Home made cookies and bicycling

There's something about baking that brings back the same kind of memories as riding a bike. At least for me, it's memories from childhood, my first bike ride, the smell of home made cookies or brownies, all hearkening back to simple pleasures (and simpler days). For biking it's the wind in your face, and for baking it's the smells and the taste, that link us to those memories.


So what does this have to do with Pedal The Kettle? Well, one of the first Pedal The Kettle's (then known as The Spring City Annual Tour), was supplied almost entirely with homemade goodies. I wasn't there, but you can imagine that it was probably like the days when you were a kid going to a family reunion. Little if any of the food was store bought (or Fast Food), everything was homemade, from the Fried Chicken to the desserts. Since then, we ask each of our members to supply four(4) dozen cookies, which are distributed among each of the five(5) Rest Stops.

So our goal with Pedal The Kettle is to bring back some of those feelings and memories, from the past, to the riders (our guests) here in the present. It's what keeps Pedal The Kettle a little bit unique and special among so many other local rides.

Safe riding all

A Century ride per week?

The Wright Stuff Century ride was a ton of fun. A small group (three to be exact) from our bike club started and finished together. Initially it was cool and very foggy, so much so that we had to shed our glasses for about the first hour or so, due to the condensation. The temperature swing wasn't too drastic, starting out in the hi 50's to low 60's, but then after the Sun came out I think the peak temp. was in the low 80's. With the clouds and slight breeze, it made for an enjoyable ride, through some very picturesque sections of Dane and Iowa County.

My next Century ride will be a members only event (Sept. 12th), previewing our club fund raiser, Pedal The Kettle coming up on Sept, 20th. This year, we're following the trend of many of the bigger organized rides, with a "Grand Unified map and cue sheet" for all three routes. Here's a sample of the map that I've been working on.

Our All-in-One version of the map

If you're in the area and decide to participate, stop by and say hi, I'll be manning Rest Stop #2 (for the 66/100 mile routes) at Rome Pond Park, just before the 66 and 100 mile routes split.

Safe riding all

Preview of PTK

Even though there was an Air Quality Alert, the conditions weren't that bad yesterday (Sat.) morning. There were four of us starting out from North High School to preview the the routes of the Spring City Spinners bicycle tour: Pedal The Kettle. Jackie did the 33 mile route, I did the 66 mile route and Doug and George did the 100 mile route.

The roads we use are fairly low traffic and over the summer, several segments of our route have been repaved.

All the reservations for parks/shelters have been taken care of, so the preview rides are mostly to make sure there are no obstacles (like major construction) that would require changes to the route(s). The only one we found was the intersection at Valley Rd (Cty B) and Hwy 67, just outside of Oconomowoc. But we're hoping that that will be done in time (Sept. 20th) for PTK.

Rest Stop List:

• Cushing Park - 1st RS on the 66/100 mile routes
• Rome Pond Park - 2nd RS on the 66/100 mile routes
• Whitewater - 3rd RS for the 100 mile route
• Palmyra - 4th RS for the 100 mile route
• Ottawa Park - Only Rest for 33 mile route, last RS for 66/100 mile route

While taking advantage of the Cushing Park Rest Stop, I snapped this picture, bee'ing careful not to agitated the bee.


Safe Riding all

Barns of the Pedal The Kettle

In previous posts I've mentioned that, as a kid, I spent a lot of time on my Grandparents farm. So the first time that I road the Pedal The Kettle route, I saw several farms that reminded me of those childhood days visiting the working farm. Today I decided to ride part of the PTK route and take some pictures of the barns on some of those farms. Here are of few of those pictures.







There are many more barns on the route, some in better shape than other, but it's a very scenic ride.
Hope to see you at this years Pedal The Kettle - Sept. 21st, 2008 - Waukesha, WI
As a member of the club I won't be riding that day, I'll be helping out at one of the rest stops (probably the Rome stop just before the 60 and 100 mile routes split).

Safe riding all

Pedal the Kettle results

The clubs annual fund raiser, Pedal The Kettle, did pretty well this year with ~300 rides. It doesn't sound like a lot, but we do the whole things ourselves with little if any outside sponsorship or assistance. We offered three routes; 33, 66 and 100 miles. Here's how that split our among the 300 or so riders. This year was the first time that we had offered online registration and about half of the pre-registration occurred online via active.com. The other half was through snail mail, and all tolled, both amounted to a little over half of the total registration. The data helps us with planning for next year and how to distribute the food to the various rest stops along the routes.

100 Milers - 26%
66 Milers - 39%
33 Milers - 35%

A Pedel The Kettle Rest Stop Diary

Sept. 16th, 2007
Day of the Spring City Spinners fund raiser event - Pedal The Kettle

4:20AM - I woke up 10 minutes before the alarm was due to go off, oh well, it's only 10 minutes.

5:00AM - My wife and I arrive at the Spring City restaurant for the event day volunteers breakfast.

6:30AM - After breakfast we stop by North High School and help distribute a few of the PTK shirts to some of the early bird riders before heading out to our rest stop.

7:00AM - This is the early start time for the 66 and 100 mile riders.

