Adventure for a cause

The Bubba Ride 2013 started off as a slow and intimidating endeavor.  2000 feet of climbing over 2.25 miles just to use a trail to get to the Bay Ridge Trail initiated us to the challenge that laid ahead of us.  However, difficult the climbing, technicality of the trail or steepness of the the decent, we realized that it paled in comparison to what Bubba has been dealing with for the last 8 months.
I couldn't have imagined to have taken on this challenge with someone so passionate about people and life as Sergio.  He displayed his versatility with a wide range of skill sets that allowed us to be as successful as possible on this adventure.
The Bay Ridge Trail provided a beautiful backdrop to our event.  The diversity of individuals we interacted with, different biomes, and wide range of weather.  Certainly we had some interesting camping situations based on the previous factors.
I would like to thank my wife and family for providing the opportunity to complete this adventure.  Our thoughts were with Bubba throughout this event.  The recognition of what happened to John Dunbar certainly had an impact on us.   Rest in Peace Mike Pace and thank you for sharing some fun times with me.

BubbaRide 2013 completed, first post

Sorry for the long delay in telling everyone how the event turned out.  I may break this up into a few posts.

This first post I will give some basic details an overview, then future posts will be a little more detail for each day.

First of all, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! To everyone that supported, sponsored, donated and rode with me!  Infinit Nutrition, AsMasters, Livestrong, Rays Bike Lights and the Local Bike Shops that support us on all these endeavors.

OK so some details:
We raised $1880.00 so far, there is a little more being collected from the Auction but we will likely be at $1930 +/-  AWESOME!

We rode 315 +/- miles
Climbed 34,140 feet
slept under redwoods, on a futon, on the side of the road, in a homeless encampment and in a nice hotel
some of the other data is hard to read, because I'm sure we didn't hit 93 mph like it says, and we may have forgotten to stop and start recording a few times.  If you zoom in on the loop, you can see the many wrong turns, dead ends etc, and if you look very carefully you might even notice where we might have had to jump a fence or two...
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/344933645#.Uel_Nyqng5A.email

Some photos were posted on my facebook page Livestrong Album and I believe Robert will have several on his pages as well.

More to come.

• Thanks to Tom "Bubba" Ray Bryan for allowing us to use his name as an excuse to do something like this, he's doing so well, the pancreatic cancer is shrinking, the hernia is repaired and he is in Leadville supporting all of our friends for the Trail races. 
• I'd like to send a shout out to Glenn Knight and his family, he's recovering in a hospital after his cancer has been operated, another trooper that will make it through like a champ.  
• I'd like to send some love to Shelley, be strong, your mom will be fine and will be in the ranks of all these survivors.  
• Robert Tuma, thanks for being there with me on this ride, you too are one incredibly strong survivor!  
• On a slightly sad note, during our ride, we lost an inspiration of a man, John Dunbar, however, that man went out like a champ ALS did not win, he outran it to the last second...you will be missed but you will be an inspiration to many.
• Thanks to my lovely wife Liz for always supporting these crazy ideas.

Peace

Livestrong Fundraiser and recent news

So several things have happened recently, all very cool.  Infinit Nutrition came on board to support us as our nutrition sponsor and 6 bags of nutrition 1 bag of Mud, a coffee infused with protein mixes arrived

.  I called a light manufacturer to get some info on new advances in lights, when I was contacted by a gentleman who was assisting them while they were short handed.  This turned into a great conversation and next thing you know we have his product AsMasters

protecting our bottoms for the ride.  Next I contacted Livestrong and Amy Fletcher at the Grassroots Fundraising leg of the foundation, she was so helpful throughout the whole process and in the end came through with 4 Jerseys for is to wear 

All in all what great progress.

