Application Update

As I mentioned in the last post, the applications were mailed out Friday January 25 in the afternoon. I live 40 miles away and got my application on Saturday. One of our riders from Arkansas got his application on Monday. His brother who lives in Nebraska got his application on Tuesday. If you have not received your PALM application yet, you are probably not going to get one. If you email your address to us, we will mail you an application. If you wait a few days, I'll add a link to the website so that you download the application via the web. If you haven't mailed in your application yet and want to get a rider number lower than 100, you are going to be disappointed. We are behind already.

I've come up with a one word description of Michigan weather, especially this winter: bipolar. This week it went from being 12 one day (with plenty of wind) to the 40's the next (Kevin Degen was thinking about biking) to 13 the next. What can you do? Well, I live about mile from the Redford Theater. It's the last neighborhood movie theater in Detroit and is the home of the Motor City Theater Organ society. They show old movies (mostly for $4.00) proceeded by theater organ music. The theater has been restored(it has stars in the ceiling and a model train setup for Christmas) and mostly the movies are good. (Red River, On the Town, Maltese Falcon, ET, etc.) Last night it was "Tarzan and His Mate". Not so good. It was made in 1934 and while Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O'Hara looked great and the print was good, the sound was bad (from the 30's) and what a plot! Kevin, I know, is holding out for the Three Stooges in April. I'm setting my hopes on Buster Keaton in March.

PALM Applications Are on Their Way

After the coldest week of the year, I got an email from the printer on Friday that said he had mailed out the PALM applications. On Saturday I received my PALM application: the printer was right, he did mail them. At the nadir of winter, summer begins.

Let me refresh your memory on how this works. When you fill out and mail in your application, you are buying summer. At this point $110 (plus extra for meals) is cheap for summer. I'm sure you would pay $135 or more even, but PALM offers you a bargain. Your check clears in February or March so that by June you bike for free. What could be better: summer and a free bike tour, all for signing up now. (By the way this same reasoning works for buying baseball tickets too. Try it.)

We mail the applications by 1st class mail. The printer has software from the US Postal Service that allows him to pick up forwarding addresses. This means if you don't receive your application by the end of this week (in time for the Super Bowl!) you are probably not going to get one. Email us at palmbiketour@yahoo.com to get a PALM application and to be sure that we have your correct mailing address.

My biking has been pretty sparse lately: I didn't bike in November at all (why?), rode once in December and once in January. I'm going to have to start by finding my bicycle. One thing I can do is take it in to the mechanic to get it ready. If we have a warm sunny day in the next couple of weeks, you'll know that my bike is in the shop. Good thing I have more than one bike.

More PALM Doings

Last Saturday was a real winter day. I ran in Hines Park and didn't see a single biker: a first for this winter. I did see 2 deer and passed within 20 feet of them. They didn't seem concerned. My brother was in Atlanta on the weekend. The definition of winter weather is different in Altlanta. It got down to the 20's and they had some snow, maybe 1/2 inch. They closed the mall. On the crawl space on the Sunday news they were announcing the churches that would be closed because of the weather. Martin Luther King's church was closed on the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. On the way to the airport, my brother passed by intersections that were cordoned off by police tape: ice in the intersection. My brother was driven to the airport by a guy from Grand Rapids who almost couldn't drive because he was laughing so hard. I wonder how the bikers were doing there.

We had a PALM meeting on Sunday. The sites are coming along nicely. (For Midland one year we had to keep changing the school we were going to stay at. The one we finally got was reconstructing its kitchen and cafeteria when we stayed there. It made the meals interesting, but our site co-ordinator, Bev Totten, worked thru it all. Nothing like that so far this year.) We got a chance to see the tentative route. (The optional century ride of 102 miles will go thru Michigan and Ohio. We tried to get it to go thru Indiana too, but it didn't work out.) The applications are printed. Generally we label and stamp the applications for mailing during this meeting. This year we are having the printer do it. They will be tabbed and mailed at the end of this week. We looked at a mockup of the tshirt in this year's color. It's a dayglo light green and is really bright. When we all wear them for the parade, you should be able to pick us up on satellite. It will make it look like the tour went thru Chernobyl. All in all it was a quiet meeting but it was nice to see everybody.

Bike Things in January

Just what can you do involving bikes in January? More to the point, what can I possibly blog about in January when the PALM is going to be June 21 - 27? One thing saving me this week is Adventure Cycling. They send out an email every couple of weeks with little blurbs about biking (and links to the complete stories). Click here to sign up. This issue had stories about two friends who turned their couch into a bike and a Congressman who bikes in Washington DC. (Hey, in January I'm easy to please.)

Another thing I did was to sign up for the West Michigan MS 150. This year it's being held on May 31-June 1. This won't give me much time to get ready. I first did the PALM to get ready for the Mid Michigan MS 150 which is held in the middle of July. Now it looks like it will be the other way around. It's a pledge ride that has 89% of the pledge money collected going to their programs: a good percentage.

