Charity Ride for Cancer Patients 8/9/03

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

WHAT:

:tab Many of you may have already seen the separate posts I have recently made about Nolan (http://nolans_hope.tripod.com/nolan/index.html), the young boy with the inoperable brain tumor, and about Sasha (http://www.twtex.com/viewtopic.php?t=488), Yulia's daughter (pic (http://rolandcbr.8m.com/images/sash_yul.jpg)) who was just diagnosed with Lukemia. Both familes are facing huge medical expenses.

:tab The idea is that we will get together for a long day of riding on Saturday. Riders are encouraged to make donations of any amount they like. Donations may be specifically directed to one family or the other, nonspecified donations will be split evenly between the families.

:tab If you are not comfortable trusting me with your money, I will gladly provide an address so you can send the funds directly to the family in question. I would like to keep track of how much is collected so that we can all know the grand totals, so if you do send directly, please email me and let me know how much and to who it was sent. This is not required, but it would be nice. I won't be sharing how much each rider contributes, just the totals.

To make a donation, please visit this page:
http://www.twtex.com/fundraiser.htm

Final Totals:

Sasha - $350.00
Nolan - $350.00

When:

:tab I am organizing a ride for the weekend of Aug. 9th to raise money to donate to these families. The longest part of the route will be about 250 miles. There are numerous places to cut the route short for anyone wanting to get back early. I would like to have a group dinner early evening at a local BBQ joint here in town. I will provide the route directions and lead the full route ride.

Where:

:tab Huntsville is fairly central to the DFW, Houston, Austin and San Antonio area. The longest distance is about four hours for folks from San Antonio. It is about 2-1/2 to 3 hours from Austin and DFW, and only 1/2 to 1 hour from most parts of Houston. The riding route will take us out into East Texas through many of the National forests on some great FM's with very little traffic. We can have several different groups if needed, a fast group, medium group, and slow so that all riders can find a pace where they are comfortable.

:tab The ride will start and end in Huntsville. We will LEAVE at 10:00am. If you attend, please have a full tank of gas BEFORE 10:00am. It wastes a lot of time when we have to stop on the way out of town for everyone to fill up.

:tab Rather than meeting at the Brookshire Bros parking lot as previously planned, we will meet at my home. The reason for this is that as people arrive, they can come inside, cool off, get something to drink, use the restrooms etc,... while we wait for others to show up. Go to maps.yahoo.com and enter my address and it will draw you a map right to my driveway. There is plenty of room for parking as I am in a cul-de-sac with few neighbors.

1617 Woodland Lane
Huntsville, Tx. 77320
936-295-0187

Lodging:

:tab There are numerous hotels within a mile or two of our home here in Huntsville. We have:

Comfort Inn: 936-438-8400
Holiday Inn Express: 936-293-8800
La Quinta: 936-295-6454
University Hotel at SHSU: 936-291-2151
Econo Lodge: 936-295-6401
Super 8: 936-730-8888
Motel 6: 936-291-6927
Travel Inn: 936-291-9151

The first four in the list are the nicest and all close to the start point of the ride.

More Info:

:tab If you have any questions or want more information, please contact me. You can post a reply here so other can see the answers or you can contact me directly:

Scott Friday
1617 Woodland Lane
Huntsville, Tx. 77340
936-295-0187 hm
800-887-1258 wk

[Thermalser]

Barring any unforseen scheduling conflicts, I will be there Scott

[Rdslvr04]

I'll be there. Count me in.

Vittorio.

[rob-houston]

I just started a new job last week. I'm planning to schedule that day off to join you. I pray that all goes well.

[Tourmeister]

:tab Okay, I have updated the original message with addresses for payments. If you can't make it but would still like to donate, you can either mail a donation straight to me or directly to each family.

[VFRinAustin]

I am going to try an make this. I doubt that Ellen is going to want to do anything this long for one of her first out of town rides so it will probably be just me.

[Tourmeister]

I've added a link to a nice pic of Sasha and Yulia in the original post.

[Tourmeister]

I forgot to mention that I have room for about 5-6 people and their bikes at my home. First come, first served! Just let me know you are coming.