7:30AM - We arrive at the Pond Park rest stop just outside of Rome, WI. This is a nice spot, the shelter area is brand new and there's some road construction (bridge) going on that kept the regular traffic to a bare minimum. We're Rest Stop #2 on both the 66 & 100 mile routes.

Before we start the setup

8:00AM - We start cutting bagels and bananas, as well as making Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches and of course we started unpacking all those homemade cookies and treats. I also made up the first batch of Gatorade and filled the water container, so we have 5 gallons of each available.

8:30AM - We're open and ready for business. It's a little cooler and cloudier than we had hoped, but thankfully there's no rain.

9:00AM - The first three riders pull in to the rest stop, not bad, considering that we are at the 40 mile mark and these guys started at 7:00AM, so they were averaging ~20MPH.

10:00AM - We're now on our ~50th rider through the rest stop, and we get word that just over 300 people have registered.

11:00AM - Now we're starting to worry just a bit about our food supply, we've seen ~110 riders and we know that about 150 went through the rest stop before ours. Luckily we get a re-stock of bananas, cookies, grapes and bread, (those PB&J sandwiches were very popular).

12:00PM - We've now had a ~180 riders pass through our rest stop, it looks like some of the riders skipped or missed the first rest stop.

Nearing the end, things slow down a bit

12:50PM - 189 riders went through our rest stop, the last one leaves, to continue on the 66 mile route, at 12:50PM. He's got one more rest stop ahead of him (at Ottawa Lake State Park) and about 26 total miles to reach the finish, back at North High School in Waukesha, WI. We went through somewhere around 10 gallons each of Gatorade and water, about 2 loaves worth of PB&J sandwiches, ~130 bananas, 4 dozen mini-bagels, lots of grapes, and probably 24 dozen cookies.

1:00PM - We're now on our way to the Ottawa rest stop to drop off what was left of our food. Ottawa gets the leftovers as they get riders from all the routes: 33/66/100.

2:00PM - Arrive at North High School and have some food, same post ride meal as the riders (Chili, chicken salad sandwiches, some veggies and of course a couple of cookies). I also drop off the Rest Stop "kit", empty water bottles and signage. It's time to go home and get a nap.

A special thanks to the friends and supporters of the Spring City Spinners Bicycle Club; Transition Cycle, Kurt's Steak House, Wisconsin State and City parks and North High School.

4th Century this year

This past weekend was the chance for members of the Spring City Spinners to preview the ride (Pedal The Kettle) that we'll be supporting this coming weekend.

On Saturday I got up early and started to have my usually pre-century ride breakfast (oatmeal, eggs, toast and Orange juice), but we were out of eggs. I also got the start time wrong, so I was a half an hour late. I got started on the 100 mile route at about 7:30AM. About an hour into the ride I did take a slight short cut (~4 miles) and caught up to the rest of the group in Sullivan, WI at a rest stop.

We had a great ride, the weather was fantastic with the temp.'s in the 70s to 80s during the course of the day. The only problem were the mosquito's at the Whitewater rest stop. The cooler temp's this week should take care of most of them before the ride on Sunday. Speaking of the Whitewater rest stop, normally during the preview ride, we stop at a gas station or a park near the place in the route that will have the official rest stops. During this preview ride one of our members "Bunny", was nice enough to provide fruit, cookies and PB&J sandwiches at the Whitewater rest stop.

So I got my 2nd 100 mile ride in for the summer (2 - 100 mile centuries and 2 - metric centuries).

Like I said, if you happen to participate in the PTK, stop by and say hi, one change, I'll be working the Rome, WI rest stop, it the 2nd rest stop on the 65/100 mile route.

Safe riding all.

Pedal The Kettle is approaching fast

The date for our club fund raiser, Pedal The Kettle, is coming up fast: Sept. 16th. Our club uses this event to raise funds which, we in turn use to promote safe cycling and to contribute to local charities.

As the webmaster for the club I was playing around with Google maps to make a sort of promotional map for the club website and created the following;


View Larger Map

Initially I used Google maps to determine approximately a 3 hour travel time from Waukesha, WI to several major cities within a 4 state area (WI, MN, IA & IL). Then I used the custom My Maps feature to draw the highlighted area and add the push-pin for the start location. I was really glad to see how easy Google has made it to publish a custom map within a blog or website. All you have to do, once you have a map created, is click on the "Link to this page" and you'll get an option to customize and preview the embedded map. From there it's basically a cut and paste of some code embedded in an iframe.

If you happen to participate in the PTK, stop by and say hi, I'll be working at the very first rest stop of the 65/100 miles routes.

Safe riding all.

Duncans recovery and the PTK

After yesterdays visit to the vet, Duncan is now free to move about the cabin. He still needs to limit his activities (no bounding or jumping) and his back muscles are very tight, so he's on a muscle relaxant. He's VERY happy about being out of the kennel and he may be up for some short walks if it would ever stop raining. We haven't had as much as some places, but it's sure putting a damper on the bike riding.

The bicycle club that I belong to is busy preparing for it's 16th annual Pedal The Kettle Tour. The club members staff a fully supported ride (SAG, rest stops, registration, and post ride meal) with 100, 66 and 33 mile options. It a kick ass ride through the Kettle Moraines of Waukesha and surrounding counties. Check the website for more details including online registration via Active.com. Funds raised by the event go towards supporting local charitable organizations.