The 1998 Pan Mass Challenge August 1-2, 1998

Introduction and Summary

By now, you probably know that I did not ride in the 1998 PMC, and that it was a crash during a light training ride which did me in for the season. Nevertheless, the week from July 29th through August 2nd was very exciting. This was the 19th PMC, and my 8th. The story which follows details the events leading up to the 1998 PMC, and how I participated in the event without riding. and the ride itself. A few comments and thanks are listed here:

• Fund-raising is going very well. At this writing, I have commitments for nearly $6500 in individual contributions. My truly amazing sponsors went further this year. Good job!
• For a change, the weather was perfect - 70's and sunny with low humidity all weekend long.
• As always, there are a lot of people I need to thank. It was an especially difficult year due to my injury, and throughout, my wife Beth was there to help and to keep me in line.

  I would also like to thank:

  • my family,
  • my sponsors, who showed me that it's the goal, not the ride, which keeps them coming back,
  • Kyle Welch, who was along for the crash ride, and helped get me out of the road and off to medical attention, and
  • the staff, and ALL of the volunteers at the PMC, who put on an incredible event year after year.

The Road Not Taken A Story About The 1998 PMC

August 30, 1998

To accurately capture my views on the 1998 PMC, we need to go back to the end of the 1997 PMC. 1997 was a record fundraising year, both for me ($6400) and for the PMC ($5.5M). It was also my best cycling year to date - 5100 miles total, with strong rides at the PMC. After the event, I resolved to do a thorough search for a new bike, since the bike I was riding (a replacement for a broken frame) never quite fit. After 2 months, I bought a custom Merlin Extralight. This was delivered in December. I managed to put 350 miles on it in December, closing out 1997 having ridden in every month. Turning the corner to 1998, I was looking forward to an excellent year of cycling.

How Not To Prepare For the PMC Since Beth and I had planned to be on vacation for most of February, I tried to get in as many miles as possible in January - 300 or so. In an El Nino year, you ride when you can. On February 9, after a week of rain, I went out for a light lunchtime ride. A slow left turn through some gravel resulted in a crash in which I broke my left hip (to read all about the crash, visit The Crash Site). We could have gone straight, but you never know - that might have been even worse. The cycling season was over - and we missed our vacation. After 6 weeks, I ventured out of the house for the first time. If you look closely, that's a PMC logo on the shirt. Coincidence? I was already registered for the 1998 PMC. Soon after the accident, I called Al Cote in the PMC office. This discussion convinced me to remain registered as a rider, participate in the event (somehow), and raise money as in 7 previous years. In June, four long months later, I was free from crutches, and moved on to a cane, which I used until after the PMC.

Pre-PMC Volunteering Fast forward to July. I started working for the PMC on the Wednesday before the ride. This was my first visit to PMC headquarters. I've talked to a lot of these people on the phone, but this was the first time we've met. It was a fun and interesting place to spend a few days. It's a great setup - office in front, warehouse in back. There were several refrigerated trailers, and several for dry goods. Out front, a dozen rental trucks. I would spend the next few hours in one of them.

Apparently, you can never have enough plates, spoons, and napkins. I was off to pick up 20000 spoons, 5000 plates, and cases upon cases of napkins. Of course, I managed to get lost - again. I seem to do that a lot around PMC time (see the 1997 story). But then again, even when I lived in Massachusetts, I could never get the route 128/93/95 interchange right. Exit numbering there is a cruel joke, and you're on 128 North and 95 South at the same time! Eventually, I found the place, picked up the goods and headed back to the PMC.

On Thursday, the warehouse was busy, since it was "produce" day. Tomatoes, oranges, crates of cantaloupes, and of course, pallets of bananas. I graduated to a refrigereated truck, shown below. and was off early to get lunch meat - 100's of pounds of it. This was my first experience with a diesel truck. I'm still trying to figure out what the dashboard light was which came on every time I took my foot off the gas. On this day, I made it to the target without a hitch, picked up lunch for 2300, and headed back. The next job was to pick up some additional trucks. I had the opportunity to drive to the rental place with PMC Executive Director Billy Starr. This was the first time I had been able to spend more than about 10 seconds talking to Billy. We discussed cycling, fundraising, the PMC... It was a great time.

