There is some cycling fun coming in the Valley this year, but first some serious talk about cycling. Cousin Liesl has been diagnosed with an as yet unspecified form of MS – Multiple Sclerosis. Unknown to me a couple of weeks ago, I sent out a brief notice to some of the family that I would be riding my bicycle in the MS-150 charity ride. She had just been preliminarily diagnosed so did not say anything about it until later. That ride now has a far more personal meaning to me, and I hope to all of the family, as we wish Liesl the best in attacking this. My personal page on the 2011 BP MS 150 ride has a blog about my training rides and overall progress. It is going to be quite a challenge, but not near that faced by people with MS. (2017 postscript: Liesl is getting along quite well)

Now for the fun part: Some of us want to encourage everyone with a bicycle to bring it to the Valley this reunion. Mountain bike, road bike, whatever. We will try to have some routes laid out with SAG support to pick up bike pieces and body parts that fail along the way.

I’m busy riding to get in shape for the MS150, and for the fun this summer. Y’all better get to work too, and as encouragement take a look at the report on the trek we did just yesterday, entitled

For my 67th year I … Uh, WHAT was I thinking?