I'm attempting to get started with fundraising a little earlier this year for the annual Kelly Brush Ride that I will once again be participating in this year. It's the same group of friends this year, likely minus one who unfortunately can't make it due to work reasons, but we're trying something a little different as a group this year. My friend Tom, who goes us all drawn into this madness, knows Kelly very well and the organization is trying to encourage folks to participate in the ride remotely. They've kind of reached critical mass in Middlebury, VT, with more than 800 riders participating so they can't really grow unless they change something. So our group sort of volunteered to be the pilot and we're headed to the coast of Maine to ride by a bunch of lighthouses and hopefully have some fun while suffering. Why am I explaining all this? Well, we want to show that remote folks can still effectively fundraise and participate. So we're going all-in and getting custom jerseys made to commemorate the ride.

So all that said, I'm once again asking this group to be like no other forum. I'd very much appreciate any support that you can offer. The foundation is aiming to raise $1.2M to support individuals with spinal chord injuries to regain an active lifestyle. My personal goal is to raise $2,500.  This organization and cause remains something near and dear to me as someone who takes the simple ability to get outdoors and do whatever I like, when I like, somewhat for granted.  Every year I participate I find it helps refocus and recenter my appreciation for those that chose to not be limited by life-altering injuries, illness, etc. The foundation helps people discover adaptive sports and recreation, hosts camps to immerse people in sports and community, and most importantly, provides hundreds of grants per year to people that just want to return to the activities they love. Anyway, if you're able here's the link to donate to support me:

Nate's KBF Fundraising Page

And just for fun here's us with Kelly at the starting line last year. I'm hoping for much better weather this year so we can pound social media with pics and vids of our remote ride.

Trying to make a donation, but the damn page stills asks for filling some of the “required” fields. All have been filled.

🚲 🚴‍♂️🚵

Ride on Nate.

Done!

And....

22 hours ago, Torpedo said:

Trying to make a donation, but the damn page stills asks for filling some of the “required” fields. All have been filled.

If it annoys you too much, let me know what you want to donate and I'll do it in your name.

Thanks for kicking off the party, Mikey and Todd!

I'm going to ride up to the Maine coast this afternoon for a friend's 50th and it's a scorcher! It's 9AM and it's already 80 in the shade. Good thing the ride will end at the beach.

43 minutes ago, n_maher said:

If it annoys you too much, let me know what you want to donate and I'll do it in your name.

Thanks for kicking off the party, Mikey and Todd!

I'm going to ride up to the Maine coast this afternoon for a friend's 50th and it's a scorcher! It's 9AM and it's already 80 in the shade. Good thing the ride will end at the beach.

I think it must be something with iPadOS or Firefox. I’ll try later on another browser or computer, if it doesn’t work I’ll tell you.

Ride on Maine man!

Done

Logged some hot miles this afternoon riding to York, ME. Feels like temp was 93F and it felt every bit of that. Thank god for a little tail wind.

We are off and running on the fund raising and 1/3 of the way there already, thanks d-_-b !

Looks like using the teenager Mac on ancient OSX made the trick, even the PayPal button appeared, which wasn't available on the iPad under any of the three browsers I tried. Go Nate!!!

working through glitches and continuing to make good progress, I’ve now passed the 50% line on my fundraising goal and certainly appreciate all the support received so far!

Done. Good Luck!

Thanks Renato, really appreciate the support.

Likely the last long training ride was accomplished today. I didn't start out intending to ride this far, but it happened and felt good.

Wuhoo! We're 75% of the way there on fundraising with a little over two weeks to go.

A couple more donations rolled in over the past few days so I'm over the $2k hump and running down the last 20%. I needed to run into the office today so I decided to treat it like a shakedown ride for the Cervelo that my friend Paul (flying in from MN) will ride again this year. It was a good double-session despite somehow having a headwind both ways. And the bike is at least looking good.