Waiting for the flood

It's been 10 days since we mailed out the 2007 PALM applications. So far we've received 119 applications back. Last year the average application had 1.6 people on them. This means that about 190 people have signed up already. Last year we only had 68 people signed up half way thru February.

What's going on?

• At the last PALM meeting I made a special plead for the staff to sign up early. Maybe everybody at the meeting went home and immediately mailed in their applications? Nah!
• Maybe everybody who missed out last year because the ride filled early mailed in their applications. That's a possibility. We had to send back the applications of over hundred would be riders and we've had a lot of emails asking when the applications would be out.
• It was warm in January. Maybe people thought that it would be spring in a couple of weeks and that PALM couldn't be that far away. That's probably the reason.

Well, it's winter now, but don't wait until the first 60 degree day to mail in your PALM application. Last year things ended in a rush: 300 riders registered in the last 10 days. It was nuts.

We split the registration duties in half. One person opens the applications, makes sure that they are in order (proper signatures, correct check amount, etc.), fills out ledger sheets for our accountant, and cashes the checks. The other half of registration consists of entering the applications into a computer, generating confirmation letters, keeping counts of the meals, buses, and tshirts, doing meal lists, etc. My wife and I do the second half. We have 190 registrations hanging over our head. We who are about to die salute you. It's a good thing that it is winter.

Why pick PALM to ride?

If you are going to do a week long bike ride, why should you pick PALM?

For one, PALM is within reach physically for almost every bike rider. The average daily distance for PALM this year is 50 miles (last year it was 45 miles), not 75 miles. You don't have to be an athlete to do PALM. You just need to be in pretty good bike shape. We offer longer daily routes (that are SAGed, marked, and for which we have maps), even a century, but you don't have to do them.

PALM is affordable. An adult registration is $95. This is cheapest week long bike tour around. (Meals are extra, but optional: $5 for breakfast, $9 for dinner. You pick the meals you want.) Registration for riders under 18 is even less: $60 for riders 11 - 17, $ 50 for riders under 11. We can do this because our staff is all volunteer and PALM is nonprofit.

PALM is for people of all ages. If you check on our web site you will see that we have people of all ages and in numbers. We encourage families. Last year we had four generations of the same family on the ride, all on their own bikes.

This year will be the 26th annual PALM. While 35% of our riders are doing PALM for the first time, another 35% have done PALM 5 or more times. We must be doing something right.

Why do a week long bike tour?

You've ridden your bike for a while. You've done some organized day rides, maybe even 50 miles. Why would you want to ever do a week long bike ride? Suppose you've started a new job, one that has 2 weeks vacation for the first 5 years and 6 holidays per year. (My position not too long ago). Why would you want to spend a week, perhaps the only straight week off you have in a year, on your bike?

Vacations are about a change of pace, a way to get out of your routine, a way to relax and regroup. A biking vacation gives you a way to simplify. Your life consists of getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, packing up, biking, unpacking, eating dinner, and waiting for the next day. Your only responsibility is to reach the next site. Things move slowly. On a bike, you can see everything, you can pay attention to everything. You have time for anything. There is no reason to hurry: you would only have to wait longer for the next day. If you have a high stress job, this is the perfect vacation. You are forced to slow down. Your mind can wander. You can take the time to notice even the smallest thing.

A bike trip is a classless society. Even though everyone is different, everyone wears the same not very flattering clothes. Everyone has the same goal: get to the next site. You can meet and talk to people and have something immediately in common: the experiences on the ride. A bike trip can give you a chance to step outside yourself. It's like "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" but in a nice way.

Oh, one other thing. Bike trips take place in summer and fall when its warm, not in the winter.

Registration for Riders Under 18

PALM encourages participation of riders under 18. Last year 168 riders under 18 (out of 757 total) rode PALM. It was the same the year before (168 riders out of 754 total). But there are a few extra signatures that are required. If you are taking someone with you who is under 18 and you are not the legal guardian or parent, you need the signed permission of a parent or guardian. There is a place on the application for this signature. Even if you are a grandparent or an uncle, you still need the signed permission of a parent or guardian.

