The ride started off with no problems. perfect weather, 40's in the morning and it quickly warmed up to the 70's by noon. 12 miles into the ride we hit out first major climb, which is up Emerald Bay. Its about 800 feet of climbing at about a 20% grade. From the top of this hill there's a very fast downhill portion. Last year a person crashed hard and had to be heli-vac'd from the course. This year the problems occurred around 25 miles into the ride. Two females, one of which was a TNT coach crashed hard along a stretch of road. Both had to be heli-vac'd. One apparently suffered a broken neck, ribs, shoulder etc. The problem is that there are too many levels of experience. You'll have Cat 1 racers passing old women with no experience. This combo usually ends with a few crashes.

My job was to get my team (25 members) to the finish line in one piece. I was successful in doing just that. No one set any land speed records but everyone had a good time and finished with smiles on their faces. I had one team member get sick so I had to push her up an 8 mile climb called Spooner Mountain. I ended up getting 111 miles total for the day.

Great day, great ride. $8 MILLION was raised for the Leukemia-Lymphoma Society from this ride.

Huge victory party buffet with multiple beers around a fire pit afterwords.