Ken's 2020 PMC Ride

Having biked 74 miles in yesterday, I need another 118 miles over the next two days to get to 192 miles for PMC weekend. The weekend's plan was to bike up to Rockport Saturday and join the family at our Rockport house, and then bike back Sunday. I do this trip by bike often and know how to squeeze in extra miles when needed (it's generally 46 miles if I bike directly). Just like PMC weekend, I was up before dawn and on the road by 7 AM. The first third of the trip is on the Northern Strand Trail which starts nearby in Everett and ends in Lynn near the ocean. It's a great trail made possible by an amazing group of advocates who started an organization called Bike to the Sea. The trail is becoming a real game changer for biking to the northern suburbs.  Along the trail, I picked up some biking buddies. This was great since I was riding solo and missing my PMC crew. One of these riders even had a PMC jersey! The paved part of the Northern Strand trail becomes gravel in Saugus,

Day One of my 8th PMC is in the books. Actually Day Zero as Day 1 is always the first Saturday in August. Usually on Day Zero we bike an extra 97 miles from the NY state border to Sturbridge. Today I biked 74 miles from Harvard (Univ.) to Harvard (the town in central Mass) and back.  Today's ride was my longest ride of the year (by 25 miles) and I made it more challenging by riding my gravel bike with the 40mm wide tires still on them (really more about being lazy about changing them out than anyth ing else). The weather was gorgeous, although it got hot after lunch (85 F) but not bad for late July. This You've Got This Sign was well placed on a long hill (there was a total of 2500 feet of climbing today).  It was definitely a different experience biking the PMC solo instead of with my usual crew of merry riders, and oh yeah, another 6000+ riders as well. And all the amazing volunteers and people lining the streets of the all the towns we bike through. I think I saw only two ot

Dear friends and family, this has certainly been an unprecedented year, and one that none of us could have anticipated. COVID-19 has upended our world and certainly our lives. And it has disrupted many charitable events, including important fundraisers, like the Pan Mass Challenge. The formal PMC ride is of course not happening, but we are all doing a reimagined, DIY PMC ride. I plan to ride in what is my 8th PMC, and will pedal 192 miles over the course of PMC weekend. I’ll split my miles into three days, Jul 31, Aug 1, and Aug 2 as various circumstances haven’t left me time to train as much as I usually do. The Pan Mass Challenge (www.pmc.org)  helps raise much needed funds for cancer research and patient support- it’s in fact the biggest fundraiser of its kind in the world. Last year we raised $63 million dollars, 100% of which was, as always, devoted to fighting cancer. I, like many of you, have lost too many relatives  and friends to this terrible disease. And this year has been e