2025 Pan-Mass Challenge Ride Report

Thank you for being interested in my ride!

My ride reports are long and detailed. If you prefer an abridged version, these are the sections you might be most interested in:

1. For a quick high-level abstract, just read the Summary Overview that follows this section.
2. Right after that is My Ride Video for 5 minutes of visual highlights.
3. Scan the right-hand sidebar for some interesting videos, photos, charts, and links.
4. And be sure to read my important Announcement section at the end!

Here we go…

Summary Overview

Last October, I had a mild stroke. And in March, I had cardiac surgery to place a metal plug in a hole between two chambers of my heart. My annual Pan-Mass Challenge charity ride would surely test the limits of my recovery following those medical issues. Full details in the Medical Challenges section.

Until I was confident I could attempt a 300 kilometer ride, I delayed registering for this year’s PMC until mid-June. That left me very little time, both to train up to full fitness and to do the necessary fundraising. But both went well, and at the end of July I felt fit enough to do a full PMC ride, and my fundraising was on pace to match my previous year’s. Read more in the Planning and Training section.

To respond to the Trump administration’s slashing funding for the NIH, I decided to split the money I raise into two buckets. 25% is earmarked for pediatric neurological cancer research, but the remaining 75% is unrestricted, allowing the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to choose how best to respond to the funding cuts imposed by the Trump administration. Details in the Fundraising section.

I planned out a similar route as last year’s ride, with some tweaks to reduce the amount of climbing. As always, I intend for my “remote” rides to match the distance and climbing of the IRL PMC’s traditional route. At the bottom of the page you’ll find my Maps and GPS Tracklogs

While PMC weekend was on August 2-3, I decided to postpone my ride by 24 hours due to an iffy weather forecast combined with a last-minute migraine. Details in Friday’s writeup.

My Day 1 on Sunday August 3 was a little warm and humid, but not excessively. I set out at 3:30 AM and took about 10 hours to ride 180 kilometers. I felt pretty strong, and by keeping a moderate “endurance” pace, rode nearly twice the distance of any ride I’d done in the past year. More about Sunday’s ride.

After a too-short sleep, Monday's Day 2 was a more manageable 7-hour, 120 kilometer ride, starting at 4 AM, featuring a mix of sun, clouds, and one 20-minute downpour. On the plus side, that kept the Texas heat under control, allowing me to finish still feeling pretty fresh, if dirty. Here’s Monday’s details.

The bottom line is that I did remarkably well physically; enjoyed an extremely long bike ride; and had fun creating another Ride Video you can watch.

Most importantly, I had another very successful year raising money for cancer research. The PMC’s 2025 gift to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute was a record-breaking $78 million. My supporters contributed $9,450 to that total, which brought my own lifetime PMC fundraising total to $140,250. As always, I owe immense gratitude to my very generous sponsors. More profuse and well-deserved thanks in the Fundraising section.

And don’t forget to check out my Announcement!

My Ride Video

Last year, I enjoyed shooting and compiling my 2024 ride video, and I was just as eager this year, having replaced last year’s autonomous selfie drone with the newer and more capable HoverAir X1 Pro model.

This year’s challenge was finding new highlights despite riding nearly the same route. I think I succeeded.

This 5-minute video will give you a pretty good feel for what my solo ride was like. I hope you enjoy it!

Medical Challenges

As always, my ride report begins with a little context-setting, and there was one overarching concern leading up to the 2025 ride.

Back in August 2024, I rode my first “remote” Pan-Mass Challenge in our new home: Austin, Texas. Two months later I was in the hospital, having suffered a mild stroke. I recovered pretty quickly and fully, but the following months featured a long string of diagnostic tests.

One of those tests discovered a small hole between the two atria of my heart, that had been there since birth, which possibly contributed to my stroke. So this March I underwent cardiac surgery to deploy a quarter-sized metal mesh inside my heart to plug that hole.

They implanted the device through a catheter that went into the primary vein in my leg, then up inside my heart (while they observed the operation from a camera at the end of a second catheter they’d threaded up through my other leg). Amazingly, it was outpatient surgery, and I was walking and sent home within hours. I came away with a new appreciation for how amazing modern medicine can be, and eager to fund the research that brings those kinds of innovations to cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Following heart surgery, I was off the bike for nine days, then started riding my indoor trainer, keeping my heart rate below a paltry 110 BPM per doctor’s orders, while gradually increasing duration.

At my April 1st followup, my cardiologist saw no medical reason to limit my cycling. I had a green light to resume training toward this year’s PMC.

But two big questions remained: was I physically capable of completing a full PMC-length event, and did I have enough time to train up for this year’s ride?

Basically, I knew that medical permission to train for an event is very different from conclusive proof of my capability to finish it. I had to convince myself that I would be ready to ride, and I had less than four months to do it. I had a clear goal, but it was going to take a lot of focused work to get there.

Planning and Training

Had I been smart, I would have taken my bike into the shop for a tune-up before my surgery. But I wasn’t smart… I waited until the last week of April to bring the bike in, after I’d already spent three weeks ramping up my training. I’d expected a simple tune-up to take a couple days at most, but the bike shop kept my bike for fifteen days!

Because I couldn’t ride at all during that time, in mid-May I was at my lowest fitness level in years. I was five weeks closer to PMC weekend, and facing an even steeper uphill road to prepare myself for the challenging August ride.

Fortunately, my partner Inna had planned a monthlong trip to visit family in May and June, which meant I could focus on training, with an interim goal of riding my third 100-kilometer Fire Ant Tour in mid-June, and I would let my performance in that event decide whether I should register for this year’s PMC or not.

