Kevin's New Bike

Anyone who has ridden in a bike event in Michigan knows Kevin Degen, at least by sight. Over the years Kevin and his trike have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for various charities (the Kenny Foundation, MS Society, Make A Wish, etc.) He has ridden PALM over 20 times. One of the few times he missed PALM was when he was riding across the country from California to Washington DC. Having ridden with Kevin, I can tell you that everyone who sees him seems to know him. Having put his trike into his car I can tell you that not only is it old, but it is heavy.

Three years ago the St. Huberts youth group was on the PALM, met Kevin, and saw his bike. They made it their mission to raise enough money to get him a new bike. Some engineers from Toyota met Kevin while riding the MS 150 and volunteered to design it. At about this time last year they presented their first attempt. One of their main goals for the bike was stability, especially in turns. Kevin has taken many spills. He wears protective padding on his elbow because of this. Their design had two wheels in the front and one in the back for stability. But unfortunately when Kevin rode the new bike on a test track, it was apparent that this design wasn't going to work.

Even though they already spent hundreds of hours on the first design, the Toyota engineers were undeterred. They redesigned it, this time with one wheel in the front and two in the back. And last Sunday, they were able present it to Kevin at St. Hubert's. The new model has lots of nice features. It was a feat for Kevin get on his old bike. With the new model the top tube is low, there is a locking front brake, and the seat can be raised and lowered by a switch, making getting off and on the bike much easier. To make the bike more stable in turns (especially right turns) the frame is off center. Kevin rides using his left arm and leg only which means he rides off center. The frame compensates for this so the bike's center of gravity is where it should be for stability. Needless to say the frame was custom built.


The best thing was that Kevin got to take the bike right home with him. He's already has had it out for a 50 mile ride. (My first ride this year was 20 miles, but you know Kevin. ) Bring on summer!

Better Weather

Finally the weather has gotten better and I've been able to get out on my road bike. It was in the 50's last weekend and my wife and I rode both days. You know, sitting on your bike after not doing it for 4 or 5 months makes your eyes open wide, especially the second day. We do a ride with a few friends on Tuesday night and we wanted to check the route. It's a good thing we did: the construction on I75 and I375 is going to make for some changes. We won't be able to go by Xochomilcho's in Mexicantown: Vernor is now a very busy narrow two lane road so getting there is bad and there is a barrier all along Fort Street so you can't make a left turn to get to the much safer Lafayette. On the east side of the route, the Canfield bridge over I75 is being rebuilt so we can't cross there after going thru Eastern Market. We rode the route with detours on Wednesday and it's a little shorter. I'll have to extend the route to go through Indian Village to make up for the lost miles.

We rode on Wednesday this week instead of Tuesday which had the better weather so that I could go to the Cluster 9 Garden Resource meeting. Even though everything still looks mostly dead, I have garlic and chives starting to sprout. The meeting was packed. People want spring bad. It ends up that there are about 64 types of vegetables that can be grown in Michigan and through this program you can get seeds or plants to 41 of them. I haven't started on getting my garden ready. The emerald ash borer has killed some trees behind my house so now I have more sun light. I'm thinking of doing a raised bed behind the garage where there is a lot of gravel. (It may have been an alley once.) And I'm thinking of expanding the garden where I have it now. If I can ride my bike, it's time to stop thinking and start doing.

Forcing a Bike Ride

I've waited all the way thru March for the temperature to get above 50 so that I could ride. It hasn't happened. On Saturday, I couldn't wait any longer. The sun was out and it was in the mid 40's. As far as I was concerned, this was as warm as it was ever going to get to the end of time. I put on everything including a down vest and rode. It was only 12 miles, but hey. The streets had a lot of debris left over from the melted snow so I rode my mountain bike, the one with the big tires, the same one I used the last time I rode when I did the First Dozen. I forgot that I had trouble shifting then. It still doesn't shift right but it did enough to finish the ride. Time to take it to the shop. Thank goodness my other bike, the one that I ride 95% of the time is ready to go.


I didn't have trouble sitting on the bike seat on the mountain bike (but the road bike...) but my legs were sore the next day. You would think that running through the winter would prevent that. It doesn't: biking uses different muscles. Running does help with conditioning. I could use a trainer or a stationary bike but it drives me crazy to stare at a wall when I'm exercising. I don't run inside for the same reason. Going by the same place over and over drives me crazy. So I'm outside with the dark and the cars and the wind chill.

We are at a dead time as far as PALM registration goes. There are still a few applications that have problems that haven't been entered and people can still add/change meals and bus rides thru May. I'm taking the opportunity to add the people who called/emailed us for applications this year to our mailing list. That's about it. Now if I could fill up the time with bike riding...