On July 2nd I had a fundraiser at the Humboldt Bay Tourism Center, where we decided all profits that night would go to this cause.  Local merchants, Adventures Edge, Fire & Light, Aqua Rodeo Oyster Farm, Humboldt Adventurewear, Cypress Grove, the Jogg and Shoppe, Allout SUP Paddleboarding and The Local Beer Bar donated awesome gifts for a silent auction.  We were able between the two to get nearly $700 dollars which will be collected and donated soon.  Friends spent good money at the bar, auction and http://laf.livestrong.org/site/TR/Grassroots/Grassroots?px=6243739&pg=personal&fr_id=1530

on the donation web page.  Robert and I continue to try all resources.

Silent Auction donations

The list of Auction donations:

Adventures Edge

Revolution Bicycles

Jog and Shop

Fire and Light

Cypress Grove

Humboldt Adventurewear

Aqua Rodeo Farms

The Local Beer Bar 

Hosted by 

The Humboldt Bay Tourism Center, bar profits will be donated to Livestrong. 

Please come join us 5-9ish at 205 G street in Eureka

Thanks Sergio

Recon ride NORCAL

Today I spent a lot of my day working with the US Coast Guard so I decided that it would be quite late and long to drive home.  So maybe it was a perfect opportunity to start some recon of some of the northern sections of the Bay Ridge Trail.  The northern area is the part that seems to have the biggest gaps of non-dedicated or non existent trails.  It's also going to be the tail end of our ride since we decided to go counter clockwise starting near Novato, CA Marin county.

I decided to traverse from Helen Putnam County park in Petaluma on the West Entrance and go through Petaluma and up Sonoma Mountain to the easy to figure out the connector to Jack London State park.  

This was a nice ride, Helen Putnam was super dry the wheat grass was waving in the wind, golden and crispy sounding under my wheels.

  The trails were very dry clay and signs of previous water runoff left filled small rideable ruts in the clay.  The views east or west were beautiful Petaluma has some of my favorite hill country anywhere.

 As I descended into a neighborhood on the east side of the park I asked people if there were trail options into Petaluma but no one could offer an option.  The ride into Petaluma was so nice, old historic neighborhoods leading to the quaint downtown where I stopped at Bici bike shop.  Standing there I saw at least 6 young people all wearing NorCal High School MTB league shirts, reminder the first guy to do what I'm calling the Bubba Ride is the Director of the NICA High School MTB league, so it was cool to see.  These guys helped me find city trails Lynch Creek trail,

to get across town to Sonoma Mountain.  No one offered legal ideas for getting from the base of Sonoma Mountain over to Jack London park so I took some ideas and hit the road.

After Lynch Creek I reached the East side of Petaluma

, there I took Sonoma Mountain road, a road people said was a hellish climb but rideable road

.  This was NO JOKE, the climb was very scenic but I found myself zig zagging in parts

.  I did clean the whole climb though.  Once at the top the road ended quite close to the park

, separated by private property and "ideas" furnished by locals.  At that point my time had run out, if I rode longer I wouldn't get back on time to get my car out of the park lot.

All in all a great bit of recon and connection of trails, locals were great and weather was awesome!

More to come

Serge

What a great day for Bubba Ride

So today I reconnected with a previous sponsor Infinit Nutrition.  If you don't know this product or have wondered whether your nutrition is correct, these guys have a solution for you with Cistom Blends to meet your specific body weight, sweat loss, mineral needs and event specificity.

I spoke briefly with the "Chief powder maker" Michael Folan and mentioned that while on the mend i had not asked for their support while I was nursing my knee.  Now that I'm feeling better and taking on the Bubba Ride, Michael didn't even bat an eye and continued his support of my events.  I've been an Infinit fan and user of their product for almost 5 years now.

So Infinit is our official Nutritional sponsor for this awesome endeavor and I am super grateful!!  I feel less worried now in the world of self supported ultra endurance sports with their products.

Thanks INFINIT NUTRITION

22 days?

