Moab Moutain Bike Ride

I've always wanted to go to Moab, Ut to ride my mountain bike. I use to mountain bike a lot more a few years ago. I absolutely loved it, but life changes and the things you love to do sometimes get pushed to the side. I'm working on bringing and keeping the things I like to do back into my life.

So after 2 days of road bike riding.. Subrina and I were excited to go with Terry and Jill mountain biking. Jill found us a nice easy trail.. beautiful surroundings, easy trails for us non-experts.

When road biking, I get on my bike and pedal, pedal, pedal. Not a lot of technical skills are required, at least for the type of riding I'm doing. On the mountain bike, you have to think about what line to take, the different type of terrain, the ups and downs.. how am I suppose to position my body so I don't go over my handlebars? Yeah didn't have that down because I did this..

I'm pretty sure that what I looked like as I was going over my handlebars.

After I took a header, my friends thought it was a good idea to have a reinactment. However, it wasn't a true reinactment because my bike had actually bounced off my back and ended up about 5 feet away from me and I'm pretty sure I wasn't smiling. So after getting that out of the way within our first 20 minutes of riding, I was as confident as could be continuing on with the day. Yeah right! Nonetheless, we still did have a great time.

Terry

Subrina

We were exhausted!

It's the simple things that make Subrina happy.

Last day of Skinny Tire weekend

Ride days are over.. now we get to sit and enjoy each others company.

Enjoying the view

Subrina and I enjoying an adult beverage

Candi and Christine

Maria and Subrina being silly

Jamie and I waiting for our beer sampler

A toast to Katy and a thanks for bringing us together

Ride to Dead Horse Point

All afternoon and the night before, everybody kept looking at the the climbing we would be doing. Stressing, complaining, stressing.. finally we said people!!.. there's no getting out of it so let's just enjoy this time we have together.. because after the climbing tomorrow we don't know what kind of shape you'll be in :)

Candi, Jamie, Christine, Subrina and I decided to do the 44 mile ride, instead of the 67 miles like Roseanna and Maria. Yeah the 44 miles was plenty for us "non-climbers". But the view was absolutely worth it! And to those gals who haven't been riding any hills.. 2 mile, 8% grade was a heck of an accomplishment. Enjoy the pics from along the way.

Me, Jamie, Christine & Subrina before we started up the hill.

Candi.. I did it!

Subrina, Jamie and Chrisine.. making up the hill.

Subrina really does think she's a superstar

Jamie still smiling

I'm smiling thinking of the downhill we're about to do.

Team KatyStrong at the top of Dead Horse Point

Festival Celebration

After our ride on Saturday we all showered up and went to the Festival celebration. There was food, guest speakers, live music, adult beverages, but what I enjoyed the most was meeting new people. Ames is in her survirship from Ovarian cancer. Last year her friends rode for her, and this year she rode for herself. Way to go Ames!

Brett is a 3 time survivor of three different types of cancer, he kicked peoples butts up the hills!

Team KatyStrong was the top team fundraiser, raising just over $3,800 for the livestrong foundation. Thank you all for your support.

Ride along Colorado River

Our first day was a flat 38 mile out and back along the Colorado river. It was a fun ride, here are some pics from along the way.

Subrina and Maria

Jamie, Christine & Candi

Jamie and I

Christine, Jamie, Maria, Candi & Subrina

Morning of Day 1 Ride

All of us were excited for today. We got up early for coffee talk, which is always my favorite part of the day, we ate breakfast and then.. we looked at the tempature, it was 25 at 7:00 am we were hoping that it would warm up to at least 70 for our start time at 9, what.. we could hope :) Needless to say it was 28 when we left this morning, my goodness that was cold.

Subrina didn't want to get out of the car.

The Wall of Honor was a board that had pictures of people who are battling cancer and people who haven't been so fortunate. There was a lot of love in the room for all the friends and family on the wall.

They had baloons that people got to write messages on to their loved ones. It was a way to let go of some of the feelings we all had. Before the ride started we had a moment of silence and they released them.

Team KatyStrong, Maria, me, Christine, Jamie, Candi and Subrina.

Road trip to Moab

Ok so we decided to stay in Vegas to break up the long drive to Moab, Ut. We got up early Friday morning and were on the road by 9:00am! That is extremely early leaving the town of sin. But Candi, Subrina, Jamie, Christine and I were all aware of our goal for the morning so we were in at a reasonable time the night before.


How many hours to Moab from Vegas? Only 6 1/2 hours.. we figure maybe 7 since we're pulling the trailer. Uuummm yeah, traffice, a few restroom breaks, a stop for lunch and a mere 9 hours later we rolled into Moab. It was one of the longest drives ever.. luckily for us Maria and Roseanna were coming from Colorado, which really did only 6 1/2 hours. So by the time we arrived at the condo they had dinner ready. Thank you Maria and Roseanna!

Packing up..

Who would have thought having to pack 6 bikes would create such a production. We decided to rent a u-haul for our bikes. We figured since we are staying overnight in Vegas we wanted our bikes to be safe.. didn't want anybody to see them and hock them for gambling money. Thank goodness for Subrina, because we needed to turn our moving u-haul into a bike caring u-haul. Here's some pics from her building a home for our bikes.

Hmm.. how many bikes and bags do we need to fit?

Oh yeah, I got this!

Yep sparks.. she's cutting a metal bar that will hold the bikes.

Idea! I'll make a bike bar

Oh and a shelf ..

My contribution :)

Custom bars, custom shelf, swim noodles for protection, custom bike bar and whola.. we now have a home for our bikes, thanks Subrina you're the best!

Shirts are in!

Subrina had this idea to get shirts made with the slogan Got Ovaries? get checked. With the sale of the shirt we've attached informational cards and the Courage wristbands. We hope people will ask what's that shirt say? What does that mean? The proceeds will be going towards the "Katy McKenzie Scholarship Fund" at American River College, where Katy coached and was assistant Atheletic Director.

We sold our first 2 shirts last night, Shell and Aimee wore them proudly.

Last training day apart..

We're all so glad the days of training apart are over, well at least for this ride it is. :)
Here are some pics of the gals from all over.

Maria in beautiful Colorado

Candi and Subrina in Fresno

Jamie in San Mateo (Christine missing because she's taking pic)

Me in Huntington Beach

1 week!

This time next week we'll be half way to Moab, Ut for our ride. It seems just like yesterday that we were talking to Katy about doing this ride and how cool it's going to be for her to be there with us. We were all sitting around the firepit, with an open window to the bedroom so Katy could share in the smokey, smelly good times with us :)

It's been an emotional week for all of us, talking about it, remembering what our last year and a half has been like. I want, we all want to remember the good times with Katy and to carry on her love for life. So with that thought.. we head out to Moab, UT with a pitstop in Vegas baby!!I'm sure Katy would want us to have a little fun before we ride.

Inspirational

Last week I came across this blog about Laurey (www.laureybikes.blogspot.com). She is going to ride from San Diego, Ca to St Augustine, Fl, 3,098 miles cross country to raise awareness for Ovarian Cancer.

I wanted to meet her and congratulate her on her survivorship. Laurey Masterton is a 20 year survivor of Ovarian Cancer. As I was talking to her, I was also fortunate enough to meet Peg Ford, who is a 2 year survivor. How great it was to meet people that have beaten this disease. I don't think people realize that when detected and treated early, the five year survival rate is greater than 90%. (http://www.ovariancancer.org/)

Meeting these women and knowing they've survived because of early detection helps to motivate and continue our attempts about helping to break the silence.