Cool thread! Nice to see a lot of us into cycling. I have 4 bikes: A new Cannondale Scapel for mountain biking (orange bike), a Felt Cross bike that I modified to use on the endless miles of gravel roads in SE Michigan (blue bike), and a KHS carbon fiber fat bike for winter riding and other soft, wet, and messy conditions (the black bike with a guy on it that looks suspiciously like me).

The fourth bike is a Trek 5000 carbon fiber road bike that I bought back in 2006. I used it for 4 or 5 seasons and put a lot of road miles on it, and did several organized century (100 mile) rides. However, as 2010 or 2011 approached, it seemed like the amount of distracted and/or careless drivers started to skyrocket, which probably ties in with the increase in cell phone use within vehicles. All my cycling friends started getting hit by vehicles and/or having really close calls (luckily nobody died). That's when I stopped riding paved roads and turned my attention to single track dirt trails and gravel roads (which have a lot less, and slower traffic in general). I probably should sell my road bike, but I hold onto in in hopes of participating in more large organized group rides in the future, as there feels like there's more safety in numbers on the road.

C'Dale Scalpel (resized).jpg

Gravel Bike (resized).jpg

Fat Bike (resized).jpg

Man, sorry about losing those local people due to that guy that hit them in that pick-up truck. I remember that well, and it made me ill and furious. Horrible thing. I'm still upset about it to this day, and I suppose I always will be.

I did not ever participate in the ODRAM. It's something I'd like to do someday, but will I ever? I don't know. 100 miles is pretty tough on me. The best I ever did was 100 miles in 6 hours flat averaging 16.666mph, and that was when I was probably 40 years old. Now I'm 50. I was blown out at the end of that century too, LOL. I would probably surely be slower now, but that's probably a good idea. Pace myself and hope that I could finish those 150 miles in 10 to 12 hours.

Wow, KILLER paint job!!