Bike MS: Best Dam Bike Tour

Coming up the weekend of August 1-2, Katie and I have decided to participate in the Bike MS bike ride. The tour kicks off Saturday in Pewaukee and rides 75 miles to Whitewater continuing on Sunday to Madison. We will be at a family reunion Saturday, but we will meet up with the group in Whitewater Saturday night and head out sunday morning for the final 75 miles trip.

Neither of us have ever biked this far, so that in itself will be an adventure! I think it will be a great experience though. I am also pretty stoked to stay in the Whitewater dorms on Saturday night and walk to downtown just like back in the day!

Katie and I both know people who have personally been affected by MS, so we see the importance of doing what we can to find a cure and help the lives of those people. We are both fundraising trying to raise $300 each. If you’d like to help either of us out, the links are attached below:

Greg’s Page: http://bikewig.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=6920009&pg=personal&fr_id=9802

Katie’s Page: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=6946852&pg=personal&fr_id=9802

Between the 2 Triathlons coming up in the next few weeks, I’ll be putting in as much mileage as I can to prepare for this. Should be a fun rest of the month! Thanks for your support!

Tuning up for the Triathlon

The Saturday after my flat tire, I set out with Katie to ride the Oal Leaf Trail from the Milwaukee County Sports Complex West. We didn’t really have a goal in mind, but just wanted to get a solid ride in on a beautiful Saturday morning. This is definitely my favorite path right now given the fact that it is very scenic and fairly new so the path is nice and smooth. We took the path all the way to Whitnall Park and then continued west to Grange Ave. and back. Total we biked 14.25 miles in about an 1:15.

I had a little hiatis last week from biking for a few days and focused on running for the Triathlon. I wanted to give it ones big push before tapering off for the Door County Triatlon on July 18th. I didn’t bike until Thursday, but planned on doing a “brick” to get my biking/running transition down to a comfortable level.

FLAT TIRE!

On my way home on June 23rd, I had the unfortunate experience of my first flat tire. It made me realize that I really need to learn how to do basic maintenance on my bike for future occurances since it is more than likely to happen again. The good news is that my CO2 cartridge was ready and worked perfectly! Once I inflated the tire, I could hear that there was a leak somewhere, but after looking over the tire, I couldn’t locate it. By this time the 95 degree weather may have been getting to me a little bit.

Lucky for me, I was within a mile of South Shore Cyclery which is the store that I get most of my work done. I took it there and 10 minutes later the bike was good as new! It also was a good reminder that I need to pick up a spare tube in the event of a flat during a race.

So 2.5 hours after I left work to head home, I finally made it. Probably not the safest day to be biking given the heat, but I survived it. I went home and pretty much crashed on the couch the rest of the night. Yeesh!