Memory Quilt Winner!

So, what did you think of that How I Met Your Mother finale?  Wasn't quite what I expected...

Anyways, tonight we pulled the winner of the Memory Quilt raffle, for a quilt custom made by my sister for you!  Thanks to everyone who entered the raffle and thank you to my sister for donating the time and materials to make the quilt!!  My friend Andrew drew the winner and my roommate Katey and friend Dan were there as witnesses, in case you need to check...

Without further adieu, the winner is... Regina Seltzer!  Congrats, Regina!

Finally, if you did not win and still would like your own quilt, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with my sister.  She really does make great quilts!

Fundraiser Recap

It's been a few weeks coming, but I'm stoked to announce the HUGE SUCCESS that has been both of my Bike & Build fundraisers!!!!

Since January, my family worked diligently and tirelessly to put together a booster night fundraiser for March 7th in my hometown, Riverhead, NY.  This night featured a Chinese auction, live music, great food, a few fun competitions for the kids (and adults), a even a photo booth!  Needless to say, everyone had a really fun time hanging out and getting to know one another.  I was on hand at the event, getting to personally meet everyone and say some words about my trip.  Thank you to my wonderful mom and sister for being the driving force behind this fundraising night and thank you to everyone else who donated money, goods, and music to make this one so successful!  All together, we were able to raise $1019 by this fundraiser!!!

Just last Friday, I held my second fundraiser here in Maryland at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center.  This fundraiser brought together friends and family from the surrounding area for a good night of trivia, food, and drinks.  Harpoon brewery was kind enough to sponsor the event with 8 cases of beer and (almost) all the food was cooked by my roommate Katey and myself.  As it turns out, my trivia questions were a bit harder than I anticipated them being (sorry everyone!), but everyone still had a good time nevertheless!  Thank you to Katey and my girlfriend Emily for stepping up and helping out with all of the trivia night planning and running that I could not do just by myself!  Thank you to all the businesses that donated to the event, their donations totaling over $1500!  At this event, we ended with $1006 raised for affordable housing!!!

What does this all mean?!  This means that my fundraising total currently stands at a whopping $5820!!!!  This is far above and beyond my initial goal of $4500 and it all goes straight to supporting affordable housing!!

When i started preparing for this trip, my biggest concern was how i would raise the money to put on such a wonderful trip. What I didn't plan for was how much everyone would want to support me in this endeavor and how many people would willingly donate towards a trip supporting affordable housing. It means so much to me to see everyone coming out to support these events, support my trip, and support affordable housing!  You are all quite wonderful people and I thank you again from the bottom of my heart!

Bicycle Tuesday - 8

You never have the wind with you -
either it is against you or you're having a good day. 
~Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles

Bicycle Tuesday - Lucky Seven

To everyone, I'd just like to take a minute to share my thoughts on how lucky that I've been to have all of your support while preparing for my upcoming summer with Bike & Build.  Between individual donations, donations not even asked for, everyone who showed up to the booster night fundraiser, and everyone who has given their own personal time in spreading the word about my trip, contacting businesses for donations, and sought out other donors, THANK YOU!!!!!!

There have been some naysayers and some that want no part of supporting the cause, but by and large everyone has had good things to say about Bike & Build and Affordable Housing.  I feel incredibly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family around me right now.  You are all wonderful people and I am lucky to know all of you! Thanks!

Now, for the bicycling part....

Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving.

~Albert Einstein

Bicycle Tuesday - Sextus (That's 6th in Latin)

If Americans made one 4-mile round-trip by bike instead of car each week, we'd burn nearly 2 billion fewer gallons of gas annually. At $3.64 a gallon, that's a savings of $6.6 billion.

- Sierra Club: Pedaling Prosperity, 2012

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We all know that it costs much more to ride a bike than drive a car.... but what can you find wrong with the following chart?

That's right, there's no way that I only drive 15k miles a year!  On the other side, try to limit an enthusiastic cyclist to spending only $308 a year on bike parts and upgrades... now that is a kicker!  Nevertheless, the chart still does make a good point.

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What about reducing traffic in cities?  Back in 1991, a photographer in Munster, Germany captured the amount of space required to transport the same number of people in different modes of transportation (bicycle, car, bus).

Keep in mind that these cars are also much smaller than American cars!  The bus actually takes up less space than the bikes, but then you're stuck to a predefined route.  How boring is that?

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Now, wouldn't you like to give bicycling a shot?  I know, some of you might be thinking "but my arms are just too long to comfortably ride a bike."  Don't worry, there's still a bike for you!

So come join the fun!  Even Mr. T's doing it!

"I pity the flat"

Memory Quilt Fundraiser

Do you have shirts at home just taking up space?
Can you not bear to throw out these old shirts?
Can you think of anyone else that this might apply to?

 

As part of my Bike & Build fundraising effort, I am raffling off a custom memory quilt made by my sister just for you!  My sister, Kristen, has been kind enough to donate the time and material for the quilt, so all that you'll have to do is supply the shirts!  These make great keepsakes for you and your loved ones (and did I mention that they are extremely warm and cozy?).  This could be a perfect gift for your parents, your kids, or yourself!