All people on PALM who are under 18 and are not accompanied by a parent or guardian need a registered PALM participant as a sponsor. The sponsor must sign a statement accepting responsibility. In previous years we had the sponsor include a letter accepting responsibility with the application. This year we've included this acceptance as part of the application, right under where the parent or guardian signs.

So if you are taking someone on PALM who is under 18 and not your child, you need two other signatures besides the ride waiver signatures: the signature of a parent or guardian of the person under 18 granting permission to participate in PALM and your signature as a sponsor accepting responsibility for the young person.

Bicycle Education Classes on PALM

Pedal Across Lower Michigan is a family oriented tour, perfect for anyone who has never done a multi-day ride. Included with your registration is a nightly Bicycle Education class. This course will be taught each evening of PALM immediately following each night's all rider meeting. The class includes the classroom aspects of the League of American Bicyclists Road I course. We will cover vehicular cycling, bicycle maintenance, efficient cycling, common crashes and how to avoid them, self-contained touring, and the Effective Cycling video. There will be no on-bike instruction included in this course. Participants who attend five of the six classes and pass a written exam, will be awarded a certificate of completion for the Road I class room instruction. Optional on bike instruction will be offered later in the year to complete the Road I course.

PALM Applications Mailed

The PALM applications for 2007 were mailed out on Sunday January 21 from the Redford 24 hour post office. You should start receiving them today. If you haven't gotten an application by next Monday, email PALM to have one sent to you. You can also go to the web site and download the application in PDF format.

Last year the ride filled on April 11 and we mailed back the applications for more than 100 riders. This year we have been contacted by several groups about participating in the ride. One of them has ridden with us in the past has over 30 riders. Try to signup early if you can.

I sent in my application today. The way I look at it, I'm buying summer and I would gladly pay more that the registration and meals for summer right now. Just to be able to see the sky and not the bottom of clouds! By the time the ride comes around, the check has cleared so long ago that the ride is free. (This same logic works for baseball tickets. Try it.)

Large Groups: Please don't wait until every last straggler has given you his/her check before you send in your applications. You may not make it in time and there is no way we can register a block of riders after we've reached our limit. The schools this year are smaller (and older) than last year and there really is no room. Your group will be disappointed and not be very happy with us. A straggler can be put on a waiting list and could make it on the ride anyway.

Applications, continued

The applications are ready, but there was some drama. I started before Thanksgiving marking up last year's application with the changes for this year: no jersey this year (so sad), meal prices went up, a new route (of course), it's 2007 now, etc. I got it to the printer at the start of December. We had two rounds of proof correction. This took a little longer since I emailed it out for other staffers to look at since it was an agenda item at one of the PALM meetings. Now it's edging to the end of December, still plenty of time. The printer takes her whole family on a family reunion Christmas vacation, but the applications are going to be done and I'll be able to pick them up a week before the meeting. A little tight, but still OK. Then one final glitch:
an ice storm which knocks out power to tens of thousands of homes and our printer. Homes get priority over businesses especially when the downed power line only affected two of them. The applications were printed, but not folded or tabbed. Maybe we could have the people at the PALM meeting fold 3000 applications, staple them as well as put stamps and labels on them? Hmm, maybe not. Or maybe I could have everybody pick up their applications at my house and we save on stamps? We could answer any questions that they have right there. But maybe that wouldn't work either.

Anyway you all were saved. The electricity came back on Friday, they were able to finish the applications on Friday afternoon, and we had a staff member who lives right by the printer pick them up at 5:00. Good thing, since they are closed on Saturday.

All this is to say that we are going to be mailing out the applications on Sunday January 21 (from a 24 hour post office). You should start receiving them by Tuesday.

