If you can read this, due to issues with page display using Internet Explorer (Talk about IRONY), I will not be posting here for a while. I still can't see the content with IE, so I'll be posting in the future at my Blogspot blog

Well, here are the results of last weeks Spinner Saturday. We did have some non reporters, but I suspect it's because of the beastly weather most of us have been having (Well, except for Jill, she thrives on beastly weather!). Jill has the high mileage for the week, great job, Jill! (and your killin' us down here in the lower 48 and elsewhere!). Big Mike is a bit on the low side due to an injury to his knee. It's swollen to about the size of a Georgia Watermelon. Get better soon, Mike! Now for the data:

Meet Jill, a journalist up in Juneau, AK who rides a bike under truly horrendous conditions. Jill is currently in the training phase of preparation for her second riding of the Susitna 100.  This race runs along sections of the Iditarod Trail, up there in the state of Alaska. This is truly a tough bicycle race, pure endurance! You have to have grit to ride it, guaranteed. Last year. Jill just missed the cutoff time to be considered a finish, and was consequently DNF'd (Did Not Finish) according to the race official finishers list. She did finish the course though, with honor as far as I am concerned.Jill is riding it again this year, a race wiser and better prepared mentally and physically for a tough race. This year she knows better what to expect.  Drop by and give Jill some encouragement and support for her race!The Spinner Report will go out later today. See everyone later!

My B-List of Bicycle Blogs. This is a Meme making the rounds in the cycling blogs milieu.

Blogs I read! Well, here goes!

http://sportcrazy.net/

http://uphillbattle.spaces.live.com/PersonalSpace.aspx?_c=

http://bigmikeinoz.spaces.live.com/

http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/

http://www.herneweb.com/index.php

http://tylersstory.blogspot.com/

http://www.cyclelicio.us/

http://gorillaonabike.blogspot.com/

http://danonbike.blogspot.com/

http://bikenaked.net/

http://roadrace1.blogspot.com/

http://uncledanbiking.blogspot.com/

If you are reading this, likely, you have Firefox or another Mozilla Browser! It seems IE hates me! I am also running my blog content on Blogspot at http://theamazongshrinkingman.blogspot.com . Some of my readers have emailed me to let me know about the problem and when I booted up IE to check it (I use Firefox, myself!), sure enough, links and friends display but the content is blank!

If you are able to read this with Internet Explorer as your browser, please comment in to let me know! Either that or email me at gunsel2001(at)yahoo(dot)com. I'd appreciate it! That way I'll know if MSN has fixed the problem or not!

Here are the Spinner Data charts and table. Great job all! We had a few non reports, but that's life in Winter!

Be sure to view the video linked in the post below this one!

I know I hit on this topic a lot, but it is very important to me. Why do we do this event? Well, there are a lot of reasons. I am diabetic, as I've mentioned before as is my wife. So is my mother. Diabetes runs in our family! Here is an ADA site that gives other reasons why we do it.

I am riding and soliciting donations for Tour de Cure. This is a fundraising ride set up by the American Diabetes Association and in the event I am riding, which occurs on July 14, 2007 in Indianapolis. I have a site, it is an official American Diabetes Association site for Tour de Cure, and is secure. To visit my page please click here. This is important enough for me to come out from behind my pseudonym and unmask.  Matter of fact, I have a little video here. I used the Dead Man Walking music theme because that's what I was a couple of years ago. I've been given my life back and plan to use this gift to help others as I can.

Well, here's a look back at last year! I have some prior articles I think you may well enjoy! Click the links and see what I am talking about!

For Starters: Why Cycling?
Next: Chocolate Milk as a Recovery Drink?
and then: Pre and Post Ride Nutrition For Bariatric Patients

Now, I've been talking about Tour de Cure. I am riding this event in Indianapolis on July 14, 2007. I'm trying to raise $1000.00 for the AmericanAnerican Diabetes Association. My page for the event is located here. It is fully tax deductible and will help fund research into both a cure and new treatments for Diabetes. I truly believe in this cause as both my wife and I are Diabetic. Please visit my page and sponsor me in this event!

