Trek 1500 Road Bike: Members of my
family contributed to a fund so I could
get this bike for a combined birthday
and Christmas gift. [ Photo: Trek Bicycle
Corporation ]

One reason that you haven't heard much from me in the last few days is that I've been shopping for a new road bike to ride in the 2006 cycling season. If you've read Operation Gadget for a while, you probably know that I like to participate in endurance cycling events and occasional duathlons, and I trained extensively for the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Washington DC Fundraising Ride.

As the events I've trained for involve more mileage, it's become increasingly clear that I needed to switch from a mountain bike to a road bike. My wife Kathleen decided that this year was the best opportunity we would have for some time to get a good road bike for me, so she told my friends and family that she was starting Dave's Road Bike Fund and invited them to contribute to it for my birthday and Christmas.

I didn't know anything about this, so I was loading up my wishlist at Amazon.com with a Video iPod and accessories for it.

When the surprise was sprung on me three weeks ago, my initial reaction was: Oh boy, now I can get an iPod and a road bike. Reality set in when I looked at how much money I would need to buy both without making significant compromises in iPod capacity or road bike performance.

I decided to buy a Trek 1500, the top-of-the line model in their Alpha Aluminum line. The suggested retail price of this bike is $1150 and I paid somewhat less than that at the dealer I chose, Jay's Cycles in Princeton, NJ. Trek makes a lot more expensive bikes, but, I felt that the 1500 was a good combination of price and performance for someone making the transition from mountain to road biking at my skill and training level.

I also want to say that my decision to purchase a Trek was heavily influenced by my experience covering the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team during 2005. My friend Bruce Turner from AMD put me in touch with some people at Trek like Michael Sagan who really believe in the products they make. I was able to learn a bit about Trek's design approach for pro-caliber bikes, embodied in the F-One partnership with other Discovery Team sponsors, and how that's improved Trek's bikes that I can afford. I felt that the 1500 was the right bike for me at this point in my life-- the full carbon fiber bikes will have to wait.

I'm planning to pick up my new bike tomorrow and I hope to be able to post some up-close photos of it within a few days. I rode it for about 10 minutes before I bought it, but I'm hoping for good weather, strong sun, and light winds one day before Christmas so I can get a longer ride in and post an article about the experience.

Technorati Tags: Trek 1500, Video iPod, road bike, Tour of Hope, cycling, Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team, Trek, AMD, Christmas gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

On Sunday, The Boston Globe reported that the Food and Drug Administration is holding two days of hearings beginning today on Direct-to-Consumer advertising. Among the issues expected to come up at these hearings are the roles of Lance Armstrong, Dorothy Hamill, and other celebrities who are featured in advertisements for prescription drugs or pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The Globe article points out that Bristol-Myers Squibb is very concerned that the role Lance Armstrong plays in its advertising be differentiated from the involvement of many other celebrities in pharmaceutical industry advertising. It says:

Bristol-Myers Squibb hopes the FDA distinguishes between questionable past practices and current advertisements that harness celebrity star power to raise awareness of health conditions affecting millions.

"Lance has been used in corporate advertising relative to the BMS brand, not in product advertising," said Tony Plohoros, a company spokesman. "We believe there is a significant difference in advertising that focuses on corporate brand building, or disease awareness, versus individual product advertising."

Participants in the Tour of Hope should pay close attention to these hearings. I think that sponsorship of disease awareness events like the Tour of Hope are the aspect of pharmaceutical company marketing that is least likely to be changed by the Food and Drug Administration, but we have to watch carefully and react quickly if the FDA acts too aggressively.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope, Lance Armstrong

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I spent a long time on Sunday morning trying to collect my thoughts on the cancellation of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to Washington DC Fundraising Ride and the Tour of Hope Grand Finale on The Ellipse. In the end, I was frustrated and ended up being late for a college hockey game that I had to officiate.

One good idea I had on Sunday was to compare the coverage that The Washington Post provided last year versus this year. After all, the one of the goals of the entire Tour of Hope program is to raise awareness of the importance of adult participation in cancer drug clinical trials. Awareness can only come from publicity, whether it comes in the form of advertising or media coverage.

Last year Susan Kinzie wrote a great piece called 'Live Strong' Tour Cruises to the Mall:

Early yesterday before the mist had burned off, bicyclists strapped on sleek helmets around their ears, safety-pinned numbers on friends' backs and waited. Then a black SUV rolled into Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda. People ran after it and crowded around cheering, reaching over their heads to snap photos, a bright yellow band on almost every other wrist.

Lance Armstrong had arrived....

People strained to see him, teetering on tiptoes or squeezing through the crowd with pictures for him to sign. A woman with blond curls wiped away tears. A little boy on his dad's shoulders grinned like crazy....

This is the kind of publicity that we need in order to advance our causes.

Compare that to what made it into The Washington Post on Sunday. The biggest article that referred to the The Tour of Hope was Heavy Rain Wallops Area, Prompting Evacuations in Northern Maryland. It said:

The triumphant finale of the Tour of Hope cross-country bicycle ride, lead by seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, was also washed out after rain flooded some of the roads on which the cyclists -- including 1,500 local riders -- were supposed to travel.

The event had been scheduled to culminate in a festival on the Ellipse, which was canceled. But at the last minute, when the rain faded briefly to a drizzle at around 1 p.m. Armstrong thrilled fans by riding down Constitution Avenue with his 25 Tour of Hope teammates to celebrate the end of the nine-day, cross country bike relay that raised more than $1.5 million for cancer research.

That was pretty much it, other than The Associated Press article by Jim Litke, Sportsview: For Armstrong, Good to Be King, which spent more time on Lance's 70 days of retirement than the 10 days of the Tour of Hope.

I think Chris Brewer from The Paceline did the best job of putting in perspective everyone's frustrations at the ride cancellation and the Tour of Hope National Team's exhilaration at finishing their coast-to-coast ride. His article includes some great photos of the flooding at The Ellipse and of the abbreviated post-arrival event that took place inside The J.W. Marriott in Downtown Washington.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Continue reading "Public Relations Opportunity for the Tour of Hope Muted by the Storm" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The plans of at least 1,000 cyclists to participate in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope were abruptly changed before 7:00am this morning. Upon arriving at the 50-mile route start at Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland, we all learned that the ride was cancelled. That was a huge disappointment, but it was understandable given the huge amounts of rain that had fallen overnight. And the rain continued to fall as we stood there, trying to figure out what to do next.

The riders who had used the shuttle from the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington knew what they had to do; They had to get on any available bus back to where they started. Most of us who drove in this morning stood and waited for Lance to come and speak to us.

More on the situation at the race start after I return home. Riders should feel free to add their reaction to the bad news.