While some stores sell these quilts for upwards of $300, all you have to do is enter this raffle!  Tickets for the raffle are just $10 each or 3 for $25.  All of the proceeds of this raffle are going directly to Bike & Build and, in turn, affordable housing!  You can send me a message at crosscountrydan@gmail.com for more information on how to enter!

Cheers!

Fundraising Update

Over 3/4 of the way there!!!

It's official, I am currently at 77% of my minimum fundraising goal of $4,500!  A hearty thank you to everyone who has donated so far, and thank you in advance to everyone that is planning to donate!  I still have my two main fundraising event up and coming, so please come and join me at the...

• Bike & Build Booster!  Tomorrow (Friday, March 7th) at 6-9pm at the East End Arts Carriage House in Riverhead, NY.  You can send me a message at crosscountrydan@gmail.com for more information on this event.


• Trivia Night Fundraiser!  Thursday, March 27th from 7-11pm at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center in Grasonville, MD.  For more information, please click on this link.
 

While I am on the home stretch of my donations, there is no reason just to stop at just $4,500 when you're supporting a great cause like affordable housing!  As I've told my donors before, only half of my minimum fundraising goal actually goes straight towards putting on this great trip.  The other half is given directly back to affordable housing groups (large and small) in grants and donations, which I get to help choose.  Keeping in mind that this is all for affordable housing, let's see how much we can raise together!

Thank you again for taking a look at my blog and for all of your generosity and support for affordable housing!  Please consider  joining me at one of my upcoming fundraising events (and inviting all of your friends)!  Both are bound to be a lot of fun :)

Cheers,
Dan

Source: http://www.peopleforbikes.org/

Bicycle Tuesday - 5 (Now it's a party!)

As I'm knee-deep in getting ready for my Bike & Build Trivia Night Fundraiser, hand-writing thank you cards, and work with Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre, I thought that I'd make a short post today that's certain to entertain!  Without further ado....

Animals On Bikes!

It looks like everyone's getting into bicycling!  Here are a group of pictures that I found online of animals on bicycles!  I'll let you determine which ones are real... (Please note that I claim no rights to any of these pictures, except for the hairy Sasquatch at the end.)

Bicycle Fitting

A few weeks ago, I sent an email out to Sarah and Stu at Parvilla Cycle looking for ride sponsorship for my Bike & Build trip.  Despite being booked up through April 1st for bicycle fittings, Stu was kind enough to squeeze me in for a static bicycle fitting today at their shop in Edgewater, MD.

Just one-half of the giant Parvilla Cycle & Multisport store

I went in today for my fitting and was immediately blown away by the variety and professionalism of their shop!  I've been to the local Bike Doctor and to my favorite outdoor shops EMS, REI, and HTO (why do they all go by their three-letter abbreviations?), but none of them could touch this place in terms of the high quality gear selection offered.  Since "getting into" road biking for Bike & Buld, I've spent far too much time in researching different products and trying to figure out what would stand the test of time on a long trip and I'll tell you that they feature only the top of the line stuff, not necessarily in price but certainly in quality.

Stu, a co-owner of Parvilla C&M and my bicycle fitter today

When I arrived, Stu had me join him in the back of the store in the bicycle fitting room.  He already had a bicycle trainer out and ready for my bike to be mounted up, so while I went to get changed for the fitting (yep, I had to wear my actual gear... blue jeans were not going to cut it), he got the bike all ready for me to hop on and take it for a spin.  When I first got my bike a few weeks and 50 miles ago, I initially used the free online Competitive Cyclist bicycle sizing tool to get my bike set up roughly to my body size, which seemed to work alright, but I never was that comfortable on it.  I assumed that the unusual and uncomfortable posture was just part of road biking... boy, was I wrong (the unusual posture is normal though)!  Stu showed me, on my own bike, how I had the saddle set at least 3 inches too low, my handlebars were pointed downward too much, and my seat was tipped up by the nose by at least 3 degrees too much.  By fixing my seat and handlebars, he set the bike to cradle my body instead of trying to ditch it off.  While we went through the fitting process (maybe took a half hour?), Stu had me pedal the bicycle under light and full load to watch the motion of my legs to make sure that they were doing what they should.  His attention to detail was fantastic, even going far enough to ask me about any medical issues that might necessitate a different riding posture on the trip.

GURU Dynamic Fit Bike

Bear in mind that this was a static fitting, which Parvilla does not actually offer any more.  These days, the shop offers custom 3D dynamic motion capture fittings on the micro-adjustable GURU dynamic fit bike to make sure that every athlete can get the most out of his/her race bike.  It is obvious that business is doing very well for the company, based on the number of people coming and going while I was there and that Stu is booked on the dynamic fittings for at least another month.  Again I'll applaud their shop for being so kind to squeeze me in for the static fitting, which was much simpler and quicker than the dynamic fitting (which can take a couple hours) and worked quite well for this non-racer.  All in all said, I'm much happier with my bike now and I look forward to cranking out those miles!  Cheers to you, Parvilla Cycle & Multisport! :)

And thank you to my roommate Katey for another impromptu photo shoot!