Day 30 - 30 Days of Biking

Like a whirlwind, Day 30 of 30 Days of Biking arrived and it seemed as though this awesome experience had only just begun.  Instead of writing about the ride I had that day, I want to use this post to personally thank a few people who worked extra hard to help form Team Loving the Bike and of course, my teammates. 

One of the objectives to this challenge of riding our bikes every day was to earn points.  Each night, members of LTB would email our point-tally-man, Ian to let him know what point value we had earned that day, and he kept track of it all for us.  Over the course of 30+ emails, Ian and I became wonderful friends.  Throughout life we will each meet a great many people, but we will only truly “know” a select few, and I am very blessed to be able to call Ian a friend and someone I “know.”  Of the number of wonderful friends I have, he is right at the top, and I am very thankful for his friendship and hard work this April.  Thank you, Ian.

On the last week of 30 Days of Biking, Ian sent out an email to the entire LTB team with a fantastic idea about how we as a group could say thank you to our fearless leader, Darryl for his round the clock work forming our team, representing us on Bicycle Radio, his words of encouragement, and his loyalty to seeing this challenge through.  Every single one of Darryl’s daily pictures (I’ve posted all of mine in these blogs) is of him doing the Hook ‘em Horns sign of my beloved Texas Longhorns.  Darryl calls Austin home so it was both a cool tribute to his city AND for his love of cycling for us to see all his creative pictures.  Ian’s idea was for each of us on the last day to do like Darryl and post a picture of us doing the Hook ‘em sign.  Being a Longhorns fan myself, I was totally stoked for this opportunity and as you can see, may have overdone it a bit, but anything to say thank you to our friend, Darryl.  Darryl, from the bottom of my heart, I think you are an awesome guy.  Through this challenge I got to know you much more than I had before and I feel that I have made a friend for life.  We all truly appreciate your hard work and are proud to be part of your team.  If we could hand out yellow jerseys for this you would get my vote, hands down.  Thank you, Darryl.

Finally, Team Loving the Bike….what can I say?  We are a team that is sprinkled all over the world and yet we share a bond of riding a bicycle.  For one month we all worked together to help spread the word to others about the simply joy of cycling and I think that’s a wonderful thing.  Every day I looked forward to seeing where my friends were riding and what kind of riding they were doing; what adventures they were having.  Some raced, others causally rode; some mountain biked while others chose a fixie.  We commuted, toured, sprinted, and meandered our way through 30 wonderful days.  We cheered each other on, we made new friends, we worked together, and at the end of the day that is all that matters.  Yea…it was pretty cool that we kicked those Bicycle Radio guys’ asses too, BUT we had fun and did a lot of good along the way.  I want to thank each of you for inspiring me.  You’ve inspired me to live a life of good health, slow down and enjoy the view, use my bike instead of my car when I can, and when the legs start to scream, tell them to SHUT UP and HTFU!  Thank you all.  This certainly is not the last of Team Loving the Bike.