Rodman Ride for Kids

About two weeks ago I was approached at work by another bike commuter. Apparently a few Staples employees put together a team for the Rodman Ride for Kids; one of the original four riders couldn't make it now and they needed one more rider to complete the team. I was told we would be doing the century ride and that the money was already raised so all I had to do was say yes.

Then at the last minute we were told that Susan's (one of the original riders) weekend was freed up so she could join us for the ride. However this meant that we now needed to raise and additional $750 for the fifth member of our team. Susan came up with a great idea of "donuts for dollars" and with just a dozen donuts raised over $250. The rest of us reached out to co-workers and others and altogether we raised another $1,000; this put the team Staples total contribution at over $5,000!

The ride itself was much slower than my normal pace which was a little hard for me to deal with at first; but it was a nice day, I was on my bike, and we raised a lot of money for a good charity. How hard could it really be? The Rodman team knows how to support their riders; the century had 5 water stops at the 20, 40, 60, 80 and 90 mile marks; each with tons of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, Gatorade, water and more. The volunteers were all very enthusiastic and helpful and the route was well thought out with a lot of nice views.

So our ride time for the day was 6:06, not too bad since we were riding with some novice riders on "comfort" bikes. However they did require a lot of time at each stop, so our total time for the event was over 8 hours.

The only complaint for the day was that by time we got in, the BBQ had packed up and left! I guess that's ok, I didn't really need the ribs anyway...