Here’s three photos taken by our coaches wife. Our coach for the Office Depot Team was Alan Kurtz, AKA Captain Sprocket. He was a great coach and made training for the ride a lot of fun.
Mingling with the crowd at 7 AM.
Finally at the start line. That’s me behind the “S” of stop.
End of the ride on day one at John Pennekamp State Park. I’ve never been happier to have a chicken sandwich and popsicle in my entire life.
Here’s a few photos my husband took during the first day of the MS150 ride.
Start of ride. Around 7 AM, still a bit dark.
Top of Card Sound Bridge, waiting for the rest of the Office Depot Team to catch up so we can take a team photo.
Taking a much needed rest stop.
And here are a few more photos from one of the official MS150 photographers.
Office Depot chicks Deb, Victoria and Lynn.
My husband Rob.
Riding with the pack.
My husband and I rode in the MS150 this weekend. Two days, 75 miles each day. Got up at 4:30 AM Saturday morning to drive 60 miles south to Coral Gables where the ride started. We were part of the 90 member Office Depot Foundation Team.
WINDY RIDE
Boy am I freaking tired after riding 150 miles on my bike this weekend. Wasn’t supposed to have a headwind but we had a headwind both days - DANG. Pretty bad when you can only get up to 26 MPH going down Card Sound Bridge. Pretty steep bridge, should have been doing close to 40 MPH, but dang if that wind wasn’t trying to push us back up the bridge!!!
ABOVE: Card Sound Bridge - 65 feet high, no shoulders.
ABOUT THE RIDE
Approximately 2,700 bikers participated in the MS150. They started the ride in waves, letting around ?50-100 bikers start at a time. Took us an hour after the “official” ride start before we actually crossed the starting line. Day 2 we got closer to the start line - only took us 1/2 hour to get across the starting line.
RIDER DOWN
On the first day, only 1.25 miles into the ride we came across the first of many ambulances we would see during the 2 days of riding. There were a bunch of round-a-bouts at the beginning of the ride. Someone rode right into the r-a-b, hit the curb with their front tire and crashed their bike. The biker was still lying on the side of the ground when we rode by - not the kind of thing you want to see at the beginning of a 150 mile ride.
RIDE THE RACE TRACK
On day two, at the halfway point we had a rest stop at the Homestead Miami Speedway. Got to do a lap on the extremely steep, banked race track - could you hear me screaming!?! Thought I was going to slide down the freaking side of the track, so I pointed the front of the bike back down and flew down to the flat part. Then I noticed everyone else was doing the same thing - AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!
The rest stop portion, with all the food and drinks, was setup in pit row, you know, where the race cars stop to get refueled/new tires. It was pretty cool. I just visited the Speedway’s official website, I was curious as to how steep the track actually is: banking in turns - 18-20 degree variable banking. Yikes!!! Try riding that on a BICYCLE and see if that doesn’t get your heart thumping!!!
I think I was more scared getting into and back out of the track. Had to go down this steep, unlit tunnel which had metal speed bumps. Coming back out we were in a huge group of bikers, whoever was at the front started screaming so we all started screaming going through the tunnel, which echoed, it was hilarious.
WELL ORGANIZED EVENT
Well organized ride, lots of great food at the beginning of the ride, at all the rest stops and at the end of the ride at John Pennekamp State Park. Left our bikes at the park, picked up our luggage and took the shuttle 3 miles to our hotel. Stayed at the Holiday Inn Key Largo, poolside room. Very nice, 2 pools, jacuzzi, Tiki Bar, right next to Coconuts Seafood Restaurant. We took a nap before eating dinner. I had a HUGE bowl of angel hair pasta with scallops - nice not having to count calories. I burned around 8,300 calories during the 2 days - food is my friend. Think we were back in our room by 7:30 and fell asleep by around 9 PM. Got up at 5:30 AM to do it all in reverse on Sunday morning.
RIDING WITH OUR TEAM
On Saturday we rode with some of our Office Depot team members for most of the day. Saw a lot of our other biking friends that were also doing the ride. Headwinds were a bit stronger on Sunday, or maybe I was just in a lot of pain and really TIRED. But the groups were spread out a lot more on Sunday, kind of hard to get the full benefits of drafting when you’re only riding with 2 other bikers for the last 30 miles or so. My average speed for both days was pretty close, but Saturday we rode at a pretty consistent speed. On Sunday it was a lot of too fast riding along with a lot of too slow riding.
MY STATISTICS
Here’s my statistics from my 2 days of riding from my Garmin Edge 305 cycling computer. My husband says his computer showed we did 150.5 miles, not sure why mine says only 147.07. I think my heart rate monitor was also messed up a bit. It kept going on and off during the day, so I’m not sure how accurate the overall readings are.