Interestingly, there really was not all that much to do on the last day before the ride. I mean, there was a lot of activity in the office and warehouse, but the PMC is so well organized - there was no chaos, or a mad rush to do last minute things. Several daily plans were mapped out on white boards. I was very impressed. Bravo to the PMC staff!

Defining Moments

For each person involved in the PMC, each PMC has a few defining moments. One such moment occurred for me on Friday evening at the opening ceremonies. This is a time to register, eat, visit the exhibition suite, and catch up with old friends whom you haven't seen in a year. As usual, I ran into the Brightmans: brothers Tim and Mark, and Tim's wife, Loretta. Combined, these folks have 30 years of PMC experience. Tim's 11 year-old son Stephen was along as well. Stephen really wanted to ride this year, but the minimum age is 15. Well, I told him, it'll only be a few years, and then you'll be out there with the rest of us. Nope, he said, we won't need to ride by then. I asked him why not. He explained that since we will raise upwards of $6M this year, it won't be necessary for us to ride for much longer. If only this young man's vision were true! I explained to him that even if we raised $6 Billion, we would probably still need to ride in 4 years.

Friday Night

The initial plan had been for me to drive long-time riding partners John Kowaleski and Chris Spear out to Sturbridge, then get John's car to Provincetown for Sunday afternoon. On Thursday, I was offered a volunteer assignment for Saturday - drive one of the three official photographers around from the start until about 2:30PM. This seemed like an exciting opportunity, and although I had not planned on staying in Sturbridge, there was a spare bed in John's room, so this worked out well. I got some PMC magnets to put on the outside of John's Volvo 850 wagon, and presto - it was an official PMC vehicle.

As usual, the Sturbridge Host was a madhouse. I registered, then grabbed a quick dinner prior to the opening ceremonies. I ran into many members of my PMC family, including Barb Asketh, riding in her 4th PMC (I think). Last year, I had hoped for a hot weekend, and Barb later blamed me for having got what I requested. This year, I promised good weather. Interestingly, what would have been one of the worst training years in California was about the best PMC weather weekend ever. Somewhere in here, I was supposed to find my photographer, but did not. This would have to wait until the morning.

Later, the opening ceremonies began on a somber note. The PMC has lost another friend, rider, and staunch supporter. Todd Miller lost his battle with cancer a few weeks before the ride. I had the pleasure of meeting Todd many years ago, and ran into him at every PMC. In honor of his many years with the PMC, the stretch of the ride which crosses the Bourne Bridge into Cape Cod has been dedicated "Miller's Mile".

The last speaker was a special guest - Einar Gustafson, better known as "Jimmy". After years of anonymity, the "Jimmy" for which the Jimmy Fund was named in 1948 had surfaced! The complete Jimmy story is at the DFCI site.

We're Off! I got up a little earlier than usual so that I could find my photographer, and get the car positioned beyond the intersection of Route 20 and the Host which is closed as 2000 or so bikes go forth from Sturbridge. I found one of the other photographers at about 5AM, who pointed me at the breakfast hall. Amidst a sea of blue and white cycling jerseys was Mark Turney, cameras ready. Since he was not supposed to be covering the start, we agreed to meet at the intersection at 5:50, 10 minutes before the start. At 5:58, I was worried. As I heard Billy say "GO", I saw Mark running with three cameras around his neck. He jumped into the car just as the first cyclist reached the intersection! We were off to an exciting start.

We moved up a few miles and pulled over long enough for Mark to jump out and get some shots of the lead group, while I took this shot of the sun rising on the road ahead. Apparently, there had been a little mixup (ie, crash) at the start, and there was a big gap between the lead group and the rest. We jumped back in the car and got up to the Charlton Police station, where we heard the familar sound of bagpipes - for as long as I can remember, the first checkpoint along the route is the bagpiper at dawn. We pulled over and stayed at this location for 15 minutes, while probably 1200 bikes went by, including John K, shown here.

Once back on the road, we tried to map out the kinds of scenes he wanted. I made a number of suggestions from my memory of the route. Of course, most of the hills are early in the ride, so my first offer was for him to photograph "pain". We stopped in several locations at decent hills. After one of these, Mark had an idea: we would pop the hatch, and he would sit half out the back of the car while I drove. This was definitely a new experience (well, I did drive with 4 guys in the trunk of my Caprice in college, but...). I drove, he gave slower/faster directions, and we did this right into the first water stop at 20 miles.

