Pedaling4Paws

Additional Photos: Pedaling4Paws on Facebook

vohnjec — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:24:39 +0000

Thanks to Mike for posting many more photos from our ride. Please visit the facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pedaling4Paws/122740561099782#!/pages/Pedaling4Paws/122740561099782?closeTheater=1

We encourage you to comment on facebook or on the blog and will be updating both over the next couple of weeks as we reach back to the shelters/SPCAs to determine just how much was raised. Initial information suggests that we blasted past our goal! Specifics to follow…

Thanks to all who supported us and who followed us (or both)! If you choose to donate to your favorite SPCA/Shelter, please drop us a line so we can include your donation in our tally.

Visiting the St. Lawrence Valley SPCA

vohnjec — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 19:06:49 +0000

Like last year, we complete our visits to SPCAs and animal shelters in Ogdensburg with the St. Lawrence Valley SPCA. This shelter had great success with the Pedaling4Paws effort last year and it became a prototype for this year as we used the idea of creating individualized press releases for the media and unique posters summarizing the ride and the needs of the specific SPCA in a given geography. We also created unique donation labels for each place we visited and it seems to be working, albeit never as well or as fast as we’d like. Here we are posing at the entrance and with the Stillman Volvo XC-90.

We are also happy to say that the Ogdensburg Journal already published a story about the ride (though the word processor that reporter Benny Fairchild used must have been an i-phone like what I use for the blogging because our ride was named “Peddling 4 Paws”) and that we hope the results will be equally as positive as last year!

The visit was fun and we saw plenty of beautiful animals ready to be adopted. In fact, while we were feasting on a great lunch provided for us, we saw a fellow bring in two dogs. Of course, we did a tour of their shelter and this is a very nice facility that strives to keep the animals in large cages, giving the healthy ones access to the outdoors and giving play time to all of them. The animals may prefer being adopted but they are certainly well taken care of.

You can see for yourself in these few photos and notice Gary with his friend Raina!

That’s it for now. We’ll do a recap of the day shortly and update the blog to add more detail either tonight or early next week.

We Made It to the Border!

vohnjec — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:36:58 +0000

5 Days, 500+ Miles and we made it to the US-Canada border! The best news for today is that the speed stayed around 23 mph for the entire 65 miles thanks to the terrain and tailwind!! Here we are with our now signature “Raising our bikes” pose and the border/bridge in the distance!

It always feels good to ride but finishing a long distance fundraising event like this is also very, very rewarding. We won’t celebrate just yet because we still want to visit the St. Lawrence Valley SPCA, but we did celebrate a little as the riding brought us to the border.

More soon!

A Rest Stop in Hammond

vohnjec — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:31:47 +0000

Even short rides have a rest stop when you are Pedaling4Paws! Ours was at mile 40 in the town of Hammond. We has no issues other than wet roads out of Watertown and a slight delay to allow a hers of cattle to cross the road. Fortunately, we were able to find a path between the droppings…

We made great time after leaving the SPCA with a 22.4 mph average thanks to relatively flat terrain and a slight tail wind.

The stop was pretty short and no photos or blogging as we were concerned about the weather. Next stop is the border!

Visiting the Jefferson County SPCA

vohnjec — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:28:59 +0000

Our first visit this morning is to the Jefferson County SPCA in Watertown. We visited this SPCA last year and were met by a reporter from YNN. We also found the facility to be run by a family with Angel Munsen heading up the place.

This year, our visit is with John and Suzie.

The animals that are here are still cute as can be and though different from last year, their needs remain the same – they are looking for good homes and kind souls who can donate time, money, or certain goods. Hopefully our friends in the Watertown area can help out and once we get back, I will update this blog with additional information.

Day Five – The Last Day – Begins

vohnjec — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 11:21:50 +0000

Our last day is a relatively short one but it has us scheduled for two SPCA visits. The first will be the Jefferson County SPCA at 8:30AM and the second will be at or before 1:30pm At the St. Lawrence Valley SPCA in Ogdensburg, our final destination. Like last year, the plan is to get to the border and then go to the SPCA. Hopefully the weather will behave better than the 50+ degree rain we rode in last year… Here’s what it looks like now.

