him at finish line and apologize - stupid me i bought a useless metal water bottle...
After the food stop at St. Helens Maris' biking confidence and almost exponentially increased and we entered the finish line almost keeping up a constant 20mph pace in around 2 hours! It was really awesome to see almost all of the team to enter the finishe line with strength and compassion for the cause.
Now its time for doing more of Change!, please contribute your little towards Asha's cause and support our ride.
After meeting our whole group of Wheels of Change riders at the REI stop we continued and kept meeting our fellow fund-raisers until Centralia - the official midpoint. It was amazing to see such a hugh group ride great and keep a good pace!
The 7 miles from Centralia to our camp site in Chehalis were quick. After arriving there at 7 we found that we had less than an hour to get food and take a shower so without ado we got on it! Too bad that we didnt have enough time to enjoy the swimming pool of this amazing town. At about 9pm we set up out tents and then pulled our mats out to enjoy the dawn lying on the grass it felt amazing!!
Next morning we started our ride to Portland at about 7:00am (even though the original plan was 6am ;),...). We kept a very decent pace and my about 10:30am we were at the lunch stop and met up with other riders from our group. Unfortunately one of the riders Arvind had to stop due to knee pain but man! he was a tough guy to make it all the way to 145th mile, even though he was not feeling that great!
After almost an hour+ lunch stop and a little treatment to Maris' hurting knee we scurried to get to the Lewis Clark bridge so that we can enter Oregan! and if nothing else just make a ride from Seattle to Oregan!! The passage over the bridge was a little spoky as my metal water bottle came off and almost hit a rider on a recliner. The dude was really mad at me, i feel sorry especially since we met up with this guy on and off on the ride and he kept cheering us up as well as our fundraising cause! Well i did talk to him at finish line and apologize - stupid me i bought a useless metal water bottle...
After the food stop at St. Helens Maris' biking confidence and almost exponentially increased and we entered the finish line almost keeping up a constant 20mph pace in around 2 hours! It was really awesome to see almost all of the team to enter the finishe line with strength and compassion for the cause.
Now its time for doing more of Change!, please contribute your little towards Asha's cause and support our ride.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Support my 206 mile journey to Portland
I’m really thrilled to see our team grow from 5 folks 2 years before to 15 this year!! This year being my third year in the Saddle I would love if you join me in the ride to make a small difference. The first year was grueling and I was sore for few days, the second I stuck in and finished the ride, this year I’m trying to enjoy it and have Maris attempt it!! Hopefully I will be able to keep up with the Marathoner!
Donate per mile or donate in kind! Support my ride!!!
Donate per mile or donate in kind! Support my ride!!!
Monday, July 17, 2006
STP 2006 Story
Myself, Leonard and Murari set to do the 206.2 miles STP in a day this year. We were doing pretty ok but lost a bunch of time owing to late start, broken seat replacement and slowing a little after midpoint. The accumulation put us to finish the ride probably an hour or so after sunset. We didnt want to be un-safe so made a decision to stop at 155th mile with about two hours of sunset left. Myself and Murari came back to start at the same point and finished the ride in about another 3 and half hours, Leonard had a commitment on sunday so couldnt come back to finish it. I was glad to join Raji, Sudarshan and Vijay at the finish line on Sunday. It was fun ride both days with weather being audaciously generous!
You can find our cyclysm details at http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=1061962, thanks to Murari's awesome GPS!!
There were some tough decision we made on our day of ride. We wanted to be safe more than anything but on hindsight it seems that if we would have kept going we could have definately made it. When i went to portland to pick our bags up, I saw people finishing the ride until 11:00pm and many of those who finished at 10:30pm we had left behind. But sure having a better speed would have give us more confidence to go for it.!! My climbing mentor Ed would have so called this as the "Sahalee Clusterfuck", two times in a row they were so close to peak of sahalee but couldnt do it for some reason or other, but hey alteast we did it!!!
Check out the more pics at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/wheelsofchange2006/
Monday, July 18, 2005
The Asha Tags!
The original plans was to have two tags "Wheels of Change" and "Asha - working for education of underprivileged children in India" but in a days notice Raji could just get "Asha" lovely organge tags and she had to literally burn mid-nights oil for this.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
An Ode to STP 2005 bikers
I'm impressed by Raji's ability and peotic talent here is the sampler:
‘Twas early on a Saturday morn,
That 5 brave bikers wound their way,
Six and ten score miles they rode,
Into Portland to make their foray.
Thro’ sun and rain and wind and gale,
Over hill and valley and plain and dale,
A flat tire here, a torn tube there,
Survive they did, many a scare!
Read their saga in the thread below
(Actually it’s just a picture slideshow)
And if you’re inspired to do similar feats
Go grab your bikes, put on those cleats!
‘So, what’s next?!’, you may impatiently ask
Well, if you haven’t guessed it yet
This weekend is when we will start
Training for STP 2006, you bet! :-)
Watch out for more info in Friday’s mail
On the ride we will take on this time
(And I’ll stick to prose instead of verse
And spare you the pain of my corny rhyme!) J
-Raji (B-)
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Drafting Joy!!
One of the arts i learnt on STP is drafting. Its almost true that laziness is mother of invention. Drafting is biking close to the biker in front of you at speeds above 15mph so that you get the advantage of not having to deal with wind resistance, it saves almost 30-40 percent energy in bad winds. This is what the brids who fly in flocks achieve.
Almost half of the STP I was drafting ;). Lazy guy!- but hej wait i did pull the draft for quite a sometime too once for about 5-6 miles with a duplex and other time with a batch of MSN search chick team.
In this pic i'm drafting in a very cool bunch. While passing a biker the puller would always say - "on your left and five ugly guys behind" :).
Almost half of the STP I was drafting ;). Lazy guy!- but hej wait i did pull the draft for quite a sometime too once for about 5-6 miles with a duplex and other time with a batch of MSN search chick team.
In this pic i'm drafting in a very cool bunch. While passing a biker the puller would always say - "on your left and five ugly guys behind" :).
WheelsOfChange-STP2005-team
After 13 hours of strenous biking and just about equal time of picniking, partying, slacking and rambling we completed the 206 miles from Seattle to Portland in two days for July 9 and 10th :).
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