Ronde Hupdate

A public service announcement for Ronde 3.0! Little over three weeks until Ronde 3.0. The teams have been set, course has been mapped, bikes and bikers are hopefully tuned and have miles in their legs! I mentioned it before but it is worth repeating. Ronde 3.0 is longer than usual. By about 20 miles. I went out yesterday and rode a lot of it on my road bike. For the record I do not necessarily recommend this. I only had so much time so I chose the fastest machine. I found out pretty much in spades that a 23 mm tire pumped to 100 psi does not work the same as a 34 pumped to 55...what a shocker! No flesh was lost just a bit of an ego bruising and some numb hands. But the course right now is FAST! The trail bed is sandy but has zero mud. All this can change obviously. But what will not change is the effort required to do the miles. I went through 3 water bottles. My 51 miles took me 3 hours. I stopped in Concord for Ice Coffee and a muffin.

The most important aspect to the Ronde other than riding with panache and supporting your teammates will be staying fueled. Whether that is liquids, food etc. To this end Hammer Nutrition is fueling the Ronde! We are really happy to have them as a sponsor this year. They are being very generous and we really appreciate their support. Hammer products, specifically the Endurolyte caplets have saved me on more than one long ride. Rosey nursed me through the Rapha Gent's ride 2 years ago with them. I won't name names but a certain ECV rider was getting a little rough around the edges last year half way through the JAM FUNdo until I started feeding him Endurolytes. They are like a magic bullet in endurance events. Matt Miller will be manning the feed somewhere in Concord. We will give you the actual location when we get a little closer to the event. But it will be a great new part of the ride. I would highly recommend getting at least one or two of the packets and putting them in your jersey pockets.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is why we do the Ronde. Other than the obvious excuse for a great ride and a challenge we do it as a fundraiser for Bikes Not Bombs. ALL the proceeds go to BNB. Entry fees and our raffle are how we fundraise for this great organization. Last year we raised $1,300. This year we would like to raise at least $1,500. We have a bunch of great prizes to raffle this year. Our raffle sponsors include: Mad Alchemy, Hammer,

Ride Studio Cafe, Newbury Comics, and Firefly. I am also raffling Ryan Kelly's shoe laces. Ok boot laces. They are from Timberland. They are HOTT....we will also have some nice swag items and some surprises. So please be sure to buy some raffle tickets and support Bikes Not Bombs. Oh and I am selling my socks. Not the actual socks I am wearing in the picture below. Those ones are pretty gross at this point. But the same Lion of Flanders socks made by Vermarc. They give you watts trust me. Do you see how much I am elevating over that barrier? I am a Hobbit. No way I can run like that. Its the socks. I am selling them for $5 each. They are brand new. I have a bunch of size small and a handful of larges. If you want to buy them before the Ronde send me an email at velocb@mac.com. Or just bring $5 to the ride. All the proceeds from the LOF socks go to BNB.
I can't even wait for the ride. I hope everyone is as stoked as we are. Thank you to Rosey for making this such a great event. Thanks to Gerry at Washington Square Tavern for being such a great supporter of cycling and our community. Thanks to all the sponsors and riders. See you in 2 weeks! Hup! Hup!