Update on October 9 at 11am: It's hard for me to look back on Saturday and come to any other conclusion than that the organizers made the right decision. In the end 7.25 inches (18.4 centimeters) of rain fell in two days at Reagan National Airport in Washington. I know how much we all wanted to ride yesterday, but I didn't want anyone to get hurt either.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

A special welcome to the participants in the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope. Operation Gadget is a website about electronic gadgets and sports technology, edited by Dave Aiello. Dave Aiello is a two-time participant in the Tour of Hope Fundraising Ride in Washington, DC. Our site has gone wall-to-wall with Tour of Hope coverage for the last 10 days.

We will continue to post information about the Tour during the weekend in Washington and after we return home. In the meantime here are a few highlights of our recent coverage:

• Dave Aiello's Flickr Photo Stream with shots from his Treo 650's camera where available
• Jeff Tredup Interview. 2005 Tour of Hope National Team Member.
• Map of 50-Mile Course for Tour of Hope Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride
• Weather forecast for Washington, DC on October 8
• Links to Tour of Hope coverage on ThePaceline.com
• All the articles about the 2005 Tour of Hope from Operation Gadget
• All the articles about the 2004 Tour of Hope from Operation Gadget

If you have any comments or suggestions email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I'm leaving in a little while to head to Maryland for the start of the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to Washington Fundraising Ride. The ride starts at 7:00 am Eastern Time on Saturday morning. Weather conditions are expected to be poor with rain and some wind in the morning. As a result, I don't expect to be able to do much in the way of live blogging of the 50-mile ride.

Hopefully, the conditions will improve as the day goes on. Wish us all luck.

Fellow riders, if you want to reach me and you don't have my mobile phone number, email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com. I have my Treo and I will call you back.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jeff Tredup: Member of the 2005
Tour of Hope National Team
[ Photo: Tour of Hope ]

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Jeff Tredup, a cancer researcher at Bristol-Myers Squibb who is a member of the 2005 Tour of Hope National Team. I first met Jeff at the dedication of a segment of The Lawrence-Hopewell Trail that took place at BMS's campus in Hopewell, NJ. He lives in Pennington, NJ, which makes him the only member of the Tour of Hope National Team who lives in my home area.

I asked Jeff how he got into riding a bicycle? He said he started riding as a kid, and at the time he thought of riding a bike as his little bit of freedom on the road. He got into mountain biking in 1991 when he moved to New Jersey from Illinois. He joined the Princeton Freewheelers, a large local biking organization and more or less switched to road biking. Jay Stevenson of the 2003 Tour of Hope team is also a member of the Freewheelers.

Tredup said that he got into drug research after studying plant genetics in college. He started working in an immunology lab at the University of Illinois after graduation. He got his job at Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1991.

I said, "You were diagnosed with thyroid cancer more than four years ago and your bio says that you still have detectable cancer cells in your body. What does that mean in terms of your prognosis? Are you still under treatment?"

Jeff said that his thyroid cancer spread into his lymph nodes, which makes it very difficult to totally eliminate, but he's doing well enough today to participate in the Tour of Hope as a National Team member.

Tredup first applied for the Tour of Hope National Team in 2004, but had to widthdraw his application because he had a recurrence and had to go through a second round of radiation.

I was surprised to learn that Jeff hadn't participated in the Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride before, since the first two years of the ride were short and relatively easy to complete. He said that he didn't participate last year because he broke his collarbone while trying to recover from his second bout with cancer.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Continue reading "Interview with Jeff Tredup, Tour of Hope National Team Member" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Brewer reported that Day 8 of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope saw the team riding through Tropical Storm Tammy as they passed through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina:

When Team D approached Greenville, SC at midnight last night they got their biggest surpise of the Tour yet. As the rain came down and they were basically alone on the road with their immediate support staff, up rolled none other than Lance Armstrong and his Discovery Channel teammate George Hincapie! The duo rode with the squad into George's adopted hometown, and Team D will have a "war story" to tell for the rest of their lives.

[ Registration required to view most articles on ThePaceline.com ]

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Brewer wrote an article on The Paceline about following the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope National Team during Day 7 of their ride across the United States. The most interesting part of this article for Operation Gadget readers is Chris' description of the communications technology that Trek Travel has implemented to keep the Tour of Hope in contact with itself and the rest of the world:

It was a unique experience to witness the behind-the-scenes action from the CentCom {Tour of Hope command vehicle} perspective. Trek Travel makes sure that a fresh driver is piloting every vehicle each stage, and then several Trek Travel / Carmichael Training Systems managers take alternate shifts coordinating each stage's transition and execution. For the CentCom staff it's all about communication involving 2 cell phones, 1 satellite phone, 2 close-range radios, a GPS messaging system, and a laptop computer with a GPS mapping system. Add in numerous documents, route guides, maps, etc. and the Centcom staff is in-touch and in constant operational management mode around the clock.

Carmichael Training Systems also deserves a lot of credit for how smoothly the Tour of Hope National Ride has gone so far.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here are the latest forecasts for The Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope's Baltimore to Washington, DC Fundraising Ride on Saturday, October 8, 2005:

• Weather.com: "Mainly cloudy and rainy. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the mid 50s."
• AccuWeather: "Rain. Winds from the W at 9 mph." Amount of precipitation expected to be 0.8 inches.
• National Weather Service: "Showers likely, mainly before 9am. Cloudy, with a high around 68. Northwest wind between 10 and 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible."

Definitely bring the rain gear.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen hasn't been feeling too good in the past few days, but on the way home from our weekend trip to visit friends in Boston, she planned my week leading up to Saturday's Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride. She told me, "You have to ref on Wednesday night, so you need to do your long route on Tuesday and Thursday this week in order to be ready for Saturday."

This was going to be a challenge for the following reasons:

1. At work, Weblog Improvement, I'm very close to finishing a major new weblog for Chris Nolan, a journalist based in San Francisco, and her co-bloggers.
2. On the bike, I've had equipment problems lately {flat tire, chain problems} that the folks at Newtown Bicycle and Fitness have been helping me work out.
3. Due to a combination of a lot of things, I haven't ridden my 23-mile route since August 14. Instead I've been riding mainly 10 to 15 mile routes right around Newtown.

All along my route today, I was worried about making the cutoff time for the 50-mile ride on Saturday. Over the 50-mile course, we have to maintain a speed of 14 miles per hour. I finished my 23-mile ride today in 1 hour 32 minutes 46 seconds at an average speed of 15.4 miles per hour.

Performance Forte Team MTB Pedal Mud-shedding alloy body, dual-sided entry, dual-force retention spring with adjustable entry/release tension. 4 degrees float. Compatible with Shimano SPD cleats. Wt: 370g/pr.

