# liveSTRONG challenge Portland July 30th



## kreger (Mar 10, 2004)

Anyone doing this? I recently found out about it and have signed up, now I need to raise 500 bucks. 

http://www.livestrongchallenge.org/06OR/kreger


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## KonaMan (Sep 22, 2004)

*that's why we're not doing it...*



kreger said:


> Anyone doing this? I recently found out about it and have signed up, now I need to raise 500 bucks.
> 
> http://www.livestrongchallenge.org/06OR/kreger


$500 bucks is a lot to raise, and if you don't meet it, shelling out $500 (or in our case $1k). I think that high amount plus the fact that he was not very accessable (unless you got lucky or did the shorter distances) will turn a lot of people off. I know a lot of people that did it last year that have no plans to do it this year for those reasons. I got lucky last year and made it back just a few minutes before he came onto the stage. If you did the century, you got back to campus and it was a ghost town.

Plus it's the weekend before the MS150, and I'm leading a corporate team (one of the major sponsors). Definately looking forward to riding with George.


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## heliskyr (Feb 21, 2005)

KonaMan said:


> $500 bucks is a lot to raise, and if you don't meet it, shelling out $500 (or in our case $1k). I think that high amount plus the fact that he was not very accessable (unless you got lucky or did the shorter distances) will turn a lot of people off. I know a lot of people that did it last year that have no plans to do it this year for those reasons. I got lucky last year and made it back just a few minutes before he came onto the stage. If you did the century, you got back to campus and it was a ghost town.
> 
> Plus it's the weekend before the MS150, and I'm leading a corporate team (one of the major sponsors). Definately looking forward to riding with George.


I agree. My wife and I did it last year, and left with the century group as that was our planned distance when we signed up several months prior, but then my wife decided to take a fall off her mountain bike from 6' high ladder and shred her ankle! So we did the 40 miler instead, as that was the one Lance was doing. As you know, Lance, Eddy, George, and all the corporate supporter guys left (along with the 2 black suburbans!) and they wouldn't let the rest of us go for it seemed like 15 minutes. Then the chase was on!

Long story short, I only saw Lance during his little speech before the ride, and he disappeared before the end of the route only to reappear long after we were driving back to Seattle. We waited at the finish line for about an hour but an organizer told me he never goes through there "because he would get mobbed" so he always ducks out of the course before the end. :sad: 

If you are planning on doing this to "ride with Lance", you may want to ratchet back your expectations a little. Hopefully you'll at least see him! Hincapie was a little more accessible and was walking around the grounds after the ride.

If you're riding to support the charity or in honor of a cancer patient, kudos! But if you're just hoping to see Lance, I suggest you really get working to raise the $$ (the top guy last year raised something like $25K and got to shake Lance's hand at the spaghetti dinner the night prior). If you raise / contribute I think $2500 you get 2 tickets into the dinner the night before, which is a smaller group = better odds.

As for me, I'm passing on this year's edition. I figured I could 1) pay a lot of $ including a hotel fee to do a century and not see Lance, or 2) ride out of my garage and get 100 miles on roads easily as nice and not see Lance! I choose #2!:cornut:


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