Dear HOW100 Participants,
As executive director of The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation, I want to personally thank you for your participation in Hope on Wheels. This year we were able to set a new record in participation with over 500 cyclists. I know that each of you as a participant has experienced the special spirit of the HOW100 - the joy of using cycling as a way to demonstrate our conviction in the fight against breast cancer and the satisfaction of physically working together with hundreds of women sharing common goals and a dream.
To further your sense of accomplishment on the success of the HOW100, here are a few special notes on the difference that has been made in the lives of local women through proceeds from the event. The monies you raised through registration and fundraising have been used to provide free screening and diagnostic mammograms to women who are underinsured or uninsured. This mammogram program has provided critical, life-saving screening for over 350 women who would otherwise be unable to receive mammography services. Regrettably, there was a high incidence of follow-up care required, as these women rarely had access to adequate preventative care.
The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation is an invaluable resource to women dealing with a devastating breast cancer diagnosis by providing support and education, transportation to treatment, important nutrition support or helping a new patient devise an action plan. We are truly making a difference in the lives of women through your help.
While we recognize that you have a variety of opportunities for riding and fundraising each year, we hope that you will continue to reserve the first Saturday after Labor Day each year to join us as we use Hope on Wheels to fight against breast cancer in our community. Please mark your calendar for September 11, 2010!
Even though our 2009 ride is complete, you may still use the Sponsor A Rider option of our website to make a contribution to the HOW100. We have also designed a new Hope on Wheels cycling jersey and shorts that may be ordered online as another means of showing your support. Be sure to spend some time on the website as we have a variety of new content capturing the essence of the 2009 event:
Our Scrapbook Page
A Thank You to Our 2009 Volunteers
New HOPE Jersey Order
2009 Photos
A Thank You to Whole Foods
A Thank You to Top Fundraisers
In closing, thank you again for supporting The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation in our directed fight against breast cancer.
Sincerely,
Susan Earl Hosbach
Executive Director
The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation
Dear HOW100 Supporters,
We are just days away from our awesome event!
Let's think about why we do this...
We Ride in Honor Of...
As returning participants and supporters know, HOW100 is much more than a bike ride on the Trace. It's an opportunity to recognize those who have inspired hope through their battle against cancer and to celebrate strength, resiliency, and motivation to accomplish goals. This year we have several ways you can acknowledge the people in your life who have struggled with breast cancer. Returning this year are the HOW100 tribute board and honorary pink ribbons to tie on your bikes as you ride in hope. We are also proud to recognize survivors this year with a specially designed "survivor"decal for survivors' helmets and bikes.
Friends, Moms, Sisters, Children
People We Love!
Come early to take advantage of the various opportunities to honor the cause behind this cycling event, to join in the spirit of HOW100 camaraderie, and to celebrate this 5th annual HOW100, which benefits The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation's efforts to offer support and education and to advance treatment in the community.
If you are not registered, sign up now while motivation is high and the forecast is clear! Call up a friend and make a date to ride together. Think about a little fundraising and do it for someone you love (and tell them so).
Dates and Deadlines
On line registration closes Thursday, September 10th at noon.
On-line Sponsor A Rider Contributions will only count towards your fundraising totals for 2009 if made before Thursday, September 10th at noon.
** If you are in contention for a top prize for your fundraising to find a cure, please have anyone who is making a contribution on your behalf through the Sponsor a Rider section of the website complete their donations prior to noon on Thursday, September 10th, if you would like these amounts to count toward your fundraising total. Contributions made after this time will still go to our worthy cause, but will not be posted to the sponsored rider's fundraising totals. Please understand that we have a very small administrative staff, and we need some time to reconcile our balances prior to Saturday morning. We take a lot of care in making sure that all contributions are accounted for properly!
See you bright and early Saturday!
Women roll at 8:00 am, men roll at 8:30 am.
The How100 Team
Dear HOW100 Supporters,
We are just two weeks away from our awesome event. Hopefully this update will add to your excitement and provide some useful information!
HOW100 News
There are several new postings on our HOW100 News page. Be sure to check our stories:
The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation - Resources in the Fight Against Breast Cancer
Hope on Wheels at Work and Play or Both, Together!