What I found most interesting about my ride today was that I shaved 10 minutes off my best time this Summer and I haven't been riding this distance as often as I should. The best explanation I can come up with for this success is my vastly improved equipment. I believe we're seeing the first indication of how much Performance Forte Team MTB Clipless Pedals and Perl Izumi Vagabond II MTB Shoes improve my riding. That 10 minute savings is between 10 and 11 percent of my previous ride time. That's pretty huge when you consider that the cost of that improvement was only about $80.

Read on for some information about my 23-mile training route and why it's probably more intense than either half of the Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride that I'm doing on Saturday.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Continue reading "23-Mile Pre-Tour of Hope Ride Proves the Value of Inexpensive Bike Upgrades" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today I received the following email from my friend Cecil Ledesma who is riding with me in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride:

I wanted to see if you received your official rider # and packet in the mail. I have not. Should I be worried?

Kathleen and I were returning home from a weekend in Boston, so I hadn't seen what arrived at our place on Saturday. I told Cecil that I had exchanged emails with a Tour of Hope organizer who told me that the rider information packets were being mailed at the end of last week.

When we arrived home at about 4:00pm today, we found an envelope addressed to me from the Tour of Hope which had been sent from Trenton, NJ (about 10 miles from our house). This contained a 13-page magazine that says 2005 Registration Packet on it.

Last year, DC Fundraising Riders received a lot more stuff in the pre-ride mailing. This year, they only sent us the informational booklet. I guess this means that there will be a lot more to pickup at the Packet Pickup that will take place at the JW Marriott in Washington on Friday or at Howard County Community College on Saturday (beginning at 5:00am).

My wife and I will have to adjust our strategy at the start this year. We have to arrive earlier and she will have to park the car, because my jersey will not have a number affixed to it before I arrive. I'll probably want her to take some of the stuff they give me at the Packet Pickup, so I'll have to go register and come back to the car. It almost makes me wish I had time to go into Washington on Friday night to pickup my packet at the hotel.

In any event, if you are riding on Saturday and you haven't received your Rider Information Packet, you should be receiving it in the next couple of days.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just checked the forecast for Washington, DC on several different weather services for Saturday's Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to Washington, DC Fundraising Ride. With five days to go, there is some disagreement in what the weather conditions will be:

• Weather.com: Showers, between 47 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, chance of precipitation 60%
• Accuweather: "Clouds giving way to some sun", high of 64 degrees Fahrenheit, winds out of the North Northwest at 16 miles per hour with gusts up to 32
• National Weather Service: "A chance of showers. Partly cloudy, with a high around 61. Chance of precipitation is 30%."

Let's hope for no rain and light winds, but start thinking about what we'll do (how we'll dress, what our family members will wear, etc.) if it's raining on Saturday.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This morning I checked my Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Rider Donation Page, and found that donations received as a result of my 2005 appeal have exceeded $1,000. Check donations have begun coming in recently. They took longer to be processed than credit card donations did.

Thanks to everyone who is supporting the Tour of Hope again this year. I published a list of my donors for 2005 here on Operation Gadget yesterday and I'm adding the names of new donors as their donations are received.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Qualcomm has contributed its OmniTRACS fleet location network technology to the 2005 Tour of Hope National Ride. Here's an example of the kind of up-to-date progress map you can get to follow the National Team:

Tour of Hope National Ride Current Location Map: Uses Qualcomm OmniTRACS Fleet Location Network and Google Maps to display the current location of the Tour of Hope National Team. This image is was current on September 30, 2005 in the early afternoon, when the team was southwest of Phoenix, Arizona. [ Image: Tour of Hope ]

That's a really cool use of GPS technology!

If you're interested in keeping an eye on the National Team's progress across the country, visit http://tourofhope.org/ride/2005_national_route/current_location_map.htm.

When you visit that page, use the controls on the map to zoom out at least two or three zoom levels. I did this before I took the screen shot of the map showing Greater Phoenix. I doubt that most people will be able to identify the location of the National Team at the default zoom level.

I was shocked when I saw this map, because it looks so similar to the map I produced of the 50-mile Baltimore-DC Fundraising Ride Course a few weeks ago. I'm glad to see that we're employing state of the art technology.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Brewer, chief operator of ThePaceline.com and 2003 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope National Team Member, is writing a daily update on the 2005 National Team's ride across the country. Here are the reports I've found so far:

• Tour of Hope: Day 1, The Start in La Jolla
• Tour of Hope: Day 2 Part 1, Team A Rides on Interstate 10 in Arizona
• Tour of Hope: Day 2 Part 2, The Tour at 110 degrees Fahernheit
• Day 3, Dr. Harry Slocum solos to finish on Category 2 climb in Hanover, NM
• Day 4, Ride through Austin and the "Lance Thanks Austin" Concert
• Day 5, Rally at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston
• Day 6, Lance Joins the Team as they pass through Jackson, Mississippi
• Day 7, Chris Brewer views the Tour from the perspective of the chase vehicle affectionately known as "Centcom"
• Day 8 overnight, National Team groups stay on pace despite heavy rain, Lance Armstrong and George Hincapie join the ride at midnight near George's U.S. home of Greenville, SC

I will update this article as Chris publishes more reports from the road. [ Registration required to read articles on ThePaceline.com ]

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope has published a list of local events during the 2005 National Ride. These events will be coordinated with the passage of the National Team through the city. The events are as follows:

• Thursday, September 29 at 10:00am, La Jolla, California at Scripps Green Hospital
• Friday, September 30 at 11:00am, Phoenix, Arizona at Maricopa Unified Schools
• Saturday, October 1 at 4:00pm, El Paso, Texas at El Paso Cancer Treatment Center
• Sunday, October 2 at 3:45am, Austin, Texas at Texas Capitol Grounds (team transition only)
• Sunday, October 2 at 4:00pm, Austin, Texas at Auditorium Shores (Lance Armstrong event)
• Monday, October 3 at 12:00 noon, Houston, Texas at M.D. Anderson Ambulatory Clinical Building
• Tuesday, October 4 at 11:00am, Jackson, Mississippi at UMC Cancer Institute at Jackson
• Wednesday, October 5 at 11:00am, Atlanta, Georgia at Centennial Olympic Park
• Wednesday, October 5 at 5:00pm, Greenville, South Carolina at South Main Street and Camperdown Way
• Thursday, October 6 at 10:00am, Charlotte, North Carolina at Buddy Kemp Caring House
• Saturday, October 8 at 9:00am, Washington, DC at The Ellipse (Grand Finale)

If you live in any of these areas, change your schedule and plan to attend! The experience of seeing the Tour of Hope National Team is truly unique. Their motivation is incredible. Everyone I know who has attended one of these events has told me that they had a great time.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope National Ride will begin today at 10:00am at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California.

