Happy Halloween!

Earlier this week, I finished reading the Amazon Kindle edition of “Wheelmen:  Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever”.  We all know what happens in this one.  It tells the story of how a young man from Plano, TX, grew up and became an icon before experiencing a spectacular fall from grace.  

I think that we were all proud of him at one time.  Maybe some of us still are.  Regardless, I believe that we benefitted from his success and popularity.  During the period of his dominance, interest in cycling in the local area exploded and, as a result, we have some great bike shops from which to buy our cycling goodies.  We’ve also witnessed an explosion in the number of cycling groups, cycling clubs, and cycling-based fundraising events. 

Lance also showed up at one of the area’s most popular rides, the Tour de Gruene, as recently as 2008.  This year’s edition of the Tour de Gruene will be held on Saturday.  The individual time trial will also be on Saturday; the team time trial will be on Sunday.  

If the Tour de Gruene, isn’t your thing, please consider joining us in Bulverde for the Rebecca Creek ride.  We’ll be in Converse for the Woman Hollering Creek ride on Sunday.

Finally, don’t forget to set your clock ahead by one hour before going to bed on Saturday night.
 

Giving Back

I hope your fall riding is off to a great start. There are so many opportunities to go out and ride in this awesome weather!  I have been riding on the tandem with my wife and I've been training for the Gruene Team Time Trial.  Not that we plan to deliver a fast time, but we really enjoy the adrenaline rush of doing a TT on the beautiful River Road.

In general, we cyclists are fortunate people who know how to enjoy life. I have this theory that it's really difficult to be sad while riding your bike.  There is no way that you can endure a long ride while focusing on unhappy thoughts. That's a big reason for why so many charities use cycling events for fundraising.  We are happy people and we enjoy doing a ride that happens to support a worthy cause.

Every year our club supports several charities through donations and sponsorships  This past month the San Antonio Wheelmen donated $1000 to Operation Comfort, an organization that "provides support to our Service Members who have been wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq and are receiving treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) and Audie Murphy VA Hospital in San Antonio." Operation Comfort spends 91.5% of its budget on the cause.

We are also considering providing assistance to a local charity called the Children's Shelter.  This charity provides emergency shelter and therapeutic foster care for children in need.  The Children’s Shelter has a small bike path on its installation, but the bicycles available to the children are in really bad shape. The charity wants to repair the current bicycles and obtain some new bikes for the children there.  If you are interested in helping the Children’s Shelter by donating money or volunteering for a day, please let me know.  Please check out the website at http://www.childrensshelter.org.

I'm going to finish this note by leaving you with an earworm that I experienced during a recent afternoon bike ride.  It’s from the iconic singer/musician, Lou Reed, who passed this week.  He was known for riding his bicycle around Manhattan. I will call him a cyclist.

Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spend it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on.

See you on the road!

Jose H. Rojas