Video: Runaway Train: A Year in the Life
Race to Replace
Videojournal
The Amazing Shrinking Man

Well, we did it! 40,403.8 miles as a group, not bad people! Actually, a great job!
I've officially closed the 2006 Spinner Saturday Database and started the 2007 version up. My proposed mileage goal for the group on 2007 is 50,000 miles or better. We CAN do this, so let's give it our best shot!So, without further ado, here's the data for 2006. Feel proud, all of you!

Well, Mrs Stormcrowe and myself went out to ride out the old and in the new. This involves one of my favorite kind of rides, a night ride
I do know one thing though, it was a cold ride......and damp! Mrs Stormcrowe had a bit of an exercise/wind induced asthma attack, but used her inhaler and we got with the ride as soon as she could breathe again. I'll tell ya, the Mrs is a game trooper! Temperature was 41℉ with a 20 mph wind gusting to 40! MISERABLE!!!!!Clouds blowing across the moonThe weather, as I said, was windy. It was wet as well, with occasional rain showers, so the trail was wet. Mrs Stormcrowe had never done a night ride before and I am truly glad she enjoyed it, in spite of the weather. We've decided that the New Years Eve ride will become a tradition every year!

Well, here's my annual profile for 2006. I tallied my miles and unfortunately, had overestimated my miles a bit. I thought I was around 4000, but am actually at 3740.2 miles

Well, I'll do better next year!In the meantime, we're less than 200 miles from 40K now and the mileage reports are slowly trickling in.Next year, let's try for 50K!

On other fronts, I am riding in Tour de Cure on July 14th, in Indianapolis. My fundraising goal is $1000.00. Feel free to drop by my Tour de Cure page and think about making a donation to the American Diabetes Association. It's TAX DEDUCTIBLE and time is running out for this year if you need a last minute deduction for 2006! Here is my Tour de Cure page.

This will also be the final Spinner Saturday for 2001, and I'll have the report up after the weekend. Assuming that the riders turn any reasonable amount of miles, then we'll top 40,000 miles as a group. Great job and I'll be starting the database over on January one, 2007! Get me your miles through the end of Dec 31, and Spinner Saturday ends on New years eve at midnight when the ball drops!

If the weather is not wet or snowing, Mrs Stormcrowe and I intend to ride across the new year......yep, a NIGHT RIDE! Yeehaw!
Now, for our ride today! Here are the pics!

I rode the Cardinal Greenway, starting over in Gaston, Indiana yesterday. I met up with fellow Bike Forum member Mariner Fan for the ride. We did 32 miles of the trail, and had a pretty good ride!



meet Mariner Fan



And of course, me!

These were taken at the Depot in Muncie. The Cardinal is slated to connect Richmond, Indiana with the Great Lakes area and will be part of a coast to coast bike trail called the American Heritage Trail. Gaston to South of Muncie is a really nice ride!  Here are some scenes from the trail:
The Depot itself

White RiverThe Round Barn

This barn is located South of Muncie, and is actually older then the State. Well done on the restoration, eh?
An old rail bridge along the trailThe Cardinal Greenway is what is called a Rail to Trail pathway. This means it's built along an abandoned railroad right of way. This is pretty nice, because it's relatively flat, no more than a 4% grade anywhere on it. The Card doesn't even get that steep anywhere along it. As a trail, I'd have to give it a 10! It was worth the 80 mile drive, one way,  to get there.

Well, it looks like the Spinner Group is going to top 40,000 miles for the year! Great job, all! Here are the charts

Now, my bad weather riding technique! I got a nice trainer for Christmas, a Kinetic Fluid Trainer. It is great!Looks like it's going to be a good training winter, what with the Spinnerval video and everything that came with it! My Raleigh is now a dedicated trainer bike, by the way, and it's great!

Start Weight: 581 pounds, Mar 11, 2005
Current Weight: 220 pounds

Goals I have achieved:

1. I rode my first Metric Century (62 miles)
   
2. I rode my first SAE Century (100 Miles)
3. I rode 167 a mile ride in less than 12 hours and reached the March 2006 goal for a 2 day ride in a day! (Labor Day Weekend)

In the 21 months since I had my bariatric surgery, I have gotten my life back!

