MS150 - 2004

Well, the deadline for donations for this years MS150 was May, 17 and it looks like I have raised all of the money I am going to for this year's MS150. I raised $1505.00. Better than last year but below my goal of $2500.00. I will have to do better next year. Yesterday I found out that Team Honeywell raised more than $10,500 this year. That is an increase of about 30% over last year!

Team Honeywell top 5 fund raisers:
$2,091.00 - Robert Geary
$1,505.00 - Greg Gillis
$1,150.00 - Howard Marshburn, Jr
$1,050.00 - Terry Gerbert
$1,000.00 - Aubrey Doggett

The weather for the weekend of the ride was great. It was a little cool in the mornings but not so cold that I needed a jacket. All it took was 10 or 15 minutes of riding and I was feeling warmed up. I had been watching the weather and was hoping for a south easterly wind to help push us all the way to Austin and the night before the ride the Channel 2 weather guy calls for a 15 mph SE wind. My prayers had been answered. Unfortunately it was not a direct route straight from here to Austin and that tail wind turned into a head wind and did work against me more that once. I guess what they say is true; be careful what you wish for.

I rode with Team Honeywell again this year and I want to thank everyone on the team for allowing me to hang out with them. In particular I want to thank my brother Jeff who got me on the team last year and his wife Sandy for her support and for giving me a ride home so I didn't have to ride on a crowded bus. We started from Schmalz Elementary School which is near the official MS150 bike route. We started from there so we could get an early start and miss the madness and waiting that you have at the official stadium starting places. I arrived at the school at about 6:15 AM and started getting my gear together and do some stretching. We had a team picture at about 6:50 AM and started riding a little after 7:00 AM.

Once again this year I was surprised at the diversity of the riders. There were riders of all colors, shapes, sizes and genders. I saw old people, young people, tall, short, big , small, men and women. In fact I noticed an increase in the number of women riding this year. It was a topic of discussion Saturday night and some guess that it was as much as 40% women. I guess the reason I noticed everyone so much was because they were all passing me.

I also noticed that there seemed to be a lot more accidents this year, I saw a number of ambulances near downed riders. The MS society says that it was the same percentage of accidents as last year so I must have been just a little closer to the action. Some of the stories I heard from a medic this year was a man had a heart attack while waiting for the start at one of the stadiums. I also heard a teenager crashed and broke his wrist within a mile of starting and that a tandem (2 seater) bike crashed on the way to the stadium and weren't able to ride afterward.

Some notable observations from this years ride:

I took a lot of pictures and short videos during the ride and I noticed one strange thing when I reviewed the videos. I keep using the words "Mad House" to describe what was going on around me. The pictures and movie links are at the bottom of this article so take a look and let me know if you think it was a mad house.

My average speed for the 166.07 miles was 13.8 mph according to my bike computer. It was really higher but I was so tired at the end of day one that I forgot to pause the computer while I walked around finding the team tent and while lining up to start the next morning so there are a few slow miles that botched my average. I think my average was really somewhere between 15 mph and 16 mph. I'll try to remember to do better next year.

If you would like to follow the ride all the way from Houston to Austin the MS Society put together a video that you can order from their web site at www.ms150video.com. They have it on VHS or DVD. I doubt that I am in the video but if you order it and see me let me know. I am the guy on the silver bike. (that's a joke)

2003 MS150 Fun facts provided by Team Honeywell's co-captain Phil.

Here are the pictures that I took during the ride. These range in size from 163k to 632k. If you have dial up these may take a minute or two to view so please be patient.