[VFRinAustin]

Anyone else from the Aus/SA area going? Paul, Roger? Lets see if we cant get a group to head over. Was thinking I would leave early Saturday and maybe head out to Bastrop and PR 1 and then the back way up through Navasota and over. This is a great backroads ride and it would be fun to hit it with others.

What yall think.

[irondawg]

SV,

I'm in. Saw your post on the other topic. 7:00 sounds good. 7:30 sounds better depending on where we all hook up?

Does majority rule? And that being the majority of us live on the north side :mrgreen:

[buck000]

Andy, I've got a house full of relatives visiting, and am the chaffeur, so it's just around town until late August... sigh

[Tourmeister]

:tab Umm... due to an untimely discovery of massive amounts of mold and water damage in our house, we may not be able to accomodate any guests for this weekend :-( In fact, we may be moving out before then for a few months. Sorry for the inconvenience. For those of you coming over and spending the night, the Comfort Inn is the nicest and closest hotel. There is an El Chico right next door with a well stocked bar ;-)

[scratch]

Sorry to hear that Friday's Motor Lodge will be having to shut down for a few months. :wink:

Seriously, that's a tough situation. I hope you have some sort of reasonable accommodations while the remediation work is being done.
_________

With any luck, I should be able to attend the ride too. Let's hope for a break in the heat! 8)

[Tourmeister]

Let's hope for a break in the heat

Just so long as it is not a break down! :P

[Anonymous]

I will be there, I am bringing another buddy of mine too, as well as a couple of guys on SV's. All of us from Austin need to caravan!

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

Very cool! Where will you be staying? Or are you coming over Saturday morning and heading back Saturday evening? Unfortunately, I may not be able to have guests staying here due to some mold issues :-(

[VFRinAustin]

Right now the plan is to head out of South Austin at around 7 am and head out through Bastrop to PR1 and then on to 153, 290, 105 and in just before 10 am. I need directions to the meeting place Scott can you help me out?

For anyone wanting to caravan from Austin lets start talking about it. I am going to be in DFW tonight and tomorrow so I probably cant firm anything up until thursday. The plan is to stay over night but I might try to make a quick run home if we finish up early enough, we'll see. MAybe we can meet up in Bastrop or Giddings or else where down 290? Either way is pretty much on the way for me.

Sounds like we are going to have a good crew. Really looking forward to this

[VFRinAustin]

Scott, forget about the directs, I just plain didnt read far enough down the page to see you already had them there, DOH!

See y'all saturday

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

:tab So here is the deal. It is unlikely that we will be moved out of the house by this weekend. Have I mentioned that the rental market in Huntsville sucks? Anyway, if you are heading over and need a place to stay, we can probably put up about five people and their bikes for the weekend. I have two queen air mattresses and a double sized futon. We have four crazy cats so if you are allergic, be warned. Again, first come, first served ;-) If you get here early enough we can go out for dinner Friday evening. Please let me know if you want to stay here so we can plan accordingly.

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

:tab Slight change of plans.

:tab The ride will start and end in Huntsville. We will LEAVE at 10:00am. If you attend, please have a full tank of gas BEFORE 10:00am. It wastes a lot of time when we have to stop on the way out of town for everyone to fill up.

:tab Rather than meeting at the Brookshire Bros parking lot as previously planned, we will meet at my home. The reason for this is that as people arrive, they can come inside, cool off, get something to drink, use the restrooms etc,... while we wait for others to show up. Go to maps.yahoo.com and enter my address and it will draw you a map right to my driveway. There is plenty of room for parking as I am in a cul-de-sac with few neighbors.

1617 Woodland Lane
Huntsville, Tx. 77320
936-295-0187

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

:tab Well, just to be sure I am not going to be leading everyone on crappy roads this weekend, I get up at the crack of dawn this morning and take off to ride the entire route. I want to be sure the roads are all in decent condition and not under construction or something. I also want to check distances and places to get gas.

:tab So I leave bright and early at 8:15am :-P Yeah, I know, late for most of you, but still a few hours before I normally roll out of bed every morning! I am happy to report that most of the roads are in good condition. A few of them are kinda narrow and the right side of the lane might give your suspension a good workout. I was able to run all of them at a much faster pace than we will be running on the actual ride, so they shuold be fine. If your bike can go 120 miles on a tank, you'll have no trouble. If it gets less, you might want to let me know and we can get something worked out. I found a few places to eat. We'll probably eat lunch between 1:00pm and 2:00pm.