22 days to ride until Sergio and I begin our epic adventure and our ride for "Bubba" on the Bayride Trail in San Francisco area.  For my remaining time until then in the midwest I will be completing the Chequamegon 100 off-road race in Wisconsin.  It has been a nasty beatdown for me in the Chequamegon National Forest the last three years.  The following weekend I am completing the Lutsen 99er on the North Shore of Lake Superior with some climbs matching those to the mountain races (- elevation).  I haven't done this race before, but that is what I've been told.   
I finish my racing with a road ride on the 4th.  That one is a quick 50 miles with a lot less climbing then the previous endeavors.  
Considering how out of shape and tired I am after recently finishing the school-year, I should have my hands full the next few weeks.  
The "Bubba-ride 2013" on the Bayridge Trail in California will be a new and epic adventure.   Hundreds of miles unsupported on a landscape that I'm unfamiliar with is what I'll be dealing with.  Thankfully Sergio will be hopefully not too far ahead.  He is well-versed with endurance athletics, survival, electronics, and several other random skills that will come in handy during such a grueling adventure.  I'm just hoping not to slow him down too much.  
Well... enough bantering,  time to ride 50 miles of beautiful Minnesota gravel.

Tuma's ride setup

Robert sent a photo of his ride, looks lean and light!  

I need to get mine finalized soon.

Any Bay Area folks have ideas on weather and bike camping ideas?

Serge

It's time to focus

So I've got my business off the ground, Liz is handling it with our partner Jon and a great staff.  I can now refocus on the other events at hand.

I recently received a pack of promo material for Livestrong to use for an event.  I also spoke with my partners in the Humboldt Bay Tourism Center and I will be opening our doors and bar to a benefit party.  I am hoping we can do this on or about the first week of July maybe 1st or 2nd.  I hope to offer some small incentives to donate to our cause, I need to get some people on board to help me make this happen.

If anyone has any good ideas, donations as incentives for cash donations or maybe we do an auction... 

Robert has also been swamped as a teacher and coach but will be able to focus some more this month.  I am hoping I can introduce everyone to Robert and of course Tom via Skype or FaceTime during this event.  He will light everyone up!!

Well for now I'll keep training, eating well, sleeping less and doing general preparations.  The Bay Ridge Trail organization will be providing me with some mapping tools, the Bike is getting a small facelift, I will purchase a Spot Tracker for online tracking of our progress.

I'm getting excited and nervous!!!

Serge

How tough will this be?

I was thinking about how I'll prepared I may be and how hard this will be, Bubba Ride is very long, hot, unsupported, barely mapped and a bit remote.

Then I figured I could use additional inspiration beyond Bubba, Glenn, Robert, James, Graeme and so many others..

I found this:
http://cancerguide.org/stories.html

Holy cow, a ride will not compare to these challenges or stories!

I'm still so excited.

Sergio

Why ride for Bubba?