Total weight loss: 361 pounds.


Spinner Report will be out tomorrow!

Merry Christmas and if you haven't got your label tags for the presents yet, Here ya go! Merry Christmas! Either print on 8 1/2X11 cardstock or Avery 8160 or 5160 Address Labels!

I picked up this Meme from Christa over at Awful Souls,
Participate if you want, it see,s to be a wonderful tool for self assessment!

1. 2 things you want to do:
   Ride 200 mile one day event
   Compete in additional road races
   2. 2 things you should've done but keep postponing:
   I'm a great procrastinator, I should have done a lot of things I put off!
   
   3. 2 things you did, but shouldn't have:
   Started smoking many years ago

   Allowing myself to gain as much weight as I did
   
   4. 2 things that you must do:
   Eat and Sleep.
   
   5. 2 things you do every day:
   Train and Study
   
   6. 2 things someone else would want you to do:
   Finish my degree
   Achieve my goals and be happy with my life
   7. 2 things that you would never do:
   Steal or kill.

Answer them for yourself and pass it on!

This will be a dedicated touring bike! It's an absolutely sweet 1986 Schwinn Passage!

Welcome to the second Spinner Report for December, 2006! It should be noted that as a group, we've covered 37,061.41 miles for the year. That leaves 2938.59 miles to hit 40,000! Now, there are 25 of us, to split these miles up! Let's go for it.One of our members, Jill, lives up in Alaska, and is a snowbiker! If you are interested in following her exploits, like the Susitna 100, her site is at Blogspot.Well, without further ado, here are the charts:

This is a post I've been waiting to post! Congratulations are due my Wife, Mrs Stormcrowe! She officially graduated as of NOW! Her grades were posted and she has sufficient credits and has filled all her requirements and now has qualified for her Associates in Accounting and Business Administration!

Congratulations Earlena! Good job!

Now, let's get some of those Kudos from you...my readers for her. This was something she's wanted to do for a long time and she finally achieved her goal....in spite of some pretty steer odds!

Holidays, what do they mean to you? In particular, what does Christmas mean to you? It means a gathering of family to me, of people who don't see each other often enough. Forget the commercialism that has been put on the Christmas holiday in these modern times! I look at the holiday in the spirit of Wenceslas, myself. Here is a link to a truly informative article about King Wenceslas. In his tradition, you might consider a little public service. Take food to the food bank, or volunteer some time!

Think about your family at this time of year and if you are going to travel, well, safe journey! Keep the spirit of the season in your heart and have a particular joy this time of year. You can experience that watching the faces of your children light up as they play with the boxes that the expensive presents came in...DOH! I miss that part of childhood, by the way!

So, I'd like to hear your best part of Christmas!  Merry Christmas and a Safe and prosperous New Year!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOacnK_JJoA

Here's a link to the video. Enjoy!

Meantime, I need to mention the Tour de Cure again! I am riding it in July, on the 14th. I am committed to do a 100K ride, 75 of which will be done as a road ride, the rest doing laps at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My Tour Page is at
http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=4373&px=3127592

Please visit and consider donating to the American Diabetes Association. Support me in this ride. ALL money goes directly to the ADA.

Here are the results: Not all riders reported miles.

Have you ever checked your statistics page to see where your traffic is coming from? I did today, and was surprised to see no less than 97 links back to threads in various bike forums. Represented forums were Bike Forums, at http://www.bikeforums.net , Mountainbike Review, http://www.mtbr.com/ and many more, like Team Sandbag, at http://teamsandbag.com/phpBB1/index.php .

Well, my 15 minutes of fame is about over, and I'd like to say thanks to all of you that came by this week, and to MSN for featuring me again. It's been a heck of a ride!