PALM Statistics

Since we have 786 people registered, I made a first pass at generating PALM statistics. I've posted them to the website. There are a few things that I notice. We have 225 people who are on the PALM for the first time. This is 29% of the people on PALM. This may seem like a lot but last year 35% of our riders were doing their first PALM and the year before that it was 45%. We've reached our 700 cutoff the last three years: 2006 in the middle of April, 2007 in the middle of March, and this year in the middle of February. Before 2006 no one remembers reaching the cutoff. In 2006 a lot of our regular riders were caught off guard and missed the cutoff. That's why there were so many first timers in 2006. By 2008 people figured out that they have to register early. If you didn't get a registration mailed to you this year, the odds of getting on PALM weren't good. (I didn't enter many new names and addresses during this year's registration. Most of the first timers this year were already on our mailing list and were mailed an application. )

The age band counts have some differences too. Notice that the number of 10-20 year olds is down this year and that the smallest age band is now 0 to 9. (Traditionally its been the 20 -29 age band.) One reason for the drop of 10 - 19 year olds is that we don't have the St Hubert's youth group with us this year. (They have been riding PALM every other year.)

Last year's PALM was the longest six day PALM that we've ever done, almost every day was 50 miles. We drew hot weather last year, high 80's to 90 for the first three days. This year we made sure that we mixed in some shorter days with the longer ones. (If you want to do longer miles, we offer optionals on our routes. We've always done this.) Weatherwise, we made sure that winter went on much longer in 2008. This year we had to raise our registration fees. Because of the rise in gas prices and schools we were losing thousands of dollars. We raised adult more than child and teen fees to keep PALM affordable for families. And this year, we filled early. If you look at the statistics, the median number of PALMs that a rider has ridden is 4. The number of riders drops greatly after 5 PALMs. It is very important for us that we attract new riders. One of PALM's missions is to encourage family biking by providing an affordable biking vacation. Attacting families is very important to us. I hope that the reason the number of first timers and 0 - 19 year olds are down is that we closed early, not a reaction to last year's route or the increase in fees.

Robins and Applications

On St. Patrick's day I saw my first robin in the neighborhood, high up in a tree. (A bird watcher at work told me that some robins do stay here over the winter. To see them you have to go to parks or woodlands. After all they have to eat.) Over the next couple of days I saw more of them, this time foraging on the ground. Yes, I can finally see the ground, but it's still in the low 40's. It's still a little too cold for me to ride, and I'm getting desperate. I haven't ridden all month. I complain that biking has a 8 month season in Michigan, but this year it's been true. Wait, stop complaining. I did see robins, today really is the first day of spring, opening day is 11 days away and Easter is this Sunday. Never mind the winter storm that is predicted for tomorrow. You have to live in the moment.

I got another packet of applications for about 70 people. This brings us to rider number 791. (So much for our 700 rider cutoff. Do you see why we don't have a wait list?) I'll be mailing out the confirmation letters over the weekend. There will be more cancellations than applications from here on out.

I notice in the comments that people looking for people who are going to cancel so that they can replace them. If you do this, please let us know. We still need you to sign the waiver to be straight with our insurance. If you do take over another's registration, you have until June 1 to change the meals and bus rides on it, until April 1 to get a jersey. The only thing you can't do is add somebody extra to the registration.

Caught up as winter fades

I finished processing and mailed out the confirmation letter for the 717th person on this year's PALM on Wednesday. If you mailed us an application and haven't gotten either a confirmation letter, your application back with regrets, or a call from us saying your application has an error, something is wrong. (We still have applications for about 70 people that were incomplete or had errors. ) It looks like I am finally caught up.

Take a good look at your confirmation letters to be sure that I got everything straight. I checked everything, but I was pretty rushed and wasn't at my best. Be sure I got you emergency contact information, t shirt sizes, bus rides and meals right. These are things I could have messed up that wouldn't get caught by my program.

I'm happy to report that the snow on my lawn is almost all melted and all the debris left during the winter is visible. Friday was the first day I was able to run without worrying about ice. Instead I had to watch out for mud. Our bikes are out of the shop and are ready. And even though there is not a speck of green to be seen, Saturday was the seed distribution day for the Garden Resource Program here and now I have seeds for radishes, lettuce, beets, turnips, peas, carrots, green beans and more. I'm not sure how far I can dig in the ground before I hit frozen dirt, but I'm ready.

Meals on PALM

All the meals on PALM are optional: you get to pick and choose the meals you want. PALM makes no money on the meals: what ever we collect, we pay to the people providing the meals. At times we've subsidized the meals. When I realized that the ride was filling up fast, I encouraged people, if money was tight, to at least register for PALM, that they have up to June 1 to add the meals (and bus rides for that matter). It looks like a lot of people took me up on that. The meal counts are down 40 to 50 from the meal counts last year for a similar number of people.

The meals are communal events. It's a time that all riders get together and that you get a chance to talk to other riders that you do not know in an informal setting, not as strangers. Some towns that we are staying at are small, eg Dowagiac, Sturgis, Hudson. There maybe only a couple of restaurants and few other food sources in town. If 200 or 300 additional people show up, they are going to be stressed. We warn restaurants at our site towns (and all along the route) that 700 people will be staying in their town (or will be riding past their place). I used to do this job. I would tell restaurants and groceries: think locusts. But sometimes the warnings are not enough. Consider buying the meals, at least some of them.

And if you are going to get the meals, please try to do it as early as you can. Don't wait until June 1. As part of registration, I'm in charge of the meal lists and counts. Things are always hectic at the beginning of June. Adding meals for 40 people , relaying the new meal counts to the site people, and mailing out new conformation letters would kill me.