It's hard for me to believe that the coast-to-coast ride is beginning today. I wish the riders good luck, particularly Jeff Tredup-- a researcher at BMS from Pennington, NJ who I had the opportunity to interview two weeks ago.

We're only 10 days away from the Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride and the Washington, DC Grande Finale on The Ellipse across from the White House. If you're in the Washington area on Saturday, October 8, come down and see about 1,000 people ride in support of cancer research.

If you still haven't made a donation to this worthy cause, visit my donation page at http://www.active.com/donate/DCride/dave_aiello and help out. You'll be glad you did.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I want to thank my friends and family who are sponsoring me in the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride. They are:

• Kathleen Aiello
• Ernie Aiello
• Jennifer Colangelo
• Ken DeGhetto
• Carol Ann and Bradley Forrest and their kids
• Mark Graber
• Julie, Robert, and Emma Howson
• Joyce and George Kuykendall
• Mary Kuykendall
• Pat McClure
• Lisa McGrath
• Howard and Marion Medow
• Ramona Morel
• Joe and Jennifer Pilaro
• Sesh Rengaswamy
• Claude and Louise Sanford
• Ray and Carole Weisner

I'll add my other sponsors to this list as I'm told about them by the ride organizers.

So far this year, my sponsors have contributed $960 to the cause of cancer research. This is less money than we raised together in 2004, but I think that many of us donated what we could to Gulf Coast Hurricane Relief and gave a bit less to other causes that raise money at this time of year.

It's going to be a great thrill to ride on behalf of my sponsors. I'm taking their stories and those of their loved ones who have been affected by cancer with me to Washington. I'll have a lot of stories and photos from our trip here on Operation Gadget in the 2005 Tour of Hope Section.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've had a hard time making time to write for Operation Gadget for the past week. On Friday, Kathleen and I were in Maryland attending her brother John's graduation from a three year on-the-job training program. It turned into an all-day affair because most of Kathleen's family was there to attend and celebrate afterward.

This week I've been working on two different projects for clients of my Weblog Improvement consulting business. I'm working on a huge set of deliverables for my friend Chris Nolan, a journalist based in San Francisco. It's so much work that I probably won't be done until the end of next week.

Today I finished a small project for Harris Salat, a writer and producer who blogs about food and exotic culture. He calls his blog He ate well and I've had fun reading his articles during breaks in the stylesheet and template wrangling.

I'm trying to make time to ride my bike because otherwise I'll show up for the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride without enough miles in my legs. So far this week, I took one afternoon when I otherwise might have written some articles for Operation Gadget and hit the road instead. I'll probably have to do this again tomorrow.

I guess it's good to be this busy, but I'm feeling pressure from every direction. Maybe I should look back at some of the suggestions I made in the Productivity and Organization section of this site.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I took advantage of a great sale and bought a pair of Peformance Forte Team Mountain Bike Pedals and Pearl Izumi Vagabond Mountain II cleated shoes from Performance Bike. Up to now, I've been riding with pedals that have toe clips on them, which I knew was taking away from my biomechanical efficiency.

Performance Forte Team MTB Pedal Mud-shedding alloy body, dual-sided entry, dual-force retention spring with adjustable entry/release tension. 4 degrees float. Compatible with Shimano SPD cleats. Wt: 370g/pr.

I've wanted to make the switch for a long time, but I've always been concerned about the process of acclimating myself to clicking my shoes into pedals that act very much like ski bindings. When I use toe clips, it's easy to pull my feet off the pedals. The clipless pedals, however, require you to turn your foot at the heel so that the cleat on the bottom of the shoe rotates and clicks out of the binding mechanism. You have to do this at a point in the pedal rotation where you have little or no weight on the pedal you are trying to detach from. You can fall if you fail to detach your foot properly.

I installed the pedals yesterday, put on the shoes, and rode around on the grass in my back yard, trying to master the process of clicking my shoes in and out of the pedals. I only fell once.

Today I went on my first long ride with the shoes and pedals. I rode 15.6 miles in 1 hour 6 minutes 7 seconds. I don't think I've been this nervous on a bike since I was a kid. The sensation of having my feet locked to the pedals didn't feel too weird while I was riding at a normal speed, but at times when I was braking and I needed to put my foot on the ground I felt a momentary sense of panic. This happened two or three times on the ride-- but I didn't crash.

I now realize why so many road bikers break collarbones while riding. They get themselves locked into their pedals and have difficulty getting out of them in emergency situations that call for deft bike handling.

I need to do much more riding over the next two weeks. If I'm able to do it, I'm sure I'll lose the nervousness I feel before I ride in The Tour of Hope Washington DC Fundraising Ride.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're participating in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride, doing the 50-mile route, and asking to be informed about shuttle services to the start line as I did, what was your reaction when you read this passage in an informational email that we all received last week?

As you know, shuttles will be made available for your convenience to transport you to the ride start locations. Many of you selected the shuttle option upon registration. However, as you will see from the shuttle schedule below, departures to the 50-mile ride start in Howard County from the JW Marriott will depart between 4:30 - 5:00 AM. If you wish to reconsider driving to the ride start, there is ample free parking on the campus at Howard County Community College. You will then be shuttled back to your car at the college campus after the Grand Finale activities on the Ellipse.

You probably asked yourself, "Are there any hotel options close to the start?"

Yes. Marriott has a number of good options. Search using the city "Annapolis Junction, MD". The rates drop on Friday night in some of these hotels because they house government workers and contractors during the week.

Hilton has a hotel in Columbia, MD. I would recommend choosing the "Search all brands" option on their site when doing a search.

Kathleen and I are staying at one of the Marriott properties and driving our car to the start. Kathleen is going to meet me at the finish at The Ellipse, so she will probably drive from the start to a Metro station and take the train in to Washington. We will have other family there with us as well.

As a reminder, the start locations of the Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride and an approximate map of the 50-mile ride course can be found on here on Operation Gadget.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

2005 Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride:
This is our best guess at the 50-mile
route map. I used Gmaps Pedometer
to convert a cue sheet to a map. Click
on the picture of the map to see the route
in a Gmaps Pedometer window.
[ Image: Gmaps Pedometer / Google Maps ]

Bryan Katz, a fellow Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Rider and Rensselaer alumnus, sent me a cue sheet for the 50-mile route of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride along with the following question:

OK Mr. Gadget... is there software anywhere that would translate the route sheet to a map?

