2010 Details
“Cycle for Life – Celebrate Life” will be completed in about 12 days. We’re planning on leaving from Vancouver on October 11th and arriving in Austin on the 22nd to participate in the very cool LiveStrong Challenge with 3,000 other riders on the 24th. The route we’re taking is going to be OFF THE CHARTS! We’re headed east towards beautiful Idaho, Montana, the Teton Mountains, Yellowstone National Park, Utah, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Colorado Rockies, New Mexico and so much more! This truly is one of the most breath-taking routes you could cover in 2 weeks!
You can expect to bike an average of 115km per day but you should be prepared to be on that saddle for some long days (4 to 8 hours). The shortest day is about 60km/person and the longest is about 125km. There are some big mountains so be prepared to climb! And don’t stress if you aren’t in shape yet… check out our TRAINING section to read some great articles and check in with some of our coaches. If you are having any doubts at all… know that the power of the human mind, body, and soul are more than we can even begin to comprehend. Believe in yourself that you CAN do this and we will get behind you every step of the way and guarantee that you will not fail.
When you aren’t biking, you can expect to be part of one giant family. Each team will have two key responsibilities when they aren’t biking: (1) do everything you need to do to feed yourselves, drive the team vehicle, and hopefully get some sleep and, (2) don’t complain if something goes wrong because it will and that’s the fun of it! Being an all-volunteer organization has its challenges and this is one of them. We’ll tell you where to be and when to be there and you get to do the rest. Trust us; it’s more fun than it sounds.
To participate, you must do three things: (1) Fund-raise $5,000 by October 1st (yes you can) – $1,000 of this must be in by July 1st and $3,000 must be in by September 1st, (2) Find a way to Vancouver with your bike, and (3) Have an open mind and be up for an adventure.
New for 2010: If you raise $7,500 you will receive a food per diem of $30 per day. If you raise $10,000 you will receive the food per diem, a special cycling jersey as part of the top fundraisers club, and we will fly you to the departure point of the ride. All participants will be flown home from Austin, Texas.
GIVETOLIVE strives to spend as little as possible on the ride so that we can donate as much as possible to those charities fighting cancer. We are not an organization that provides a vacation to participants and spends half the money on luxury accommodations. For 2010, we are aiming to achieve an expense ratio of 75%, which is considered exceptional in the fund-raising community. This means we get to have more fun on the ride… let’s just say you’ll get very acquainted with your team and “cozy” is a good word to describe the accommodations. We will be staying in everything from church halls and community centers to motels and hotels. Last year, we were even billeted by wonderful families in Port Angeles, Washington. To have a community of strangers open their doors to us – many of them survivors and even patients themselves – was one of the most inspirational and rewarding parts of our journey. We are hoping to organize 1-2 nights similar to that experience this year. Thank you Port Angeles!!
So, the deal is if you raise the $5,000 and make it to Vancouver, we’ll get you safely to Texas, and fly you home (within North America). If you raise the most, we’ll do something cool when we get there too… we’re working on that.