I'll be honest that I'm sort of a newbie to this endurance cycling thing.  However, cycling has providing some of my fondest memories in life and stress relief during some of my darkest moments.  I remember vividly the moments of my much older cousins teaching me to ride my bike by pushing me down a large hill and screaming, "It's all about keeping momentum!"  It was a special moment the first time I stomped on the pedals of my bike and rode in front of my grandmother and it was up hill of all things.  Cycling was comforting in May 1998 right after I was informed I had cancer.  My brother joined me for that bike ride while I tried to wrap my head around the fact I had cancer and what that meant for my future or lack there of it.
After having endured three significant surgeries and chemotherapy over the course of two years, I eventually felt a sense of empowerment that I never had before.  I decided to create a bucket list of ten things that I wanted to do.  Each was vastly different, but would challenge me and make me a better person.  One of the things was to race the Leadville 100.  I didn't know why other than it was the hardest cycling event I could think of and I wanted to do something that I couldn't imagine I could have done even before cancer.  My personal philosophy was that "I wasn't gong to let cancer beat me and I was going to be even bigger and badder after it."
I was forwarded nine years and into lifting weights fairly intensively and balancing a teaching career and a growing family.  I remember being in our local Lifetime Fitness gym and starting a set on the bench press when an announcement for a essay contest for the Leadville 100 mountain bike race was stated.  I felt it was fate at that time and made my mind up to enter the contest.  My essay must have been convincing and I gained entry into the race.  I was really excited and then reality set in that I was muscular and heavy and hadn't ridden more than 45 miles off-road at a time and that was years ago.
Ready and willing to take on this challenge, I tried to learn everything I could about the race and just tried to put some serious miles on my two bikes at the time. I had my full suspension all mountain bike and road bike.  Both bikes broke a month before the race and going to Leadville with a new bike two weeks before the race caused anxiety.
I found the Leadville Hostel that first year and some inspiring older gentleman that had a wealth of endurance knowledge and racing experience.  One in particular had such an incredible personality.  He always had a sense of humor and liked to joke around  This person loved to play off of some of the uptight personalities.  He was all business when it came to training and racing, but that let's dance in the rain instead of sulking about it raining attitude.  I remember that he hauled a gallon of water on his handlebars out of town ten miles so everyone would have enough water as we rode up to town off the race course on a training ride.  We were going 35+ miles per hour and he had that gallon situated in a less than ideal place on his bike.  He might be slightly crazy.
Tom (Bubba) was kind and gentle, but possessed a spicy personality.  He was an older wise crack that could banter on with the best of them.  I loved his spirit and determination and the way he accepted me no matter how much of a knucklehead I was for my lack of preparation and incomplete knowledge of this race.
That first race was a challenge, but I still finished.  I have come back every year since to improve upon what I did that first year and get the opportunities to interact with some quality people like Bubba that make the Leadville 100 an enticing physical and emotional challenge along with social event.
In October 2012, I was informed that Bubba has stage- 3 pancreatic cancer.  It was a shock and sobering situation.  Along with some Leadville friends, we decided to visit him in early November.  I was amazed at his positivity and physical presence.  Of course, he still had that sparkling and positive attitude about the situation that he was in and about life in general.  Bubba didn't allow cancer to change him and that was so inspiring.
During that trip, our Leadville friends discussed putting together a ride in Bubba's name that would benefit cancer research or work with survivorship.  Ultimately it seemed to work best to meet in the San Francisco area to do a challenging multi-day off-road ride.  Why wouldn't we do it that way?  Bubba always seemed to like to push himself in some insane matter like running a marathon right before a marathon to know that he could do it.
I get paid to watch and observe people.  I feel that I am certainly better at doing this than the average person.  Bubba is inspiring to me.  When I see him in action, he is spirited and utilizes humor in a genuine way.  Bubba has not only taught me about endurance athletics, but how to carry yourself in life  to enjoy the people around you and the moments that you're immersed in.  Thank you Bubba.

Charity for Bubba

So Tom called and before I could ask how he's feeling, since he's doing Radiation followed by more Chemo, all I could hear from him was I rode here, I ran there...  He has been doing group rides, running 5k's all while doing his treatment.  Lance did it too only Tom has 40 years on top of Lance when he got Cancer, Tom is amazing.

I got an email from Tom yesterday, it would appear he has selected Livestrong to be the beneficiary of our Charity Ride.  I have called them and hope to hear from them soon.  If anyone has had any experience fundraising for them, please contact me via email at et3surge@gmail.com .

Tom followed up the email today with the following in exactly the same case:
chemo, done today.  nine down, one to go.  May eighth will be the last.  Chemo brain sent this message------------------Tom

LMAO, we had this conversation about Chemo brain, he said when we visited him that while on Chemo he has trouble remembering things etc.  But somehow, his Chemo Brain remembered it enough to mention Chemo Brain, Tom you are one hilarious guy!!

Serge

OK now that I've got some attention.  First of all, my heart and soul goes out to the runners in Boston and more importantly the spectators that took the brunt of this brutality.  Like 911, we will not forget, we will not allow this to dominate our lives and we stand behind you.

Now on to happier subjects, I have been working on the routing, loading some Google .KML files into Topofusion and wow, this will be awesome.  When I look at the overhead images of what we plan on doing it looks AWESOME!

