Here are a few pictures from the day before the ride.
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| The view from dinner Saturday night |
Driving into Tahoe on Saturday
We considered riding this bike but changed our minds when we noticed there was only one seat.
This one was far more meaningful than the others. This is the ride we dedicated to Kathy's Uncle and raising money for City of Hope. If you're new to our blog City of Hope is a premier cancer treatment center, where Kathy's Uncle is receiving care for Mantle Cell Lymphoma.
Mantle cell lymphoma
Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a B-cell lymphoma previously called diffuse small-cleaved cell lymphoma, intermediate differentiation lymphoma, or centrocytic lymphoma. Despite all these names, it is not common.
Presentation - MCL primarily afflicts men over 50, who almost always present with advanced Stage III or IV disease. Bone marrow involvement is seen in 60% to 90% of patients. Four histologic subtypes have been noted: nodular, diffuse, mantle zone and blastic
Blastic MCL appears to have the worst prognosis, with nodular and diffuse subtypes having longer average survival times.
Treatment - Mantle cell lymphoma is an aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that has historically been resistant to current standard chemotherapeutic approaches. Despite response rates to many regimens of 50% to 70%, the disease typically progresses after chemotherapy, with a median survival time of approximately 2.5 to 4 years.
High-dose therapy with autologous stem cell transplantation may provide longer time to progression. For young patients with matched donors, allogeneic transplant is promising in the limited numbers of patients treated.
Immunotherapy treatments under development may be the best answer to mantle cell treatment. Rituxan® in combination with CHOP (CHOP-R) has a 96% response rate. Use of this treatment provides a prolonged response compared to chemotherapy alone.
One experimental protocol involves treatment with CHOP-R followed by stem cell transplant using etoposide (VP-16) and total body irradiation. Although this is an intense protocol, lasting remission rates have been very high.
As mantle cells may remain after treatment, researchers are looking at use of Rituxan® as a maintenance therapy.
Other studies employ Velcade (bortezomib); another promising therapy is Genasense - a Bcl-2 protein blocker.
Finally, researchers are investigating vaccine therapy for mantle cell lymphoma.
We were honored to ride to raise funds that were ear marked for Mantle Cell Lymphoma research.
Morning came early and our first task of the day was getting the tandem to the lobby. We were told that, "Stairs are only for emergency's" If that's they way you want it, we will take the elevator.
About the ride, what a ride, it truly was the most beautiful bike ride we have ever been on. It rivaled our trip to Yosemite and Sequoia.
This is a Team in Training Ride, hundreds of people riding had raised funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We loved seeing their helmets decorated with something that represented their state or region of the state they were from. Wisconsin had cheese heads, Massachusetts lobsters, Minnesota had a can of Spam. Who knew Spam was made in Minnesota! They were a fun bunch of people, very friendly and polite riders. Many of them shared with us that they had only been riding since January of this year!
This picture is just some of the Team In Training participants at the start line. I have to say this was the first ride where not one person commented to Keith about Kathy's pedaling or lack there of.
We took a counter clockwise route around the lake, then headed out and back to Truckee, continued counter clockwise back to where we started.
You can see the elevation at the different mile markers, the most difficult climbing was in the last twenty miles.
43 was the starting temperature. In addition to our regular clothes we wore leg warmers and jackets. We wish we had full finger gloves, it took awhile for the fingers to thaw out. Starting out we had beautiful blue sky's, green trees and snow capped mountains in the distance. Our first stop at Emerald Bay gave us a view of Cascade Creek Falls. It was at this stop that we took off our leg warmers and jackets. We were provided with a bag with our bib number so we could easily retrieve the bag after the ride.
How many adjectives are there to describe Tahoe? Majestic and breathtaking come to mind. We couldn't get over how lucky we were to be there to experience it. Yes, Kathy did take many of these pictures as we were riding.
The ride to Truckee offered two choices. We could ride the highway to Truckee or we could take the road less traveled and ride the bike path. On the way to Truckee we opted for the highway. We had a great pace line going with some other riders and our time reflected it. On the way back we decided to see if the ride could live up to it's "Most Beautiful" moniker. We chose the bike path. We were not the least bit disappointed by our decision.
The meadow was beyond beautiful. We wish you could smell the fresh clean air, the pines and experience what we did.
The last rest stop we used was at Glenbrook. Below is the incredible picture of the view.
Here we are at Glenbrook. We knew we were making good time but weren't sure we could manage a PR.
We finished the ride with our best time ever at 5:42! We're not sure what moved us to ride so quickly, Kathy's inspirational Uncle or
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| Kathy and her Uncle at our wedding |
the thought of an Absolutely Perfect Jack when we arrived back at Keith's parents house after the ride.
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| Keith's Dad Jack, holding a "Perfect Jack" at our wedding. |
What ever the reason, we thank you for your support.
Onward we roll!
Kathy & Keith