After about 20 minutes, we were driving again. I paced some cyclists while Mark photographed them through the open passenger window. We stopped at various places where spectators were out to see the ride. Mark was very interested in the spectators. We stopped to talk to one of the police officers who was out to direct car and bicycle traffic. Later, we stopped at a large group on their front lawn (this is about 7:15AM). Balloons, a bubble blower, and lots of cheering.

Lunch and the SF5

We arrived at the 60 mile lunch stop. It was very busy. Mark had disappeared, so I played photographer myself. I got lucky and found a familiar face - Barb Asketh - as she approached the stop. Later, I ran into a group of cyclist who had flown to San Francisco in June, and cycled cross-country to meet up with the PMC! What an awesome achievement. Being from the Bay area, it was fun to chat with these guys, and speculate about joining them - sometime.

I Finally Found River Street

Those who read last year's story, "Where the Heck is River Street?", will recall that I got lost at about the 71 mile point in West Bridgewater by missing a right turn on River Street. At about 70 miles, Mark wanted to stop to talk to a crowd of about a dozen spectators. I stayed out of the way, but they I overheard someone say "River Street". This piqued my interest, so I walked over, asking them where River Street was. About a half mile up. I retold the story about getting lost last year, and we all had a good laugh. When we got up to the turn, we had another good laugh: there were 4 arrow signs on the left side of the road, and 4 on the right. I don't think anyone was missing the turn this year!

Photo Finish

Mark was back in the hatch, and I kept one eye on the road ahead, one on the bikes to my right, and one out the back. He was talking to cyclists not 10 feet behind the car. As we would approach turns, I'd warn him to hang on - wouldn't want to lose him off the back, you know. We made it safely to the Mass Maritime Academy (MMA) just about on schedule - about 2:45. I managed to avoid killing anyone and Mark never fell out of the car, so it was a pretty successful day. We parked and walked towards the quad. The first order of business was to sign in - I was still registered as a rider, and people can get a little confused if you forget to sign in. Things had changed quite a bit from the previous year. The bikes were in a different place, the quad was set up differently. I ran into Chris and John, who had been at MMA for quite some time. We walked around for a while, and I marvelled at all of the vendors - especially the Dunkin Donuts van with cappuccino slushies (I'm sure they have a better name for it). MMA was a busy place - folks were lining up to get massage appointments, food and drink, and of course, lots of people were shagged out on the lawn.

I had some lunch, then went back to the car to retrieve Mark's battery. To this point, I had not used my cane all day, and I realized that my hip was pretty tired, so I nabbed the cane and used it extensively over the next week. I found Volunteer Director Wil Carrol, and turned in my PMC magnets. After one more loop around the quad, I grabbed a few bottled waters, went back to the car, and headed up the cape to meet Beth in Truro.

`

A Different Sunday - A Different Perspective There was no 4AM reveille this year. I slept in until at least 7:30. Our plan was to be at the finish line by 9:15 or so. I signed in, and we cheered some early finishers as they crossed the line. We saw John K come in at about 10AM, and we all met up by the food tent. While I was fetching some burgers from the barbeque, I ran into a volunteer - well, actually, he ran into me - and we knew each other. I had not seen Dave Droll, an old band buddy, for probably 10 years. He was volunteering in his first PMC. I'm pretty sure he'll be back next year. I was able to run into the Brightman's again and catch them on film, shown below.

So, that was basically how the weekend went. There were many things that were different. There were mixed emotions: I was frustrated at being unable to ride, but I was happy to help out. In a normal year, I usually pass by the spectators with a smile and a "thank you", very happy that they are out to cheer. But I've never talked to any of them until this year. I had never seen how the PMC works from the inside; now I've been a (tiny) part of it, and I certainly have much more appreciation for the volunteers and the PMC staff.

A Look Back and a Look Ahead

I'll close with this. This was a difficult year, but I will recover to ride another day. An event like the PMC has a way of putting things in perspective, and when it's all said and done, I really don't have anything to complain about. The fight against cancer has its frustrating and devastating moments. Many of you have lost friends and family to cancer, and many have success stories to tell. Either way, we must continue to fight. Because the the cure is out there somewhere, and we get closer to it every year.

I sincerely thank you all for your support, and I hope you will continue to support me as I continue to ride to end cancer.

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