MS150 Statistics
| Miles |
Time |
Avergae Speed |
Max Speed |
Calories Burned |
Avg Heart Rate |
Max Heart Rate |
Total Ascent |
Total Descent |
Day |
| 147.07 |
8:24:38 |
17.5 |
36.2 |
8293 |
153 |
182 |
2144 |
2142 |
2 Day Total |
| 75:04 |
4:14:03 |
17.7 |
26.5 |
4205 |
158 |
182 |
1484 |
1484 |
Saturday |
| 72:03 |
4:10:03 |
17.2 |
36.2 |
4088 |
148 |
182 |
660 |
659 |
Sunday |
I rode 150 miles this weekend and all I got was a stupid t-shirt and a dorky medal!!! There were a couple of official photography points along the ride. If I can find any photos of Rob and I online I’ll add them to this blog post - unless we look like total dorks, which is a pretty good possibility.
UPDATE: I just found 4 pictures of Rob and I on one of the official MS photographers websites. Here they are - the good, the bad, the “I’m too tired to pedal anymore.” The photos show Rob and I coming down off the Card Sound Bridge, on the first day of the ride, and going around the Homestead Speedway on the second day of the ride. I look REALLY tired going around that race track!
Take care,
Lynn
AKA the Bike Diva
My husband and I are training for the MS150 bike ride which takes place on May 3/4. We are part of the Office Depot Foundation Team (ODFT) which is up to 72 members so far - cool!! 
The ODFT captain Alan, AKA Capt’n Sprocket, decided a few years ago to ride 1 mile for every year of his life on his birthday. His actual birthday was Super Bowl Sunday so his birthday ride was rescheduled for today. 50 for 50 - we went from Spanish River Blvd to Tesa’s on Royal Poinciana in West Palm Beach (Florida) and back. Not quite 50 miles, the ride turned out to be 48.74 miles.
We had a killer head wind going north. But coming back south was pretty easy until the last few miles. My husband and I got our butts kicked trying to keep up. We hung with the fast group the whole way (well, there might have been a bit of a gap between us the last mile or two, but we could see their butts the whole time. 
)
Even with the killer wind we managed to average 19 MPH with a top speed of 27.9 MPH, it took us 2 hours and 34 mintues to complete the ride - AWESOME!!! - that’s almost half a century ride. 
My Garmin GPS said I burned 2979 calories during the ride so I had a breakfast sammie and half a muffin from Dunkin’ Donuts after the ride.
It was so cool not to be in the slowest group. 
When Alan was trying to figure out how fast everyone wanted to ride he said the team should break out into 3 groups. I raised my hand and said I wanted to be in the 18-20 MPH range group figuring that would be the middle of the pack group. But they decided the slowest group would be in the 14-16 MPH range, the middle group would be in the 16-18 MPH range and the last/fast group would ride in the 18-20+ MPH range.
I know all you roadies out there proably ride WAY faster than this but for me to do almost 50 miles at that speed - that was a major BIG freakin’ deal for my fat a*s! Man, I wonder how fast we could have done the ride if there wasn’t any wind!?! Yesterday we did 30 miles and there wasn’t any wind at all - kind of a miracle for this time of year in south Florida.
When’s my new bike going to be here?
My husband and I will be riding in the SE Florida MS150 which takes place on May 3rd & 4th, 2008. This is a 2 day, 150 mile bike ride that benefits the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Each biker makes a pledge to raise a minimum of $300 for the society. There will be approximately 3,000 bikers taking place in this ride.
2007 Office Depot Team
We are riding with the Office Depot Foundation team - cool!!! The husband of one of my bike chick friends is a corporate lawyer for Office Depot. Although he owns a road bike, he only rides occasionally and doesn’t participate in these long charity bike rides like his wife does. My friend said that anyone can ride for the Office Depot team so my husband and I signed up. A couple of weeks ago we started going on weekly training rides with members of the team. So far there are 65 people signed up to ride with the Office Depot Foundation. I can’t wait until the team jersey’s come in so I’ll have bragging rights in front of real riders. “Yup, I ride for the Office Depot Foundation Team.”
Click on the link above to be taken to the Bike Diva’s MS150 fundraising page
From the Multiple Sclerosis website:
What’s New? Drum Roll Please…
MS Bike, formerly known as the MS 150 Bike Tour, is proud to introduce our new title sponsor Zimmerman Advertising and the Zimmerman MS Bike Ride Presented by Wachovia!!! The Ride kicks off on Saturday, May 3, 2008 from the UM BankUnited Center in Miami, stops overnight at Metro PCS Village in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, then heads back to Miami on Sunday, May 4, 2008.
We are introducing an amazing lineup of changes for the 2008 Bike Season: New Title Sponsor, New Bike Route, New Dates, New Logo, New Branding!!! It’s the same event you’ve grown to love and live for with added flavor.
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