PALM 2008 Begins For Me

We've already had three meetings on PALM 2008, picked a route, contacted the schools, and laid out a tentative route but for me the work for PALM began last Thursday. Other staff members are working on sites and doing the route. My wife and I do the registration and that starts with the application. Last Thursday I met with the printer and went over the changes that were needed for this year's application. If you've looked at the web site (http://www.lmb.org/palm) , you know that the registration rates have gone up: it's now $110 for adults (18 and over), $65 for young people ( 11 thru 17), $55 for children (10 and under), and $75 for non-riders. The bus fees have gone up to $45. It ends up that even though we sold out the last 2 years, we lost money both years, last year more than the year before. Our costs have gone up and, with no reasonable prospect of their going down, we had no choice.

Again, if you've checked the web site you'll notice that this year's PALM is a southern route. New Buffalo to Dowagaic, Sturgis, Coldwater, Hudson, Tecumseh and ending at Sterling State Park in Monroe. This year's ride will be shorter than last year's. (We checked and found that last year's PALM was the longest six day PALM that we've ever had. No wonder I was so tired after the ride.) For those of you that do the optional century ride, we are trying to route one that will include Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan.




And we will have a ride jersey this year. (We didn't have one last year and we heard about it.) It will be $40 and must be ordered by April 1st. It will be part of the application.

This year's application will have a new release form. While it will require a smaller font (oh, those clever lawyers), it should be clearer which signatures are required for participants under the age of 18, with or without accompanying guardian/parents, and where to make the signatures. Given the questions and mistakes that we had last year, the wording that we had was not clear enough.

We will be mailing our applications 1st class (as always) so that everyone receives their application at the same time (within a day or two). We won't be putting the application onto the website until 2 weeks after we do the mailing. If you check the rider statistics on our web site, you will see that we have a lot of riders over 50 some of whom have ridden with us for years. Some of us are not friends with the internet and we want to give them a fair chance. (Last year the ride sold out in six weeks which caught a lot of people off guard.) If you want to get on the mailing list and get this 2 week head start, email us at palmbiketour@yahoo.com