Anyway, breakfast is at the hotel and in a huge area that probably doubles as reception hall.

Soon we will hit the road!

On a related note, Mike now has to fly to the west coast for business in Sunday, so we had to change plans with Yves Dupont for the Ogdensburg arrival. The bottom line, shortly after we finish visiting with the SPCA, we will be heading back to Mike’s place in Marcellus. It’s too bad that we won’t be able to spend much time with Yves this year, but he said, “No problem, there’s a Bluegrass Concert I can now go to!” What a trooper!!

Day Four is Done!

vohnjec — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:10:56 +0000

I am happy to say that we finished our ride by 4:00pm as we hit Watertown and our destination, the Best Western Carriage House Inn.

After checking in, we spoke to Jeri McInnis, the General Manager of the place. It turns out that Jeri is an animal lover too and has two cats that she rescued and a dog! We talked about ideas for next year’s ride and how to get more and more local community support for the cause. It’s always great when those types of discussions occur!!

Once showered up, we headed off to dinner at the Tilted Kilt (Mike is posting about that) and greatly enjoyed the dinner with Rich, Brian, Brad, and later on Allison, Rich’s wife, as she came by to pick the full day riders up. Way to go guys and see you all next year for the full distance! With luck the 11 riders this year will seem small next year and future years to come! Anyway, here’s a quick photo of the place taken as we were leaving!

At least you can see the parking lot… Mike will fill in the rest.

Dinner at the Tilted Kilt in Watertown

mvrnpa — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:59:05 +0000

Here's Rich enjoying himself at the Tilted Kilt

Sometimes things happen for reasons that we just can’t explain. For example, we had Rich Conely and Brian Six from the Beer Path Cycling Club join us on our Marcellus to Watertown leg our our ride. This was the longest ride either on these guys have done to date-a total of 104.5 miles with an average speed of 17.5 mph.

Great job guys! We look forward to riding with you next year!
As a way to say “Thanks”, Rich took us to the Tilted Kilt (http://www.tiltedkilt.com/) in Watertown. Not sure how Rich knows about this fine eating establishment, but let’s just say the food wasn’t the only thing that was good. I must admit, after spending 6 hours in the saddle with the sun beating down on your back, it was refreshing to sit and watch….um, the BIG screen TVs. Actually, the food was really good and beer was cold and refreshing. All in all, it was a fitting end to a really nice day on bikes.
Tomorrow we have a stop at the Jefferson County SPCA then it’s off to Ogdensburg!

Ride On!

Quick Rest Stop in Adams

vohnjec — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:01:59 +0000

Let’s talk about dropping people. As most people know, I can be competitive and when Brian jump ahead of me a first time, I said “Okay, no problem. I won’t take the bait but I will just slowly catch him”. When he did it the second time, I took off in front of him and after about 5 minutes, I let him get to about 30 feet back and then kicked it up to 35 mph. I did that 3 more times before my smirk factor was low enough to stop. By then I let Brian catch me and we saw that the next town was Adams, our targeted rest stop, so we rolled into an American Legion and waited and waited and waited for the rest. As I stand here blogging, they still haven’t shown up, so here’s the photo of Brian.

Oh and by the way, we also stopped in Selkirk Shores State Park which is off Route 3 and right on Lake Ontario.

You may be able to notice that the Nine Mile Point nuclear reactor tower in Oswego in in the background. I will take a photo or two when the others arrive and post when done… still waiting.

Lunch at Cam’s in Mexico

vohnjec — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:22:05 +0000

At mile 57, we stopped for lunch at Cam’s Pizzeria in Mexico.

Each of the gang had a couple of slices and a drink and were raring to return to the road after about 30 minutes. Rich, one of our guest riders, had a flat around mile 40, so we were worried that we would be done the day of riding a touch later than expected, but we are still making excellent time. Maybe going faster makes the food taste better or maybe we are just gluttons, but we were done very quickly today!. Jay from Cam’s served up the food.

See you at the next rest stop or dinner, whichever comes first!