JDRF goes to Lopez Island - April 2008

On April 26th, nine riders from our team did the Tour de Lopez on Lopez Island. It was a blast!!!

It started out early by leaving Issaquah at 5:30am. We caught the 8:45am ferry in Anacortes along with hundreds of other riders then completed the 31 mile course - of course with smiles on our faces.

A very successful ride for all - and an amazing story from Gayle about her blowout two miles before the finish line!

Once we relaxed and enjoyed the wonderful BBQ, a short 4.5 mile ride back to the ferry dock.

Hope more can join us next year - a wonderful time had by all.

Liz & Elaine in Chelan

Liz and Elaine enjoyed some needed sunshine on a recent weekend spring ride in Lake Chelan.

Meet the JDRF NW Team Ronan Group!

The Ronan Montana Group Kick Off party was a hit on March 14th. Anna Marie Leafty, the Ronan Group Leader, and Joe Piedalue and John Azzopardi all got in a great evening bike ride before sitting down to an awesome lasagna dinner at the Leafty house. The "progressive dinner" continued with an outstanding apple crisp dessert at the Piedalue home.

Training and fundraising is off and spinning in Montana! More updates from this group soon.

Jeremy's Big Adventure

the ride was fun. we ended up not riding the entire way. it starts in san diego with 2 bent derailleur hangers (thanks, UPS) a faulty freewheel hub, and a broken chain with no extra chain parts (oops). we rode into l.a. the first day (night, actually). when we rode up to the apartment we were staying at my buddy's brake pad fell off. we slept and woke up to ride to breakfast with friends and his chain broke again. i held on to one end of the chain and he to the other to tow him through hollywood. that was fun. we got to a bike shop and the guy could fix the brake pad and chain, but nothing for me. we caught a ride across the city to santa monica where the performance bike shop had the part i needed. of course at this point it was 12:30 and we were running out of daylight. the friend that drove us to the bike shop wanted to go see friends in santa barbara, so we caught a ride up there with her. we woke up in the morning and pedalled into santa maria - that wasa great day for riding. ocean breezes, some good hills, great views. i got a flat 3 miles out of santa maria. a big piece of glass cut my tire almost in half (an armadillo tire at that even). we bought a new tire at a bike shop 5 minutes before they closed and went out for dinner. the next day we rode in to san luis obispo and decided to take mass transit the rest of the way since we had to meet a friend in san fran and it would have been almost impossible to make it on time given our speed and fun issues. all in all it was a really fun trip. lessons learned; only do 50 mile days when touring (85+ is rough), have rest days, and don't count on travelling at your regular speed.