:tab I even scouted out a few new roads just for grins and I cannot believe I have lived so close to them the last few years and have never ridden them! Several of them were a total blast! The entire route is right at 250 miles round trip from Huntsville and back. This should get us back in Huntsville around 5:00pm. I did it in 4 hours this morning. I think the group can easily do it in 6-7 hours including stops. I only stopped for gas and was alone so it did not take long each time.

:tab It is going to be HOT! Dress accordingly. Also, be sure to keep yourself hydrated by drinking lots of fluids. It hit 100F by 11:00am this morning. Even if you don't feel hot or are not sweating much, you will be losing lots of fluids on this ride. I recommend drinking something everytime we stop even if you don't feel thirsty.

:tab Also, don't forget that we are starting the ride at our house!

[VFRinAustin]

:evil: Well, because of a complete bonehead on my part, I wont be able to make it this weekend. On the way home from DFW yesterday, I stopped for lunch in Stephenville and to cool off a little. Well as it turns out I left without my wallet which must have fallen out of my jacket. I didnt find out until last night when I got home and the restaurant had left a message on my machine saying that they had it and could I give them a call. They are now mailing it to me but I wont be getting it until Saturday at the earliest. I am really bummed but I cant make the ride without the liscense and credit cards (wife is in Chicago this week so I cna even get cash out of the ATM until tomorrow night).

Hope you all have a great time (sure you will). Stay cool and take it easy. I hope to catch up with ya'll here in the near future.

[Tourmeister]

Nonsense!

Regarding the license, if you know your number, the cop can look it up and see that you have a class m license for riding bikes. Technically they can ticket you for not having your license on you I think. But unless the officer is in a bad mood or you're being a butt head, it is not usually a problem. If you can get here, I can float you some cash until your wife gets back and you can just cut me a check. You can stay here Friday night. I will be in College Station Saturday night so no lodging available here for Saturday.

Trust me, it will be worth the effort!

[Anonymous]

Yes, they can give you a ticket for not having the license on you, but most cops won't because as long as you do have a license, you take it to court and the court will drop the ticket. Most cops don't want to hassle with it. So as long as you are cool to the cop, they will be cool back.

[buck000]

How was the ride? I wound up in Houston in a house full of Vietnamese in-laws, and then went to the Galleria, oh, joy. :(

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

:tab The ride was great fun! It was good to meet some new people and ride a new route. I'll be working on a ride report and to get the pictures up for your viewing pleasure. I'm in the middle of moving so it may take me a little longer than I would prefer. Sorry.

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

:tab Just an update on the fundraising side of things: $612.56 total so far, $317.39 for Sasha and $295.17 for Nolan. Thanks! The TSBA is trying to put together a legal raffle to raise even more money! We are working with Patrick at Motorcycles Unlimited to get a raffle prize figured out.

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

:tab To my knowledge, we are not expecting any more donations. Here are the final totals:

Grand total: $750.00
Sasha's part: $350.00
Nolan's part: $350.00

I would like to thank everyone that sent in donations and that showed up for the ride. I realize this won't pay off their debts, but it really goes a long way to letting them know that we are standing behind them with more than just words. Thanks!

[scratch]

Maybe that's enough to take Sasha (and Nolan) and a friend or two to a theme park for a day - every little bit helps! :-D

[Tourmeister]

From Nolan's website:

August 24
Nolan's transport to Santa Clara was uneventful, but upon arrival he needed extra help in breathing. His temperature had spiked to 105.4. The wonderful team worked all night and he was stable until 10:00 a.m. Then the alarm went off; Nolan was no longer able to breath on his own. The hospital team helped Nolan to breathe until his dad and siblings arrived at his bedside. At approximately 12:15 this afternoon, our precious little Nolan went to be with Jesus. His passage was peaceful and free from pain or distress.
We thank you all for the many hundreds of prayers that have been lifted up on our behalf. Nolan is now healed!! He is with Jesus in heaven.

[scratch]

I'm so sorry to hear that. I didn't fully understand the condition Nolan had been in lately. My condolensces to his family.