BikeMS Milwaukee 2017

What the fall more than likely looked like, but with more flailing. Almost 4 weeks ago my wife took a nasty spill in a moment of grace while stepping over our indoor dog fence that keeps the pups confined to the areas we want them to be in. Right foot went over, then as she lifted up her left leg to get over the fence and head to the kitchen... disaster struck. The foot caught the fence on the way up, she lost balance, and landed face first on the floor. In the process, she tried to stop her fall by grabbing on to the kitchen counter top and a close-by dining room chair. The result: she bashed her left knee in to the floor of the apartment and immediately heard a pop and was screaming and crying in pain. I've been there. I've had my moments with this fence. We've done battle. I almost landed face first in to the glass top coffee table we own because of the kite eating  fence. It has no remorse and it gets you when you least expect it. Funny part is, it has a door on ...

Really, this is amazing. We are 50 days away to August 5th and already we have met LAST YEAR'S goal of $1000. The support you all have given me this year is amazing and I truly can not even begin to thank everyone properly for donating to the ride. I'm training like mad, we're making progress, and I might even have an actual TEAM this year riding with me. Hopefully in the coming years, Team Bruised Apple can be a contender for BikeMS and we can top $10,000 as a team in the very near future. As always, if you haven't donated yet or signed up to volunteer yet, links are all below! Donate to the team Join the team and ride with me this year! Volunteer and help BikeMS!

Last night I did a short 10 mile ride to go get my Metallica tickets from a friend for Sunday's concert at Soldier Field. I made it ALMOST all the way home before my grip shifter for the front derailer decided to break internally while on a hill. The shifter pretty much ate itself. Internally, there was a lot of broken stuff going on. Plastic literally flew out of the casing when I got it open. Luckily, I have a second bike that has the exact same shifters on it. What does that mean for me? I got a crash course in bike repair. First I had to get the grips off. I don't wish this on anyone. It wasn't easy at all. Once that was off, on each bike, I had to unlatch the cable from the derailer, get the cable off the bike, and remove the shifter itself. That's when the fun started! I took the bad shifter off the current bike, pulled my old shifter from the Mongoose that gets zero love these days, and... the cable was too short. Great. Now I'm thinking I have to get...

Sometimes life gets in the way of training. I found that out the hard way last week. My wife tripped over our dog barrier and ended up messing up her knee pretty bad.   Luckily, a friend of mine has an indoor trainer for cycling. Kind of like the one that's pictured here. I used to have one, but I rarely used it with the mountain bike tires that I had. They were knobby tires and would sound like I was revving up a chainsaw in the basement. That's no good when you're trying to be discreet and others are sleeping in your house.  This will be my way of making sure I get some sort of ride in every day. And, hopefully I can have the will power to get out of bed early and get a good 50 minutes in every morning (I average a mile every 5 minutes, so this shouldn't be an issue.) Bike MS should be a breeze this year if I can get the conditioning up. If you haven't donated yet, here are all the links you need to donate to Team Bruised Apple: Donate to the team ...

The training has started. This was my view from 10 miles out on the ride. I've got a set path I do, I know where each mile marker is. Where I should be and at what time for pacing. It's a pretty sweet ride I must say. 20 miles is an easy ride so far. I have to remember to hydrate though. The next day is pretty killer. We're 59 days down and as you can see below, we're at $600 of our $4000 goal. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far! Donate to the team Join the team and ride with me this year! Volunteer and help BikeMS!

We're kicking off this fundraising season with a bang! I've only started less than a week ago and we're already over $600 for the team! I'll be keeping tabs at the end of each blog post on where Team Bruised Apple is at this year and how you can ride along, donate, OR get involved by volunteering for BikeMS this year! Oh, we have a logo this year! I just got done making this! Donate to the team Join the team and ride with me this year! Volunteer and help BikeMS!