What else to do in January? How about a 4-H potluck? There is a 4-H club on McClellan in Detroit. (Check out Mapquest to see where that is: you would be surprised.) The Garden Resource Program sponsored a potluck there to announce their plans for the new year. They weren't able to mail out flyers and only made a few calls. They expected maybe 20-30 people. They got about 70-80. People are ready to garden now. This is a program to promote family and community gardens in Detroit as a source of fresh vegetables. Did you know that there are no grocery chain stores anywhere in Detroit and that for most of the city the nearest grocery outlet is a gas station? That's what the Garden Resource program is trying to address. Click here to see what I'm going to get for $10.

Sunny Day

Yesterday was one of the rare sunny days in SE Michigan in winter. One year it was so bad that the local TV station featured a sunset on the 11:00 news because there had been a record low amount of sun for the month. (I think that December only had 6 hours of direct sunlight.)

On sunny weekend days you have to go outside. How can you prove to yourself that everything is not just shades of gray? One way is to go to Eastern Market. It's open 6 days a week year round, but Saturday is the big Market day. There is a lot of construction there now, but two sheds are open. Bring a lot of ones. Everything on Saturday costs $1. There were a lot of cameras and a lot of languages being spoken.

I almost went on a bike ride. I would have had to wear everything that I had, but in the sunlight I could do it. Instead I worked on PALM and I want credit for it. I added the site pages (in their unfinished state) to the web site. I also made the changes to the registration program. (It's 2008 now, not 2007. We have a jersey this year and the registration and bus fees have changed.) I also changed the text on the confirmation letter. Once again I had to remember how Mail Merge works in Word. Fortunately I complained about this in a blog entry last year. I used the blog entry to help me to do the changes.

The next PALM meeting is Jan 20. If things go well, the applications will be printed. They are not scheduled to be mailed until Jan 25 because I thought that the meeting was on the 27th. Ah, well. I let you know when the applications are actually mailed (by 1st class) so that you can keep an eye out for them.

Something Besides Winter

I noticed that all I seem to talk about so far this year is winter. Granted we are not friends, I've got to have something else going on besides winter weather, especially since it's been 60 degrees the last couple of days. You will be glad to know that I proofed the PALM 2008 application and routed it and the spreadsheet containing the mailing list to the printer. They will print it next week and are scheduled to mail it out January 25. Scheduled, notice. Last year we had an ice storm and the printer didn't have electricity. Opps, I'm talking about winter again.

Now that I'm done with the application, I can work some on the web site. Andy Vast-Binder used MapMyRide to map out this year's route. Go to the web site and check it out. Click on one of the mileages for this year's ride (they are links) and a map of that day's ride will pop up. Very cool. Thanks, Andy.

We are finally mailing out the 2007 ride photos (on a DVD) to all the people who ordered them on the ride. When I get mine, I'll upload it to Flickr and add a link to it to the web site. I also have a CD of photos from Bill Richardson that I can add. That should keep me from looking outside.

Parking Fee at Sterling State Park

This year's PALM ends in Monroe. The last time PALM ended in Monroe the end site was Monroe Community College. It was nice, there was plenty of parking, but it was about 15 miles from Lake Erie with no easy way to get there. We had our usual parade but it circled around campus. We like to go from Lake Michigan in the west to water in the east. Most of the time the optional route on Saturday takes you to Lake Michigan so that you can dip in your tire at the start. Generally the end site is within easy biking distance from whatever water there is so that you can dip you tire at the end. (Last year the water was the St. Clair River. It was beautiful but you would have had to tie your bike to a long rope and lower it over the sea wall to be able to dip your tire.)

Monroe also has a State Park, Sterling State Park. It's this year's end site for PALM. It's been newly refurbished, is the only State Park that has access to Lake Erie, and is big enough to have a parade in it. However it is a State Park and Michigan is in a budget crunch. Cars have to pay an entry fee: $6 for residents (ie cars with Michigan plates), $8 for non residents. So whoever picks you up will have to pay to do it. If you are planning to take the bus to New Buffalo on June 21 so that your car will be there at the end of the ride, you will need to pay for weeklong parking. Specifically you will need a annual MVP: $24 for residents, $29 for non residents, and $6 for senior (65 and over) residents. This will allow you access to all of Michigan's State Parks for 2008. That will be good for me. I live in Michigan and plan to take the bus to the start. It's not so good for non resident riders. See here for the official State Park fee information.

One way to avoid this parking fee is park at the start site in New Buffalo and take the bus back there on June 27 at the end of the ride. There is no parking fee but the buses get back to New Buffalo at about 6:30 and you will still have to drive home. For me the prospect of having to drive back home in SE Michigan starting at 6:30 after a week of bicycling is too daunting.