The easiest way I know to do it without a GPS tracking file is to plot the map using Gmaps Pedometer, which is what I did. Kudos to Maria Norton who told me about Gmaps Pedometer back in August.

There are a couple of unresolved issues with the route as I've plotted it:

1. The route through Rockville is a little messed up. The cue sheet isn't clear on the turns when you're skirting around the downtown area. I'm guessing that the route will go from Norbeck Road/MD 28 onto Wootton Parkway, but the cue sheet doesn't say that.
2. In that same area, I followed the wrong road between Muncaster Mill Road/MD 115 and Norbeck Road. This is probably why the route length I've plotted is only 47.78 miles long.

I'll correct those problems and update the article when I have time.

Updates:

1. Bryan Katz provided the URL for the cue sheet: http://www.tourofhope.org/ride/2005_dc_ride/dc_ride_route_log.pdf.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Attention Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride Applicants! Cecil Ledesma just pointed out to me that the deadline for raising the $500 minimum donation is Monday, September 19, at 11:59pm Eastern Time. That's about six days from today.

The organizers impose a cut-off so they can ship out registration packets in time for qualified riders to receive them. If the organizers do what they did last year, they will count donations received after the deadline toward a rider's fundraising total.

Last year I raised $1,000 by September 15. We probably won't make it to $1,000 by the 15th this year, but we may make it to $500 by then. If you want to help out, all you need to do is click on the big Help Dave ride the Tour of Hope button. You'll be sent to a page where you can make a tax deductible donation to the Tour of Hope by credit card. Instructions are also there for making a donation by check. Thanks for your help.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another thing I found out yesterday was the two start locations of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride:

• 10-mile route: Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo, MD [ Google Map ]
• 50-mile route: Howard County Community College, Columbia, MD. [ Google Map ]

Those of us who need a place to stay can start looking for hotels in the area now.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night I got an email from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope regarding shuttle services between the start of the 50 and 10-mile ride routes and the finish line at The Ellipse in Washington, DC. The message began:

Thank you for registering for the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride. We are delighted with the overwhelming response to this year's ride. We have reached our capacity of 1,500 riders and registration is now closed.

I said to myself, "Yikes! The total amount of money that the Lance Armstrong Foundation has received from my donors is only $355 at the moment. I better not be closed out." Then I re-read the email and information about the DC Fundraising Ride on the web, and I realized that the Tour of Hope organizers accepted 1,500 registrants who agreed to try to raise $500 or more.

The question now becomes: How many of the 1,500 will successfully raise $450 beyond their initial $50 contribution?

I think most of the 1,500 that registered will succeed in raising the extra $450. Last year, about 900 riders successfully raised more than the $500 minimum required to ride. If more than 900 surpass that figure this year, we can expect to see the $800,000 fundraising total exceeded as well.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center published an article in its September 2005 about the important contribution that the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope is making to boosting participation in cancer clinical trials. According to the article:

The challenge of increasing trial participation is great. Of the 1.3 million Americans diagnosed with cancer (of all types) each year, only about 3% participate in clinical trials, {Maurie Markman, M.D. Anderson Vice President of Clinical Research} says: "If only 3% of our population continues to participate in clinical research trials, that’s going to slow down our ability to gather critical information to help the next generation of cancer patients."

New drugs and new combinations of existing drugs need testing to improve cancer survival rates.

"The only way to know if any of the exciting new drugs are safe and if they are more effective than current treatment is to do trials," Markman says. "We’re on the brink of a potential revolution in our understanding and treatment of cancer. We understand more about biology today, about unlocking the secrets of cancerous tumors, than we could have ever imagined 10 years ago. However, it’s slow, meticulous work that demands the absolute protection of patients who potentially are going to be research subjects. There is no cutting corners, period."

The article goes on to point out obstacles to clinical trial participation and the potential for immediate and long term victories against cancer through greater participation in clinical trials. This is why we're all riding in The Tour of Hope.

The Tour of Hope will stop at the M.D. Anderson in Houston on October 3. If you are in Houston, you can be there and make the promise.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I spent a lot of time emailing my family and friends and encouraging them to donate to the Tour of Hope. I wanted to get this work done a month ago when I asked readers of Operation Gadget to contribute, but I ended up waiting until after Labor Day in order to take advantage of the fact that many people would be returning to work this week.

I find that my donors last year fell into three categories:

• relatives and friends of Kathleen and me,
• fellow alumni from Rensselaer who contributed because of the fact that I was riding in memory of fellow alumnus, and
• friends and relatives of Peter Frank.

Each group has a different reason for donating, so each group got a different email message.

I put this level of effort into communicating with my previous donors because I was truly touched by the thoughtfulness of many of them last year. Some of them donated for intensely personal reasons that I'm just understanding now. I wish I could take the time to write a personal note to each donor when I ask for their support, but I find that I only really have time to write a personal note thanking donors for their contribution.

There's about a month to go before the Fundraising Ride in Washington, DC. I don't think I'll have any trouble raising the $500 minimum donation, because it's one of the lowest minimums required for any participatory event by a national charity. What I'm most concerned about is building up my mileage enough to comfortably ride the 50 miles.

If you want to make a donation to the Tour of Hope to support me, all you need to do is click on the big Help Dave ride the Tour of Hope button. You'll be sent to a page where you can make a tax deductible donation to the Tour of Hope by credit card. Instructions are also there for making a donation by check. Thanks for your help.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, Barry Penn Hollar emailed me to ask:

I'm also registered {for the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope} and have been trying to figure out this Donor ID# thing. I see you have yours listed on your {Tour of Hope Fundraising} page. How'd you get it?

A rider in the Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride needs to provide his or her Rider's Donation ID Number to any donor who wants to make a contribution by check. This number lets the Lance Armstrong Foundation associate the donor's check with the correct rider.

The Payment Receipt for the Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride Registration Fee: My Rider's Donation
ID is circled in red.

If you look at the receipt you received when you made your initial $50 payment, you'll see a line that reads "Rider's Donation ID #". That's the number you need to give to your sponsors who are paying by check.

I'm glad that fellow Tour of Hope riders are already finding the infomation I'm posting about participating in the 2005 Tour of Hope. The source of the Rider's Donation ID Number certainly isn't clear from the materials I've gotten, so I'm happy to be able to post the answer. If you think of any other questions about the Tour of Hope fundraising that aren't answered by the Tour of Hope website, you can email them to me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com and I'll try to help find the answer.

Thanks to Jamie Snow at Active.com for confirming this information.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Saturday, October 8, I'm going to join the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope by participating in a 50-mile fundraising bike ride ending in Washington DC. You can help me in this effort by making a donation to the Tour of Hope to support my ride. One hundred percent of the funds raised during the Tour of Hope Fundraising Ride will benefit cancer research through the Lance Armstrong Foundation. To learn more, visit www.tourofhope.org.

