Latest Updates:
Pete And Wendy (Team Kitten) have started back up on their training for RAAM
2009!!!!
The Mile High Century 100
- Had a great ride today June 14,
2008. It was 108 Miles.
The volunteers were awesome!
View pictures here
Lake Tahoe Century -This was an AWESOME and beautiful Ride!
View Pictures Here
So Here's the
latest! Spring turned out to be Winter (a boy kitten)!
He is the newest member
of "Team Kitten"
Read Story Here
This last weekend Wendy did the Atlanta 600K Brevet. She saved 2
turtles, fed 2 puppies and rescued a family of kittens that had been
dumped out into the country near Talladega, AL . One of them would
not leave, so now we have a new kitten, she name is Spring. Well,
it turns out that Spring is actually a Boy kitten and he'll have a name
chage to Winter.
A big THANK YOU to
the Silver Comet Depot for their help in caring for the newest
addition the Team Kitten. Also a big Thanks to Andy and Officer
Roper. Officer Roper dumped out supplies and bullets to give Wendy a bag
to carry the Kitten. What a very nice man!
Pete did the Indian Valley Century on
Saturday. Was given wrong directions right off the bat. I
rode to just before Chester and spoke with a deputy and was told that
I was off course. So I rode back to the start and started my
Century about 9:45am. Finished in 4 hours and 52 minutes for the
100 mile ride. So Saturday, I got in a little over 141 miles for
the day.
One of Pete's hobbies is building
ponds. Our Neighbor and friend Kathy needed work in her back
yard. Pete volunteered to put in a pond. So with help of
our awesome gardener (Corey Rose), Kathy and Wendy; we all pitched in and got the pond
built. We use the
Wixter Headband
to Wix the sweat away.
And the finished product with Kathy
adding Koi and Goldfish!
Check out the RAXTER review from Mt Bike Riders
Pete And Wendy
Cycling have been busy working and little riding right now! Work, Eat,
Work, Eat, Work, Train, Eat, Work, Eat, Work, Train,
Eat... oh and sleep every now and then. We to see you on the road.
Be safe and have fun! Pete has already put close to 1,500 miles on his
new bike! Thanks Charlie for the Bike!
P A W Cycling is proud to announce that
RAXTER Bike Racks
as one of our new sponsors. - The new standard for value in a wheel
mount hitch rack. RAXTER racks are lightweight, EASY to install, EASY to
load and EASY to store! Do check out their website
http://www.raxterracks.com Thank You
RAXTER Bike Racks.
Sales@RaxterRacks.Com
Check out the RAXTER review from Mt Bike Riders
P A W Cycling is proud to announce that Nerds On Wheels (NOW) is one
of our new sponsors. Do check out their website and contact Bill
Morgan about their great service plans! Thank You Nerds On Wheels.
Wendy's weekend -
She decided to go out and ride hard for 80 miles on
Saturday and basically do a 200K on Sunday as a recovery ride.
12 hrs of Temecula - Jan
2008, has come and gone. All was good; I had 3 persons crewing for me
(Bill, Sabine and Ingo).
I came in 3rd place - Masters 40 plus. A mistake was made with one of
the guy's times and he was able to get in an extra lap on me. I did 8
laps in 9hrs and at the time was told that there was no way 3rd place
could pass me since he was 3 laps back.
Much Kudos to the guy who stuck it
out to pass me and get 2nd Place!
By stopping in 9hrs I missed the rain and had allot of fun. The course
was a little technical because of all the rain ruts and new cut trails
along with stair step rock gardens. There was also lots of climbing! 22
to 25 minute climbs and about 800 feet in about 4.7 to 5 mile of
continuous climbing. ~Pete (View
Photos and more report here)
My
ride report I was doing a 300K that left out of Chula Vista Saturday
Morning:
The group left at 6am and I left at 6:45am. I didn't even left my place
till around 6am. Yes... As usual, I was running late. There were around
17 riders that started the 300K that had close to 13,000 ft of climbing.
Another rider started at 6:45 with me by the name of Erick. This was his
first 300K ever; so you got it, I worked with him and brought him along
to where he wouldn't bonk. Erick did a great job; I could see that he
wanted to go, but I kept him back and told him that we had time to our
advantage by not starting with the main group (who went out to hard and
to fast). By the time we got to the top of Harbison Canyon we caught our
first rider. Soon after, we started passing by other riders. By the time
we left control point 1 we were just behind the mid-pack group. We
continued on and just worked low HRs and kept an even pace. I am also
glad that Wendy wasn't here for this, as she would have made me work on
the climbs on Hwy67. In Ramona, I left Erick and went to the bike shop
to see if they had a replacement for my cleat, they didn't.
