The last couple of weeks have seen me have Saturday shop rides at both ends of the spectrum. Good and bad. I detailed in on of my recent posts about how awesome of a ride I had Saturday before last. The ride this past Saturday wasn’t nearly as awesome. In fact, it downright sucked for a few miles. The stats at the end of the ride told the real story though.

Saturday morning was kind of a big milestone for me in that I made myself go ride what I consider my first local bike shop group ride. I know that may sound crazy to some of you but I’ve been putting this off for a while and I’m not sure why. Actually, I do know and I’ll explain.

I don’t write this post for the Happy Birthday comments. Instead, I’m going to ramble a bit about turning the big four zero and what it really means to me. Turning 40 is, apparently, a big deal with a lot of people. Kinda like when you turn 13, 18, 21, and so on. At 13 you’re officially a teenager. At 18 you can vote. At 21 you can drink legally. What do you get at 40? Besides a dose of reality and tacky birthday cards?

I mentioned this the other day in my New Year, New Goals post (it’s goal #2). Why the Tour de Cure? I’m glad you asked.

Why the Tour de Cure?

For those of you that don’t know, the Tour de Cure is a series of fundraising cycling events held in 43 states nationwide to benefit the American Diabetes Association (ADA). It’s a ride, not a race, with events for every rider. Noob to seasoned veteran. The funds raised by the Tour de Cure go to support the mission of the ADA. From the Tour de Cure website:

As a general rule, I don’t like New Year’s resolutions. Most of them are made ‘on the fly’ and aren’t achievable. This won’t be a resolutions post. Instead, I want to talk some of my cycling goals this year. I’ve spent some time the last month thinking about what I want to do and it was time I made it public. But first, lets talk about what happened last year.

The last couple of days I’ve been watching the dramatic rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. I’ve kept in touch with the story off-and-on since they became trapped but with their rescue over the last two days I’ve kept close tabs as they were pulled to the surface. It’s a great ending to what could have become a tragic story. It required a herculean effort by hundreds of people to pull those miners to safety. I couldn’t help but notice how the entire ordeal seemed to pull the country of Chile together and captivate the world.