Last year I dedicated my ride to my friend Peter Andreas Frank who died of brain cancer in August 2003. Through the generous support of many friends and readers of Operation Gadget I was able to raise over $2,000. That money was used to fund cancer research and promote awareness of clinical drug trials.

Most of the people that donated to the Tour of Hope last year at my request told me about a friend or relative whose life had been changed by a cancer diagnosis. The stories of their experiences gave me a sense of the scope of the effort required to find cancer cures.

I want to continue to participate in the effort to find cures for the cancers that are not yet beaten. I'm urging adults I meet who have cancer to look into participating in a clinical drug trial. Clinical drug trials have been a key part of the treatment stategy for childhood cancers for many years. This has resulted in a higher overall cure rate for childhood cancers than for cancers striking adults. In spite of this, only five percent of the adults who receive a cancer diagnosis each year take part in clinical drug trials.

Will you please join me in this effort?

All you need to do is click on the big Help Dave ride the Tour of Hope button. You'll be sent to a page where you can make a tax deductible donation to the Tour of Hope by credit card. Instructions are also there for making a donation by check.

Thanks for your help. I'll be talking about the 2005 Tour of Hope here on Operation Gadget, including my training for the 50-mile ride and the experience of riding with Lance Armstrong on October 8. I hope you'll come back from time to time and check on our progress.

You can also see some of the photos that my family and I took at last year's Tour of Hope Finale in the Operation Gadget Photo Gallery.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today my friend Maria Norton sent me the following message:

Hi Dave,

Hope you're getting settled into the new place.

Just wondering, have you heard about the Gmaps Pedometer? It's a pretty good to map out routes and mileage.

Also, on the Google maps website {http://www.google.com/help/faq_maps.html}... you will find the ability to create custom Google maps on your website (you must register and get an API key to do this).

For other Google maps hacks, see: http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/

Take care, and good luck with the training.

I've been thinking about training route mapping since I moved to Newtown and started scouting for cycling and running routes. I checked out the Google Maps API and it looks like I can definitely use it to make maps of my training routes for the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Fundraising Ride in Washington DC.

I'll let you know when I start experimenting with the API. [Thanks Maria!]

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Hopewell Valley News published a brief interview with Jeff Tredup, a researcher at Bristol-Myers Squibb who is a member of the 2005 Tour of Hope National Team.

Jeff is a cancer survivor who's been involved in cycling for 15 years. He's very committed to informing people about clinical trials that are used to test the efficacy of new drugs. He said, "I want to get the word out about the importance of clinical trials. People don't realize the quality of care they actually get. People are not treated like guinea pigs."

I met Jeff briefly at the Lawrence Hopewell Trail Dedication Ceremony in June. This was the first public appearance made by the Tour of Hope National Team.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to talk with Jeff and possibly meet him again soon. He and I live quite close to each other, in spite of the fact that we now live in different states. I'm hoping he can give me some idea for routes I can use to train for the Tour of Hope Washington DC Fundraising Ride.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Thursday, Julie Howson (my sister) pointed out an article in The New York Times that discusses the growing tendency of non-athletes to participate in endurance sporting events while raising money for charity. Julie wrote:

{Here's an} interesting article that cites the "Lance effect" as one of the motivating factors behind doing this.

The article suggests that the success of the LiveStrong Yellow Wristband Program has caused a lot of people to consider making a larger commitment to a charity to which they feel personally connected. These endurance training programs certainly are popular channels for people to demonstrate that commitment. The article goes on to make a number of statistical and philosophical points that I hadn't seen elsewhere:

• "...not everyone thinks charity endurance events are the best way for out-of-shape do-gooders to give back..." {i.e., some people may develop chronic injuries by doing the minimum recommended training in a few of these programs}
• Team in Training, a program of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society "raised $85 million last year, or 32 percent of revenue for the society, which supports blood cancer research, education and patient services. The figure was up from $3.7 million raised a decade earlier."
• Charities require fundraisers to raise as much as $4,000 each to participate in events with the charity's endorsement, and many of the events that the fundraisers participate in are neither financed nor organized by the charities themselves.

A couple of the things that I particularly like about the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Washington DC Fundraising Ride that I participated in last year were that the minimum amount raised by each participant was only $500 and that the Lance Armstrong Foundation had a significant role in organizing it. If what this article says is true, participation in the DC Fundraising Ride is a lot less onerous on the participants than many other fundraising programs.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope, Lance Armstrong

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got an email from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope yesterday announcing that registration has opened for the 2005 DC Fundraising Ride. The first 1,500 riders to raise the required $500 in pledges will be able to join Lance Armstrong in one of two rides through Maryland and the District of Columbia:

• a 50-mile ride beginning at 7:00am at an undisclosed location in rural Maryland led by Lance Armstrong
• a 10-mile ride beginning in Glen Echo, Maryland

The email strongly suggests that the 10-mile route will be the same as the last 10 miles of the 2004 DC Fundraising Ride Course, so I assume that the 10-mile ride will start at or near The Irish Inn.

I'm a little surprised they announced the route less than 48 hours before the start of the Tour de France, because I don't see the PR advantage to doing it at this time. However, the organizers did such a good job putting this event together last year, there's no reason to second guess them.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife Kathleen was laughing at me this morning when I told her that I was about to finish the new book Lance Armstrong's War by Daniel Coyle, a contributing editor for Outside Magazine.

Kathleen said, "Wow, you finished a long book! This is going to open new horizons for you," as if I'd never read a book that didn't come out of the junior reader section of the public library before. Since she reads as regularly as I eat, she has earned a certain right to chide me.

Lance Armstrong's War provides a lot of details about the successful attempt to win the 2004 Tour de France that even the most interested outsider couldn't have known. If you watched The Lance Chronicles on the Outdoor Life Network last year, you probably came away from that show with a few unanswered questions-- I know I did. This book fills in a lot of those details.

It also tells some of the inside story of the 2004 Tour de France, including the public relations threat posed by the book L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong and the death threat against Armstrong that was made before the Alpe d'Huez Time Trial. I agreed with Lance's comments after that time trial that the time trial to Alpe d'Huez was too dangerous, but he didn't say and we didn't know that a threat had been made against his life at the time.

The book also discusses the degree to which Dr. Michele Ferrari was involved in Lance's 2004 Tour preparation. This will probably be a revelation for many American fans who have been given the impression that Ferrari played a small role relative to that of Chris Carmichael. Coyle explained that Ferrari was present for some of key parts of Lance's training in Europe and in other parts of the world last year. There's no doubt that both Carmichael and Ferrari played important roles in Lance's training.