Let's Talk about the Routes
An Inspiring Teenager Who Gives Back
(previewed below)
Register (RSVP to the Party) Today
Each year since Hope on Wheels has begun we have had over 400 women participate in our ride. As we have added a Men's event this year, we are interested to see if we can raise our attendance to over 600. Our participants have always appreciated that we approach our event like a great party and consider a preregistration as an RSVP. You can register online today. Our registrations are processed directly by the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation and accordingly, there are no annoying active.com fees. Only preregistered riders are guaranteed a goody bag stuffed with valuables, as well as our signature or Hope on Wheels socks. We have added a sauve black sock as the freebie for our men. Register today to ensure that you have this HOW100 souvenir to fly the colors! Register before August 31, to save five dollars!
Lindsey Khim
An Inspiring Teenager Who Gives Back
Every year in the Hope on Wheels history we have seen a number of young girls accept the challenge of fundraising in the fight against breast cancer. It really warms the heart to see a young woman step up and set a great example for all of us. Lindsey Khim has certainly been a leader in this impressive group of young fundraisers. Lindsey has been a top fundraiser for three years. She and her mother Mary are also HOW100 regulars, riding together in the event each year.
When asked what draws Lindsey to work so hard each year, she responded:
“My first HOW100 was in 2006, when I was just 12 years old. Being a good athlete in school, I was able to complete the ride without much training after my Mom simply signed me up. I did not fundraise that 1st year, but began doing so the next year with a little help and encouragement from Mom! I am now 15 and this year wrote a letter, attached a picture, and sent it via email to 30 friends and family members. Donations have already surpassed what I was able to do in the two prior years. To date, I have received over $1,000! While I have not been personally touched by breast cancer, I simply enjoy riding for a cause, and I am motivated by the wonderful support I receive.”
~ Lindsey Khim, an inspiring teenager who gives back to the community
We Love Whole Foods
For our entire five year history, Whole Foods Grocery has been our primary food sponsor, allowing us to have the best rest stops of any ride as we have Whole Foods' cookies in every variety!
Forget about those tasteless energy bars; chocolate chips can help you turn the pedals over. This week's planning activities included running through the lunch menu with our friends from Whole Foods; it will be a fabulous spread as always.
Be sure to support our very generous sponsor Whole Foods and once again, register early so that we can have a good headcount (and a cookie for everyone)!
In closing, we cannot wait to see you on September 12th! Keep riding, keep smiling, and be safe!
The Hope on Wheels Team
To Our Hope on Wheels Supporters:
The unofficial consensus from our riders is that Hope on Wheels indeed gets better every year! "I love this ride!" was the comment of the day. A Hope on Wheels jersey, with a matching smile, was the number one outfit.
Friends came together to make for one of our largest crowds of 430 riders, raise our greatest amount of money ever ($107,000 and still climbing), and firmly establish cycling as one of the best activities for women to share. No matter what your fitness level, there was a place for you on Saturday, September 6th! Our thanks to our star participants, our volunteers, and our sponsors! Be sure to look on the face of our homepage for a list of our top 2008 fundraisers, and the impressive dollar totals for each. Hope on Wheels teamwork once again made for a perfect day of cycling for all.
Pictures and More
A quick look at some of the 500 pictures taken by our volunteer photographer Al Wagner and his wife Luanne quickly proves our point that smiles were on every face for the HOW100. Enjoy the Wagners' photos throughout the site and be sure to visit the galleries linked from here and the homepage. 50% of all proceeds for photograph purchases will come back to Hope on Wheels! Thank you, Al and Luanne, for this generous contribution to our cause!
Were there 350 Hope on Wheels jerseys on the roads?
Signature HOW100 jerseys, dating from 2005 to the present, were definitely the uniform of the day! What a wonderful way for women to show their support and be unified as they ride to make a difference! We still have a good supply (about 30) of the 2008 jerseys available. You can purchase these via the website or pick one up at Gran Fondo Cycles. Our plans for the 2009 jersey will include a sleeveless offering; be sure to help us move the last of our remaining stock as jersey sales are a significant fundraiser for our cause. ($35 of each sale goes to breast cancer research)
Remember Our Sponsors
The Whole Foods Grocery provided over 500 delicious cookies, a variety of fruits and snack bars, and a terrific lunch spread on event day. We are so proud that Whole Foods supports our event in such a generous way. Top fundraisers were rewarded with over $7,000 in prizes by our bike shop sponsor Gran Fondo Cycles, and every participant was awarded her own special HOW100 Gran Fondo socks! Each goody bag included a compass keychain from G.I. Pathology, great skincare products from Glenn S. Buckpsan, M.D., Aesthetic Surgery & Laser Center and Mentor, great coupons from Whole Foods, and a fun custom koozy compliments of Monarch Advisory Group, LLC. Be sure to remember these and each of our generous sponsors as HOW100 would be impossible without their support. And of course, The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation as our beneficiary makes the whole thing spin!
