2004 Ride For Karen Rider Stories / Comments

Great course, great scenery, well organised. A cause thats worth riding every K for. Thank you for such a great event.

bryan spiegel - shot2focus@rogers.com
THORNHILL ON, Canada

Hi,

I just wanted to thank you guys for an absolutely awesome day. The organization was great and you couldn't ask for a friendlier bunch of volunteers. Of course, a large part of my enjoyment was doing a personal best time for the Century. And for a club rider like myself, it was very cool to ride with a 100+ rider peloton that stuck together for the majority of the morning. Many thanks to the police and ambulance guys for their assistance (though as far as I know the ambulance was not needed).

The ride struck a personal note for me. My Dad died of cancer a little more than 19 years ago, long before I got back into cycling. My own ride was dedicated to him and I like to think he was riding on my shoulder encouraging me along and being a little surprised to see his formerly not very active son riding his fifth century of the season.

Anyway, thanks again and I'll be back next year with at least a couple of new riders with me.

John Corbett

John Corbett - jrcorbett@sympatico.ca
Toronto ON, Canada

Sunday, September 12th was one of the best days of my life.

The weather was glorious (good move to change the date to early September, guys), the roads were OK to excellent and the police escort kept us feeling safe (during the first half of the ride, at least. I don't remember seeing any during the second half).

Last year, I got dropped before the first Feed Zone and took over 6 hours to complete the ride (mostly solo)in cold and windy conditions.

This year, I was able to stay with the Pack for the whole first half of the ride (including that little 49 kph TT in the Marsh)and after lunch...after they blew by our little D'Ornellas echelon, I was able to latch onto the Hammer Train for about 15 minutes, during which we averaged around 50 kph.

I eventually finished in under 5 hours bike time for a Personal Best long-ride average speed of slightly over 33 kph, none of it solo. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you work together.

The event was VERY well organised - I can just imagine all the effort required to stage something like this and it's nice to know that the Tobias family and their immediate supporters took it upon themselves to work at least as hard as the Riders.

My first reaction when I heard that we had collectively raised $43,000 was "Wow, that's terrific." But as soon as he heard the number, one of my fellow riders said "But it isn't enough." He's right, of course.

I'm already thinking about how to raise more money for next year's Ride For Karen.

Roland Pfeiffer - roland52@planeteer.com
Markham ON, Canada

Sunday, September 12, 04 was a God send of a day, compared to some of the stories about last years ride.

I was struggling at different times during the ride but found encouragement in the thought of what the ride is about. My challenge of making it up the next big hill is small potatoes in light of the unimaginable hardship of dealing with cancer in a family.

I can't wait till next year.

Thank you organizers.

Regards,

Joe

Joe Cosentino - lamo56@hotmail.com
Toronto ON, Canada