There are a ton of small insights in this book that I haven't seen in any other place. For instance, many of the leading riders in the pro peleton were advised in the 2004 season by either Dr. Ferrari or Luigi Cecchini. It seems that riders align themselves with these advisors based partly on their abilities to help them reach training goals and partly because of their relationship or lack of relationship with a teammate or rival.

I also had not realized the degree to which Watts per kilogram of body weight was considered a benchmark of success in professional cycling. We often read about the statistics VO2max and lactate threshold as being important indicators of fitness and they certainly are, but they are apparently not the supreme indicators of pro cycling race potential.

Operation Gadget has talked about fitness gadgets like Polar Heart Rate Monitors and the Lactate Pro electronic lactate threshold meter, but we haven't discussed devices like the CycleOps PowerTap power meter as much. I saw Floyd Landis using a PowerTap at the Dodge Tour de Georgia, but many fewer riders use tools like PowerTaps due to the expense associated: $1,200 to 1,300 for the electronics alone.

Lance Armstrong's War provides more insight into how Armstrong thinks about threats to his goals and weapons in his arsenal. The attitude that he has developed over the years pervades his relationships and defines the organizations that he has put together. There are reasons that everyone in Armstrong's inner circle uses a Blackberry, and you'll learn some of them by reading this book. One of the key insights into how the team motivates itself is that Armstrong's perception of the advantage gained by his use of technology is more important than the actual advantage. This helps explain some of the enthusiasm that the Discovery Channel team had for their AMD-powered personal media players which were demonstrated to me at the Tour de Georgia.

There's also more focus on Lance Armstrong's Tour de France rivals than I would have expected from reading about this book. It's primarily about Lance Armstrong, his advisors, and his teammates, but there are very detailed discussions of Tyler Hamilton's 2004 season and his perceptions of what took place, as well as Iban Mayo's many problems during the race and Floyd Landis' decision to leave the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team after the 2004 Tour.

I think I could go on about Lance Armstrong's War and reveal all of the interesting information that it contains. Instead I'll say that I thoroughly enjoyed and wholeheartedly recommend the book. I think it's very balanced and doesn't shy away from discussing issues that are of continuing concern within Lance's inner circle.

Whether you are a big fan of Armstrong or not, you will find information in the book that you will appreciate. It's written in a style that makes it a brisk read. Everytime I picked it up, I read at least one chapter. I've been recommending it to friends who follow cycling before I even started reading it, and my recommendation is even stronger now that I've finished it.

Technorati Tags: Tour de France, Lance Armstrong

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I just got back from two really worthwhile events that told me a lot about the community we live in here in Central New Jersey. Early this morning, I attended the dedication of a major segment of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail, where I met a number of people from Bristol-Myers Squibb and a couple of riders from the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope national team. Later on, I drove over to the tiny town of Roosevelt, NJ and stopped in at my local Alex's Lemonade Stand.

I'll write about both of these events in greater detail later, but I want to make sure I make this important point about what they had in common. Both of them were organized and run by some very committed people who are doing wonderful work to advance their causes. The effort to reach out to the local community, and motivate people to get involved was really inspiring.

I think I have a number of good photos that I will publish as soon as I can.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hopewell Valley News reported that members of the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Team will appear at the dedication of a major segment of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail, a 20-mile circular bike path that is being constructed in Lawrence and Hopewell Townships, in Mercer County, New Jersey.

This event will take place at Bristol-Myers Squibb's Hopewell Campus at 311 Pennington-Rocky Hill Road in Hopewell on Saturday, June 11, 2005. (Google Maps calls this property by its old name, "Mobil Technical Center".) It will begin at 9:00am, with a ribbon-cutting at 9:30, and a demonstration by the Tour of Hope Team of relay riding at about 10:00am. The full schedule for this event is located on the Lawrence Hopewell Trail Website, LHtrail.org.

Kathleen and I lived in Lawrence Township until 2002 and we still live nearby, so I'm really pleased that this trail is being constructed. I'm planning to attend. If you live in Central New Jersey or the neighboring areas of Pennsylvania, an excellent way to support this type of development would be to attend the dedication.

Of course the biggest item of interest to many Operation Gadget readers is the appearance of the 2005 Tour of Hope National Team. According to the Hopewell Valley News article:

The June 11 event will mark the first time the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Team will appear together in public. The team, comprised of 20 cyclists who have been touched by cancer, will conduct relay rides around the Bristol-Myers Squibb loop road inside the campus as a highlight of the community event. The cycling enthusiasts will spend the next four months preparing for a cross country ride with Lance Armstrong in the fall to increase awareness of the vital importance of cancer research and clinical trials.

The 2005 Tour of Hope Team is in town for its first training camp. If you remember when I reported on the Tour of Hope Team Application announcement, the organization announced at that time that there would be team training camps on June 10-14 and August 26-30.

I spoke to a representative of the Tour of Hope organization yesterday and learned that the public announcement of the members of the team is still a couple of weeks away. I hope to have the opportunity to meet at least a few of them, although I won't have much specific to say about them until the organization makes its announcement.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just before I left for a Wachovia USPRO Championship press event in Philadelphia on Friday afternoon, I received the following email from the organizers of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope:

Tour of Hope Application Status

Dear Tour of Hope Applicant,

Thank you for applying to be a member of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope(tm) Team. The finalists for the cross-country event have been selected and notified of their status. Although you were not selected, you should be very proud to be among the impressive group of people who applied for the Tour.

There has been an extraordinary response to the initiative, and interest continues to spread. The Tour of Hope has struck a cord with the American public, bringing together the inspiration of Lance Armstrong and the dedication of everyday cancer heroes to tackle the incredible need for advancing cancer research.

Almost 1,100 individuals applied for the Tour of Hope Team. Every application was reviewed thoroughly and careful consideration was given to each cancer story and cycling experience. An independent selection committee comprised of representatives from the cancer and cycling communities had to make very difficult decisions in selecting the 2005 Team.

We hope that you will continue to show your support for cancer research by making the Promise, a personal commitment to learn more about this life-threatening disease. There are many other ways in which to show your support for this year’s Tour of Hope, e.g. volunteering at the kick off in San Diego, participating in the fundraising ride in Washington, DC, or simply cheering the Team as it crosses the country at a local Hope Rally. Please visit www.tourofhope.org to make the Promise and to learn more about the 2005 Tour activities.

Thank you again for your interest and support of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope.