Events this week:

• I hit an all time high in hits on my blog
• I got permanently banned by my image host site for burning up 1.3 terabytes of bandwidth (That's right, 1.3 terabytes!), apparently causing quite a bit of stress on their servers! Not bad for a week, eh?
• I entered Tour de Cure, and started the journey to my goal of raising $1000.00 for the American Diabetes Association. My link to my personal Tour de Cure page is below.

Here is the link to my page with Tour de Cure.
http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=4373&px=3127592
Please do visit and donate! The money goes direct to the American Diabetes Association. It will support research toward a cure.
 and/or new treatments for diabetes.

For more information on the actual statistics of how diabetes potentially affects you, you can visit the statistics page of the ADA, at http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-statistics.jsp

Here are just some of the topics they cover:
Based on death certificate data, diabetes contributed to 224,092 deaths in 2002. Studies indicate that diabetes in generally under-reported on death certificates, particularly in the cases of older persons with multiples chronic conditions such as heart disease and hypertension. Because of this, the toll of diabetes is believed to be much higher than officially reported.

The total annual economic cost of diabetes in 2002 was estimated to be $132 billion, or one out of every 10 health care dollars spent in the United States.

Diabetes is associated with an increased risk for a number of serious, sometimes life-threatening complications and certain populations experience an even greater threat. Good diabetes control can help reduce your risk, however many people are not even aware that they have diabetes until they develop one of its complications.

Quotes from the American Diabetes Statistics page.
Please go by and read up on this, the information will both help you make an informed choice on donating as well as help you just plain learn about diabetes.

  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0612/S00134.htm

Cycling to Work Threatened by Extinction Sunday, 10 December 2006, 1:04 pm Press Release: Cycling Advocates Network

8 December 2006

MEDIA RELEASE For immediate use

Cycling to Work Threatened by Extinction

Everyday cycling is under threat of extinction. That's the warning from New Zealand cycling advocates.

“The 2006 Census shows a further decrease in the numbers of people cycling to work, to nearly 2% of commuters,” says Cycling Advocates’ Network (CAN) chair Robert Ibell.

"Kiwis should have the choice of biking to work," says Mr. Ibell. "But right now that choice doesn't exist for many people because they think our roads are too unsafe."

“People who cycle to work help reduce pollution and congestion. They also improve their own health, which means fewer days off work, lower costs to the health system, and better quality of life in the long run. They also encourage others. But many cyclists are afraid to cycle to work,” says Ibell.

“A recent study shows that congestion costs the country about $1 billion a year, and pollution costs about the same again. That’s about $2,000 for every commuter car, aside from its annual running costs. Meanwhile, the National Land Transport Programme’s budget for cycling and walking combined is about 1% of its total.”

Land Transport New Zealand has recently published a national strategy to help encourage safe and enjoyable cycling. Called ‘Getting there – on foot, by cycle’, the strategy encourages cars and cycles to share the road for the enjoyment and benefit of both.

“But funding for implementing this strategy is just scratching the surface,” says Ibell. “Funding needs to be consistent with the benefits cycling delivers in transport, health and workplace productivity as well. Cities such as Nelson have recognised this and have experienced growth in everyday cycling in recent years. While leisure cycling is booming, everyday cycling is nearing extinction. Central government needs to support cycling much more strongly as a solution to pressing problems such as obesity, climate change, pollution and traffic congestion. It needs to move on from talking to making some real changes.”

CAN welcomes the initiatives proposed in the ‘Getting there’ implementation plan. These include developing model communities, creating long distance cycling routes, and education of motorists and cyclists. "But without a big increase in funding for cycling projects we won't be able to reverse the decline in everyday cycling." said Mr. Ibell.

“Thousands of people are getting on their bikes for fitness and enjoyment,” says Ibell. “Most cyclists are also car drivers, so they just want to enjoy sharing the road in safety.”

Leisure cycling is among the ten top leisure activities in NZ. About 15% of adults enjoy cycling every year – that’s about 411,000 active cyclists. About 1 million cycles have been imported to New Zealand since 2001, about one cycle for every four people. The 2006 Wattyl Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge saw 11,000 people of all ages take part, a record number of cyclists for the event.