So I kept
riding with a broken... (read
more here)
________________________________________________________________
Our Tuesday/Thursday Coffee Ride down
Dehesa in route back to Starbucks in Rancho San Diego, CA.
Click on me to see more Pictures and
Videos
(Once there, Right Click and Click
Save Target As on videos to view)
We ride every Tuesday and Thursday and
leave out of Starbucks at 8am.
We usually ride up to Janet's Cafe for coffee and ride back.
Nice way to start the day.
The Mt Bike Clinic
went great!
View
the clinic pictures and videos here
View
the clinic pictures and videos here
Bonita Bikers Travis and Jose do the Rain Ride to Otay Mountain
Pete - Eric - Scott - Bill - Russell -
Billy
The
Motley Crew
Come and join us every Tuesday and Thursday
at Martha's Grove for a 2pm Mt bike Ride.
End of
2007 year Road Rides View photos here....
Christmas Ride Photos - Merry Christmas
Linda's Christmas Ride Photos
C V Great
Western Road Ride Photos
and
Sycamore Canyon
Mt Bike Ride photos
Do we have to ride today??? Hummmm???? It's Cold!
Okay... Where's Wendy? Did she drop us again?
Check out the Larry and Christina's
Birthday Photos - (Click
on picture)
After riding out to
Otay Lakes and finishing just a bit over 50 miles we enjoyed cake and
coffee while Christina and Larry opened their gifts.
Click
on picture to view photos
Kitten and I were at it again. This
time it was a Ride and Eat day. After what seemed to be a bad weekend to
have this little event because the weather forecast was predicting rain
and cold temps; it turned out to be a great day and fun ride. We had a fun
time. After I told Arnold that I was going to take the sprints, I had a
flat tire and Arnold capitalized on it. He won the sprints, truth be
told, I couldn't beat Arnold, I was just trying to get him fired up. At
the store stop where they had all graciously waited for my honey
(Wendy), Neil and me. Arnold told me that he was glad I got dropped,
which meant that he didn't have to work hard for the sprint.... HUMMM
Now you others that were there, I say to launch an attack and put in a
good block on him. HAHAHHAAA
We did have a fun time with no rain and nice temperatures. I was able to
spend time riding beside my honey and when we arrived back we spent our
time getting the food that Wendy and I prepared the night before. We
started out with Chips and Salsa, then came the soup. It's called Menudo
a Hispanic soup that was perfect for the weather as the temperature had
dropped and rain was imminent. As we finished the soup and started on
the green sauce pulled chicken to make tacos (Wendy made this and worked
late getting it ready for Saturday along with baking a cake for desert -
"She's a keeper", I tell ya); the rain came.
We enjoyed each others
company and as usual Kitten and I worked as the great couple we are, she
kept everyone happy and socialized and I was in the kitchen where I
belong (hahahahaaa - most days, she'll be working on the bikes and I'll
be cleaning in the house or she'll be doing yard work and I'll be in the
kitchen cooking - hummm anything wrong with this picture? No.... we like
it that way.)
I was glad to meet the great guys Wendy rides with. It makes me feel
good to know that Wendy is safe out there riding with good strong
riders. Thanks guys for watching over her. ~Pete
Fall is here. Wendy is enjoying the fall
colors.
Now here's the question... Where
is she? City and State.
First correct answer will receive a
winter skull cap and
socks.
Click on Photo or here to view
who won.
This is Alpine, CA
November 24, 2007 Photos
- Every Saturday the
Cyclo Vets Club
does a great ride; always keeping safety and teamwork as a high
priority! See the
11-24-2007 pictures here.
Thanksgiving Day Ride
2007 - We rode the Great Western Loop - There were over
100 riders present! It was a great time to be had. This ride
has been happening for a few years now. You should plan on making
it next year.
Had the pleasure to Mt Bike ride PQ today
with some of the Specialized folks and members of different bike shops
from around Southern California. Special guest today was
Ned
Overend.
View group ride photos
Thanks for taking the time to ride with us
Ned.
Congratulations
to the
A-List Winners
and to Zumwalt's Bicycle
Center for coming in the "Top
5" bike shops in
the 10news.com's A-List competition.
12 Hours Temecula
-
(From Pete)
I was scheduled to go to Tucson and do the Tour De Tucson with my
friends. I didn't get out of work till late on Friday and decided
it was to long of a drive; since I might have to work the weekend
anyway. So Late Friday, I decided to head to Temecula for the 3rd
race of the 12 hr endurance Mt Bike Race Series. I finished 2nd place
Masters and won the 2007 Series Championship.
See Awards Photos Here
Tour De Fort - On Oct 20th Wendy and I had a great race!