Warm regards,

Tour of Hope Staff

As I said in articles I wrote back in March and April, I didn't expect to be chosen for the team. There are many people who are better candidates than me, both as cyclists and as members of the cancer community. I remember how impressed I was with the stories of 2004 Tour of Hope Team members like Kristen Adelman. If they got applications from people like her, they should all ride before someone like me.

It's interesting to know that about 1,100 people applied for 20 spots. It wasn't easy to complete the application, as I explained when I submitted my Tour of Hope 2005 rider application. I think the fact that 1,100 people completed that application indicates that support for this event is extremely strong across the country.

I'm glad that the organizers made their decisions and took the time to email the other applicants like me. Now I can think about other endurance events I might want to participate in, and hopefully plan to return to Washington for the 2005 Tour of Hope DC Fund-raising Ride in October.

I want to thank my wife Kathleen for supporting my participation in the Tour of Hope National Team application process.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jason Koop of Carmichael Training Systems wrote a really useful training article about how to train for multi-day tours and relay rides such as the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope. He ought to know, he's the Coaching Manager for the 2005 Tour of Hope.

This article provides a wealth of information-- surprising because it's fairly short. He includes a section on Back-to-Back Training, where he says:

When you’re working at your normal day job, there are only so many hours you can realistically train. As a result, we increased the intensity of the workouts so we could get greater gains in less time. This meant interval workouts from the very beginning, but the length of the intervals was the key rather than the intensity.

He advocates long Tempo, SteadyState, and ClimbingRepeat intervals to maximize development of aerobic capacity. I have to get out my books and read about them, because I don't know much about interval training.

To get to the level where you can ride a 9-day relay across the United States, you eventually have to do two workouts in a day. Koop discusses that also, as well as how to plan your eating and hydration so that you can train at that level.

The most interesting part of the article from my perspective is the "Bike Tour Survival Tips" section. He has four really good suggestions that obviously come from multi-day cycling event experience.

There are probably things in Koop's article that every cyclist who is training seriously can adopt and improve their performance.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I finished and submitted my 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Rider Application. What a relief. The most important tasks for this weekend were the 2004 tax return for Kathleen and me and this application, and I'm glad to be done with both of them.

I already talked about the Tour of Hope Rider application process and how it was going to be difficult to stand out since the first applicant screening was going to be done entirely on the basis of a web-based application process. What I didn't know at that time is that the length of the answer to each "essay" question is quite limited. Some of the questions on the form specify that the answer must be completed in 800 characters or less. I'm not sure if that's the case for all of the answers or not, but the form forced me to keep my answers quite short.

I'm going to include in this article a copy of the answers I drafted to each essay question, and the final answer I submitted. I'm sure you will agree that some potentially interesting/useful information had to be cut.

Continue reading "Submitted Tour of Hope 2005 Rider Application" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Stock Exchange has announced that Lance Armstrong will ring The Opening Bell on Thursday, April 7, 2005 at 9:30am, Eastern Time. He will be joined by Bristol-Myers Squibb Chairman and CEO Peter R. Dolan. They will be visiting the exchange to announce plans for the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope.

According to the NYSE announcement:

The Tour of Hope is a 20 person, nine-day, 100-mile bike tour was created to dispel the myths about clinical trials, and urge Americans to become more educated about the vital importance of cancer research. The Tour of Hope will begin in San Diego on Thursday, September 29, and conclude in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, October 8, with a grand finale celebration and public fund-raising ride.

If you want to view the webcast of Armstrong ringing The Opening Bell, tune in at 9:25am, on April 7 via one of the following links:

• Windows Media Player: 300k | 100k | 56k
• Real Player: 300k | 100k | 56k

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been thinking about blogging my workouts recently now that the ice hockey season is almost over. There are events that I'm planning to participate in over the next few months that require on-going serious training, so there should be plenty to talk about. The events I'm training this year include:

• The Chicago Showcase Hockey Tournament, April 13 to 17: This is a national high school-level ice hockey all star tournament put on by Amateur Hockey Association of Illinois. I am one of eight male officials chosen by the USA Hockey Officiating Program to represent the local hockey officiating communities around the country.
• The Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope, September 29 to October 8: This event needs no introduction for Operation Gadget readers. I am applying for one of 20 spots on the team that will ride from coast-to-coast. The application says that the riders will each ride 100 miles per day for the duration of the Tour.
• (I'm also planning to do at least one duathlon and a few 5k or 10k road races this summer, but I haven't chosen those events yet.)

I've said repeatedly that it's unlikely that I'll be chosen for The Tour of Hope National Team, but I think I have to ramp up my training over the next month in case I am chosen. If I don't get chosen, I will probably do the Washington, DC Fundraising Ride again this year, and I will probably try to choose a different major fitness goal for the summer / fall.

The Chicago Showcase will be a challenge for me because I will have to officiate two very competitive games per day, and there are few competitive hockey games left to do in my area between now and then. I managed to officiate a game earlier this week between two 18 & Under boys' teams going to the USA Hockey National Tournament at their level. That was helpful, but I need to work more games.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today The Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope made its 2005 Rider Application available. The application reveals a number of important details about the event:

• The coast-to-coast ride will begin in San Diego on Thursday, September 29 and end on Saturday, October 8 at The Ellipse in Washington, DC.
• Training camps are tentatively scheduled from June 10-14 and August 26-30.
• There will be 20 places on the team. Last year about 1,200 people applied to participate.
• Applications are due by Wednesday, April 20, at 11:59pm Eastern Time.
• Additional information of this nature can be found in the Team Application FAQ.

The odds of anyone making this team are long, particularly since it appears that Tour of Hope organizers will base their initial applicant screen entirely on the responses placed on a series of web-based forms. In previous years, Tour of Hope team applicants must have put together multimedia presentations, akin to those some people created who applied to participate in The Apprentice television series. Such presentations, letters of recommendations, and other supporting materials are said to be prohibited this year.

I've told a number of people who supported me in the 2004 Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride that I am planning to apply to be a rider in the 2005 Tour of Hope coast-to-coast ride. I have until April 20 to submit my application. I am going to use the time to carefully consider my responses and see if I can do some of the activities that the application suggests are good indications of a rider's ability to complete the coast-to-coast ride.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope website has been updated to reflect the fact that the Tour of Hope will be staged again in 2005. There's no information available yet regarding dates of the event.

I remember when Cecil Ledesma and I crossed the finish line at The Ellipse at the end of the DC Fundraising Ride on October 9. Cecil was ready to start looking for the table where we could sign up for 2005. That was truly a wonderful moment.

Looks like the organizers are getting ready to tell us some of the details soon.

As a result of this change on the Tour of Hope Website, I'm starting a category on Operation Gadget called 2005 Tour of Hope. We'll fill it with content soon enough.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)