Thank You to Our Volunteers
A large part of the special spirit that embodies our event is due to our exceptional volunteers. Our repeat guests realize that each year our key volunteers are repeats as well. It warms our hearts that our volunteers gain so much from making this event happen that they repeatedly come out to work for us each year. Over 50 individuals arrive in the wee hours of the morning to work registration, patrol the course, and man the rest stops.
Every volunteer is incredibly special, but there are a just a few names that I have to mention: The Williamson County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (WCARES) joined us for the first time this year and provided constant and reliable communications from our start to the outer reaches of the beautiful country roads we traveled. The Harpeth Bike Club and the Gran Fondo Cycling Club once again provided the bulk of our smiling volunteer faces. Of course, the HBC group organized as the Brothers of the Spinning Wheel, once again established rest stop excellence with their Margaritaville stop. Stephen Carr led and organized our Moto and sag support, and even went the "extra mile" to mark our course with custom turn-ahead signs bearing our logo. And last but not least, Dan Belser, was once again volunteer of the century (the HOW100 century)! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And Then There's Next Year
The success of the 2008 HOW100 event leaves us invigorated and excited about next year. Our event will always fall on the first Saturday after Labor Day, so mark your calendar for September 12, 2009. Registration and online fundraising opportunities for the 2009 year will open in the spring; but remember, contributions made to Hope on Wheels can be made at any point in the year. The fight to find a cure for breast cancer in our lifetime and efforts to make the lives of those touched by breast cancer better are year-round struggles. You can still contribute through the Sponsor A Rider option on the website at any time. Remember us in your year-end giving and perhaps tell a friend about us!
T hank you for your support!
Vida Greer
HOW100 Event Director
Nutritional Advice
So, you have signed up for the HOW100 and have started putting in the miles to get ready for the big day in September. But pushing the pedals is not the only thing you have to worry about in preparing for the ride distance of your choice. Taking care of your nutritional needs, both on and off the bike, can really affect how you ride on September 6. Here are two of the most important things to keep in mind as you get ready to spin your wheels for this fabulous cause:
• Stay hydrated! Our ride takes place as the dog days of summer are coming to an end. However, in Tennessee this means that we will still be dealing with lots of heat and humidity. While you are on any ride, your goal should be to finish at least one water bottle of fluids per hour of your ride. Water is great, but as you stay out on longer rides, alternating it with a drink mix of carbohydrates and electrolyte replacements (Gatorade, Ultima, etc.) is extremely important. Try to plan your training rides with plenty of stops where you know you can fill up your bottles. As always, it’s important to drink lots of water off the bike, as it will help you recover faster from your long rides.
• Eat during your ride! As your rides extend beyond one hour, it becomes very important to get plenty of calories in DURING your ride. Why do you need to eat while you’re riding? Your body converts carbohydrates directly into glycogen, which is stored in your liver and muscles. Your glycogen reserves can sustain your blood sugar for about two hours of riding, and when you use this glycogen up without eating you will "bonk" and be unable to maintain your pace. Eat fruit or energy bars/gels (Clif bars, Powerbars, GU, Clif Shot, etc.) starting about an hour into your ride, with at least 250 calories per hour of riding. Much more is needed for hard riding. It is important to eat relatively frequently to avoid brutal swings in your blood sugar and to keep you from experiencing the dreaded “bonk”. Besides improving your performance on the bike, eating during your ride will prevent you from completely depleting your body’s energy stores. This will help keep you from feeling totally worn-out after the ride and can prevent you from raiding the kitchen late at night because your body is trying to recover what it lost during the ride. Everyone’s bodies respond differently to different types of food, so be sure to experiment with several options before the day of the ride. We will be providing a variety of food (fruit, energy bars, cookies, etc.) at all the HOW100 rest stops.
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