I was the 1st overall Traditional Bike finisher and 2nd overall and
Wendy was 5th overall and she finished 2nd place behind Julie who set a
new women's' lap record. Doyce was on his enclosed recumbent and
he too set a new men's lap record and winning a $300.00 purse which he
donated to Kevin
Kaiser for his 2008 RAAM race.
2007 Cuyamaca Poker Ride
(From Pete)
It was great meeting lots of you! Sorry I went slow, but like I said, I
have pneumonia and am trying to recover before my 12 hr solo road race
next saturday in GA. I am almost done with my antibiotics only have 3
more days of them. My lungs still have crap in them, but oh well.
Getting back to the Poker Ride.... Man, it was sooo fun! Lots of great
people out there. A special thanks to Ron, Billy and Bill for helping me
when I broke my chain. And everyone else willing to help!
As for my Poker Hand, had a good hand, but not good enough to win. 3 Q's
or a Straight as I had an 8, Joker,10, J, Q, Q (Extra card for the exrta
loop). I did win two raffle drawing prizes which included some Hydrolite,
Bike Blanket and Tires, $35 gift cert.
The food was also outstanding, but like any athlete would do, we stopped
at the bread basket for a second lunch on the way home.
Hope to see most of you out there again!
Furnace Creek 508
I'd been sick for the last
couple weeks before the FC508 race. I thought I had knocked it down,
well I was wrong and I
DNF-ed FC508. I stopped around mile 400 - 25 or
26 hrs into the race when I basically had a total system shutdown. When
I got home, went to the Dr's and found out I was racing with pneumonia.
I've been in bed ridden for the last 48 hrs and feeling a little better
today.
I do plan on riding the
Cuyamaca Poker Ride this weekend, I'll be running my Kenda, Polar
and Rudy Project items so come and say Hi. Also, if you have your Kenda
jersey, Rudy and Polar items wear it and show your support. Here's
the info on it: Cuyamaca Rancho State Park Mountain Bike Poker Ride 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007, 8:00 - 9:30 A.M Start Times
Cuyamaca School Camp's Cedar Grove behind the Park's Headquarters off
Highway 79.
Checkout
or go by their store:
Zumwalt's Bicycle Center
6425 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego Ca. 92115
________________________________________________________________
Pete has been picking up his training intensity and Wendy still
doing the long mountain miles. If we can talk Chris Kostman into
letting up take part in Furnace Creek 508, them we'll be there either as
a Team or Solo. Other upcoming projects include 10 Gaps, 6 Gaps, Tour De
Fort, Tour De Tucson and Sebring 2008.
________________________________________________________________
Amy and Al
Pete met them both during the Death Ride in Markleeville, CA.
Amy a flight attendant for
American Airlines. Her husband, Al Ciraolo, is a firefighter for New York
City. Both their lives and jobs changed after 9/11/01.
"It started as a trip to
honor the fallen firefighters of 9/11/01, to raise funds for the
Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA) Widows’ and Children’s Fund;
and to thank our countrymen for their support and compassion. It became
a journey." ~Amy
Check out their website and the awesome book Amy wrote about their
experiences! www.journeythroughtheheartland.com
________________________________________________________________
Wendy and I did the
Chattooga ride in Sommerville, GA see the
Chattooga Ride Pictures - Saturday August
11, 2007.
click Link
Jonathon Chitwood with Wendy Gardiner.
Jonathon Volunteered at the Chattooga ride. Thank You for your hard work and
awesome support! Your motivation and enthusiastic attitude are very
contagious! Your family must be very proud of you! Pete And
Wendy are very proud of you!
________________________________________________________________
Not much happening these days, just riding and getting over RAAM.
Wendy rides in Georgia, check out
http://atlbike.org and
look for "Kitten" to find her where bouts; or in the North GA mountains!
Pete rides in San Diego or
where ever time finds him. He recently did the Death Ride in
Markleeville, CA (129 miles and 15,000 climbing). He still rides
with his Tuesday/Thursday Coffee group and with the
Ramona Fun Riders on Friday's and will even show up at an occasional
www.cyclo-vets.org
ride.
________________________________________________________________
View some of our RAAM 2007 Photos
We're back from RAAM and want to thank everyone who supported us on our
journey across America. We had some issues early on such as my bonk at
the end of the 2nd day, followed by Pete vomiting 3 hours later after
drinking bad coffee. We regrouped and stopped at a hotel to rest,
recover, and to have a "team meeting" where we revised the strategy and
even switched pace vehicles. This was in Arizona.
Things were going pretty good after that. We were 21 minutes late to the
cutoff in Cortez, but they let us continue. Colorado was difficult with
the climbing, high altitudes, and roads that looked like down hills but
were actually climbs!
Utah was beautiful. I loved Monument Valley! How beautiful! The scenery
couldn't be more spectacular! We cruised through all the giant rock
formations where everything was glowing in orange, purple and pink at
sunset.
