Questions and Answers

Its been about two weeks since my last post and I have had a lot of questions about my RAGBRAI ride. I'll get to some of those in a moment, but first, an update on my training.

Today I did my longest ride yet. I covered 70 miles in a little less than 4 hours touring through the southeast Iowa towns of Birmingham, Stockport, Lockridge, Brighton and back to Fairfield. Rain threatened the first couple of hours but after that, it was real nice. As Lance might say, it was a good day in the saddle. My legs, lungs and heart felt great. Most important though, my saddle felt pretty good. I'm up over 400 training miles now and about halfway through my minimum training goal. Now on to some questions:

What kind of bike do you ride? As you can see by the picture, I ride a Trek 2200 road bike. It is made out of high alloy aluminum and carbon fiber. The wheel sets and tires are made by a German company named Bontrager and the mechanical components are made by a Japanese company named Shimano. The most important part of the bike is my saddle. It is made by an Italian company named Fizik (pronounced "physique") and I am starting to get real comfortable in it. My bike weighs about 19 pounds. Trek has made the world's best bicycles for over 30 years including every bicycle rode by Lance Armstrong during his seven Tour de France wins. I wear cycling clothes by Pearl Izumi including shoes with cleats that lock into the pedals and gel padded gloves to absorb road shock. And of course, I wear a helmet, made by Bell.

What do you think about when you ride? Work, friends, family, how much I am going to enjoy a cold beer when I get off the bike. Today I thought about many of the people I know battling cancer. I thought about my cousin Diane who is doing great and starting to put cancer in her rear view mirror. I thought about Julia Burt, a close family friend who is fighting a tough bout with cancer. She has just finished up a very aggressive schedule of chemotherapy. Julie, you are in our prayers and we think of you often. I thought about the Dexter Apache employees who right now are battling cancer. You guys are in our hearts and prayers. And I smiled when I thought about our survivors. Continue to LIVESTRONG you guys!

What route are your riding in RAGBRAI? The route and everything else you would want to know about RAGBRAI can be found at www.ragbrai.org.

What can you tell me about the Lance Armstrong Foundation? Everything you need to know can be found at www.livestrong.org.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the LAF on behalf of my ride. Your generosity is overwhelming. Keep your support coming and remember, either Dexter Apache Holdings, Inc. or myself will personally match all donations.

Check back in a week or so for my next post.

Until then, go for a ride, just for the health of it.

See you down the road,

Pat

P.S. Thanks to all the riders and walkers who participated in Dexter Apache's first "bike to work Friday". I'll see all of you and hopefully more next Friday.