The colors are based on Mountain Bike and Multi Use options along the route.  The route is portions of many of the trail systems that surround the Bay Area, these are EPIC trails as well as some fire roads and some connector trails to connect each system along the San Francisco Bay Ridge.  The gaps on the pictured route are the challenge for me and Robert logistically, we need to create those connections as well as consider overnights and restocking areas.

Robert is well versed in overnights bike packing as well as carrying large amounts of gear like, stoves, water purifiers, sleeping gear etc..  I have done a bit of bike packing but I'm no expert, in fact my bike bags are made by me, if I were smart I'd buy one of the cool guy bags from Revelate or Porcelain Rocket.  Our charity portion is yet to be determined but please stay engaged, any penny we get will go 100% to a great place.

Tom has undergone some recent Radiation therapy and will follow up with more Chemo.  Afterwards, as much as I'd like to see him on the trail, we will find out where he is in his treatment.  Send him some love at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bubbatommyraybryan no cost, just tell him to eat damnit!!  LOL

Alright more to come guys, oh and if you get a chance to see the Banff Film Festival, DO NOT MISS ERNEST!!!

Serge

Pancreatic Cancer and Bubba Ride 2013

Many of you are wondering what a Bubba Ride is and why I'm doing it.  I will try to explain as briefly as possible.  As Bubba said the other day "what, did you need an excuse to ride?"

In 2006 I decided to ride the Leadville Trail 100 and as a flatlander at sea level who had decided to take on this endeavor less than 12 months earlier, this was huge.  I arrived in Leadville about 10 days before the race, and I walked into what used to be the "Proving Grounds" coffee shop.  I met a group of men, all in riding gear, all well past 50 years old, all of them looked like the "Veterans" I had heard about.  One of those great guys that I will always consider mentors in the world of Ultra Endurance sports from then on out, was Tom "Bubba" Ray Bryan.

Basement full of awards and bikes

Smiley Tom!

  Tom has been one of the best guys I've met in my many visits to Leadville and I believe he has affected many of us the same way.  His humor is infectious but don't take him lightly, Tom is as hardcore as they come.  He has competed in some of the worlds toughest footraces, such as The Western States 100 several times.  He has numerous podium finishes at cycling events as well.  In a later post I will try and capture some of these achievements in detail.

In 2012, I saw a post by one of the other guys we met that day, William "Doc" Wenmark, also an extremely accomplished athlete, businessman and a mentor to many to say the least.  Doc told all of us that Tom had had a crash on his mountain bike, he thought he had hurt his ribs, but Ginger his wife insisted he go to the doctor.  Tom had no broken ribs, what he had was Stage 4 Cancer of the Pancreas and these Pancreas were pissed off, thus the pain.  Tom has since undergone Chemo, a very aggressive Chemo and due to his strong body he made it through quite well, albeit a little thin.  This resulted in a very positive but not completely clear result, prompting a current batch of Radiation therapy.

Bubba, has a new race, his race against Pancreatic Cancer.  Bubba will IN FACT beat this, I'm sure of it, he's one tough guy.  So in his honor a few of us decided to do the first and hopefully not last Bubba Ride.  Bubba Ride will hopefully be an annual event that is not a sanctioned race, hopefully can be different each year and even better if done with different people in different places each year.  

2013 the Bubba Ride will be myself, Robert Tuma and possibly a couple other riders yet to commit.  The ride will consist of a ride that inspired me a few years ago, done by Yuri Hauswald (Gu/Marin) and Austin Mcinerny (Executive Director NICA/Bay Ridge Trail Council), covered in Bike Magazine March 2011.  We will hopefully start approximately July 12-18, well that's all our vacation time will allow this year, and Robert has to make it to Leadville soon after.

What we hope to do is raise some money for Bubbas charity of choice (stay tuned), after all he'd be here with us if he wasn't at the doctors office.  I hope to see some of you supporting us, others following our progress, but most of all CHEERING Bubba on for a speedy recovery.

Stay Tuned

Sergio