Western Kansas smelled like crap...literally. And the crosswinds weren't
as bad as I expected them to be. I actually enjoyed riding most parts of
Kansas, except this long highway to hell where we had no cell phone
service for most of the day, so no communication with the other pace
vehicle, or with RAAM officials, or family...etc.
We enjoyed the rain in Kansas since it had been a while since we
showered. Missouri sucked. There was this long, flat, road with rough
pavement that went on and on for days. We were on this just after sunset
and into the evening trying to outrun some rain. All of a sudden our
flat road had about a 10% grade in it! I was pedaling this part, was in
my easiest gear climbing up at dusk, it was sprinkling rain, foggy and
my entire body was shaking when I got to the top!
Pete and I took turns riding this road. He did the down hills and even
hit 50 mph at one point (earlier in Arizona) and passing one of our pace
vehicles! I did some of the climbs in Missouri, although, I had to
run/walk several of them because they were just too steep, or maybe I
was just too darn tired!
Indiana was fine until I fell asleep on my bike in Terre Haute. And then
Indianapolis sucked. Up until this point, all of the roads seemed to
have a purpose. They traveled from west to east. Not there. We zigged
and zagged through all these neighborhoods and I swear we criss-crossed
the same road at least three times! One of the roads was under heavy
construction. It looked like the pavement had been raked, and I pedaled
cautiously through there trying not to break my ass!
We discovered a math miscalculation (can you believe it?!) on Monday
afternoon and knew we were against the 8 ball that day heading to cutoff
#3 in Indianapolis. We attempted to ride the 200 miles in 10 hours that
we needed to get there in time, which also included riding at night. We
kept riding after the 1 a.m. cutoff hoping that the officials would
praise our determination and let us continue. They didn't. We were
devastated! We had about 700 to 800 miles remaining to do in 85 hours!
Pete or I could've done that amount SOLO, but they insisted that we were
out of the race.
Oh, I forgot to mention that in Missouri, the crew coming to relieve the
current crew on duty hit and killed a deer with the vehicle which caused
some body damage and some engine trouble. Not only was the vehicle
messed up, but they were both upset about the deer.
They had to find a Ford dealership, deal with the issue (which turned
out to be something minor like resetting a computer setting), and catch
up to us. By this time, the crew working had been up for 24+ hours!
So we were tired, delirious, and obviously had no mathematical skills.
Immediately after RAAM, I had no desire to ever ride my bike. In fact, I
almost left it outside of Meijers store in Indianapolis! But we figure
that it obviously wasn't in the cards for us to finish, and we learned a
lot from our mistakes. Regardless, we now know how to do RAAM as a
2-person team.
Besides the disappointment, the experience was truly an adventure, and
we're thankful to have been given the opportunity to do the race.
We had a wonderful crew consisting of caring, talented people and we had
a tremendous amount of sponsors who helped us make it to the starting
line. A special thank you to Suzuki for coming through at the
last-minute with their sponsorship of us.
Pete and I wish to thank all of our friends and family who called and
sent blogs cheering us on and checking on us.
We'll kick RAAM's @ss next time!
Pete And Wendy
www.peteandwendycycling.com
Check back next week for a full ride RAAM ride
report with photos.
________________________________________________________________
Race
Across AMerica (RAAM)
is just around the corner!
We are in the final stage of our preparations! Everything is looking
good!
We have
setup our
RAAM BLOG, It is in test mode and will be active once we start RAAM.
Will will also continue to update our website and we go across the USA.
View RAAM
BLOG Here.
________________________________________________________________
We would like to welcome
Suzuki as our SPONSOR for the
2007 Race Across AMerica!
THANK YOU for helping us out!
We
would like to recognize
AVIS Rental Car
in San Diego, CA. They really worked extremely hard trying to put
us in vehicles to accomplish our Race Mission!
We would like to welcome
Howard Johnson Inn San Diego State University Area as our SPONSOR
for the 2007 Race Across AMerica! Thank You Jay!
Pete And Wendy's Race Standing's Here
From
April 4 through April 8, 2007, Pete and Wendy attempted a break a Guinness
World Record* for stationary bike riding. They rode for 96 hours, 4 minutes,
8 seconds, surpassing the previous record of 85 hours.
*GWR
documentation is being compiled to be sent to Guinness in London for
verification of a new World Record.
96 hours, 4 minutes, 8 seconds
96
hours 4
minutes 8
seconds
View Photos Here
Pete And Wendy will race RAAM in honor
of their parents.
We are grateful that our parents have had the opportunity to see our
accomplishments in cycling and World Record.
Pete's dad passed away May 24th at 1:38am Central Time. He
lives in Mexico where he'll be cremated and brought home to Northern California.
Please say a little prayer for them.