Working on the Application

I'm generating the labels for this year's PALM applications,3047 of them, using MailMerge. When it works, MailMerge is magic. When it doesn't, what a pain! I produce registration confirmation letters and I vary the text based on whether this is your first PALM, your bus options, etc. This means that I have to change the letter once a year. So once a year I get to learn MailMerge again. This year it decided not to display MailMerge commands and the text options. No manual, of course so I had to turn to Help. What do you type in to get a list of the MailMerge commands and how to generate them? I tried "Mail Merge", all kind of things. Nothing worked so I displayed the MailMerge toobar to generate the options. All I wanted to do was to generate the {IF } commands. You can't type in {. That's taken as a character. Typing is what I do (old school). I was force to try to use the toolbar and point and click. I can never figure out why people use a picture (oh, excuse me, an icon) when they can use a word. Needless to say the toolbar didn't generate what I could use. I had to use Google and search entries to find out that Control F9 generates the { } pair that MailMerge takes as command delimiters. Why didn't I think of that? I did use the toolbar to toggle the settings so that I could see the MailMerge { IF } commands and the optional text I set up. Maybe there is hope for me yet.

I also do the PALM web site. After my rant, you can imagine what it looks like: lots of text and about one graphic image. Maybe if I started reading graphic novels instead of George Eliot the web site would stand a chance.

This year's route: Spring Lake to St. Clair

Perhaps a few words about this year's route. While we always start at Lake Michigan and go east, we change our route every year. The last couple of years we did a more southernly route, but this year we are up north: starting at Spring Lake (by Grand Haven) , going to Rockford, Carson City, Owosso, Millington, Almont and ending at St. Clair. This means that the distance is longer (about 290 mile total. The last two years had total mileage of 260 and 275 miles.) The course will be more hilly, at least for those of us who live in SE Michigan. The schools we'll be staying at will be a little smaller. Our ride has a 700 rider limit. The last couple of years we've had 750 people on our ride. In fact last year the ride sold out at the beginning of April and at one time we had over 800 people registered before people started to cancel because they couldn't be with their friends. This was way too many. We could have 750 riders because the schools in the southern part of the state were larger (and newer). No such luck in the north. We are going to be tracking the number of people registered closely because the schools are too small to handle over 7oo riders.

The meals on PALM are optional: you buy the ones you want, if any. We suggest that you consider buying the meals for Carson City, Millington, and Almont. Those towns are small and there are not a lot of places to eat.

PS. The last time we were at Almont, a whirlwind picked up one of the tents and sent it 100 feet in the air. We have pictures. It bounced off the bike repair truck on its way down. The flying tent: a legend of PALM

Introduction

Consider this blog a diary of the Pedal Across Lower Michigan (PALM) bike ride for 2007. It will be kind of official since I am on staff (Registration) and I'll have other staff members contributing. However we have 20-30 people on staff and they keep reminding me that I don't speak for them. If you go to our web site you'll see that we've been doing this for 25 years and are the cheapest week long bike tour around. What you may not know is that we are a family oriented ride. There were 192 riders out of 757 that were 19 or under. We have a lot of first time riders: last year we had 345 riders that had never done PALM before. About half of these had never done a week long bike trip before. There are reasons for this. For one, the daily mileages are about 50 miles, within the reach of people who are not training for the Tour de France. (But if you are, we have longer routes available. No Alps though.) Last year we had 60 people 70 and over who did the ride.

While the biking is important, the people are more important. I consider PALM summer camp for adults. Just like summer camp when you were a kid, you know no one when you start and by the time it ends you have friends that you just can't wait until next summer to see.

This blog will also contain the lastest information about this years ride and answers to questions that have recently come up. Some of this stuff may also make it to the web site, but that takes too long. The ride is June 23 to June 29 (so it won't mess up July 4) and this year goes from Spring Lake on Lake Michigan to St. Clair on the St. Clair river. The applications are being printed now and will be mailed out on January 21. Email us to get on our mailing list. See you then!