The Fire Ant Tour went well (ride report), so just six weeks before the PMC, I registered, started fundraising, and committed to maximizing my training. You can see what my setbacks and progress looked like on my 2025 fitness chart, which tracks a stat called my Chronic Training Load (CTL).

The only athletic performance change I noticed following my stroke and heart surgery was a small reduction in both my speed and my top-end power. Some of that might eventually come back through training, but some of it I just have to accept as an inevitable part of aging.

Quantifying it in terms of distance ridden (both outdoors and on the indoor trainer), from a low of riding just 500 kilometers in March, I increased to 600 km in April, 800 in May, 900 in June, and 1,000 in July. Over the first seven months of 2025, I had actually covered as much distance as in the same period the year before! At the end of July, my fitness (CTL) was finally back above my average, and even exceeded the maximum I’d achieved in all of 2024. And another stat, my VO2 max, was also right up there. On the eve of the 2025 PMC, I was just as physically ready as I’d been the previous year.

Or was I? Along with the Fire Ant Tour, I’d done two solo 100-kilometer rides, but it had been a year since I’d done anything longer than that. And the PMC: it’s a 180 km ride, followed by another 120 km the next day. I felt good, but the PMC was still three times the length of my longest ride in a year. That was a credible cause for concern.

Friday, 1 August 2025

Usually, the 48 hours leading up to the PMC is a frenzy of hectic preparation, but this year I experienced an unexpected kink: a debilitating and nausea-inducing migraine that lasted through Thursday night and most of Friday.

At the same time, the weather forecast was projecting a 40% chance of downpours and thunderstorms Saturday afternoon, but better conditions thereafter. All through an excessively wet spring – which had raised Austin’s immense Lake Travis reservoir by more than 40 feet! – we had learned to take rain forecasts seriously.

Early on Friday I made the call to delay my solo PMC ride by 24 hours. I wouldn’t be riding on the same schedule as the IRL ride back in Massachusetts, but it would give me time to recover from my migraine, finish my prep work, fuel properly, and let the problematic storm front pass.

What did happen right on time Friday evening were the PMC’s inspirational Opening Ceremonies programs – the founder’s “State of the PMC” speech, followed by WBZ’s “Everyday Heroes” special – which I watched via livestream.

I learned that there were 24 riders registered from Texas, and that Team NextGen runs a short reimagined ride in November from Dallas to Ft. Worth, which I might check out at some future date.

Another opening ceremonies highlight was an interview with Dana-Farber President Dr. Benjamin Ebert, who extended an analogy I’ve often used. While I’ve said that the stamina and willpower required of riders are the same attributes demanded from cancer patients and their families, Dr. Ebert extended that metaphor to parallel the challenges faced by cancer researchers and clinicians in doing their jobs. I found that perspective thought-provoking.

One final interesting experience in the lead-up to the ride is that for several weeks around the event, every day my Facebook Memories feed displays a solid wall full of my fundraising messages and ride reports from previous years. If I ever needed a reason to feel good about myself, being visibly reminded of two decades of fundraising work for cancer research would do it. As the kids these days say, it “hit different”.

Saturday, 2 August 2025

Shifting my ride to Sunday and Monday freed Saturday up for final preparations, and I spent some of the day being inspired by both the PMC’s and many friends’ social media updates from Day 1 of the IRL ride.

So did Saturday’s threatened rain materialize? No, it didn’t, though there were thunderstorms around the area. But frustratingly, as the day wore on, chances of showers on Monday crept up to 30%. I consoled myself with the thought that at least Sunday’s longer ride would be rain-free, and hopefully I’d finish on Monday before any diurnal showers could spring up.

As is customary before the PMC and many other long rides, I filled up on Thai food and turned in early.

Sunday, 3 August 2025

In 2024 I’d started riding at 4:30am, simultaneous with the IRL start back in Massachusetts, but this year I planned to get out even earlier. I enjoy night riding, and wanted to benefit from more of those quiet, traffic-free miles. I also wanted to finish earlier in the day, to avoid the worst of Texas’ afternoon heat, as well as any possible thunderstorms.

Although I’d set my alarm for 3:20am, I happened to wake at 3:00 and started getting ready. I left the house at 3:30am, a little ahead of schedule.

At 24°C and 91% humidity, it was a little muggy, but there was a nice cooling breeze when moving.

My route was similar to the previous year’s, comprised of three loops: a big 100 kilometer ride out around the resort town of Volente on Lake Travis, followed by 40 km along the route of my weekly Friday Truancy group ride, and a final 40 km down Scenic Drive and back home.

My Maps and GPS Tracklogs for both Sunday and Monday’s rides appear at the very bottom of this page.

But it wasn’t exactly the same, because although 2024’s route matched the distance of the PMC’s classic Sturbridge-to-Provincetown course, I had done a lot more climbing. So I made some tweaks to 2025’s route to reduce the amount of climbing, hoping to bring it closer to the IRL ride. One of my changes came right at the start: a quick loop thru the flat Crestview neighborhood and Great Northern Boulevard, rather than climbing around the nearby Northwest Hills.

It might be counterintuitive, but I find riding at night a lot safer. The streets are so quiet that you can hear any traffic coming a long way away. On top of that, it’s easy to notice car headlight beams from much farther away, even when the vehicle is behind you.

And with absolutely no one on the roads at 4am, I could just roll through most stop signs and traffic lights. It was reminiscent of the IRL PMC, where riders don’t have to stop because police and volunteers direct traffic at intersections.

Two hours and 44 km into my ride, I’d made my way out of town and began the quiet loop out Lime Creek Road to Volente. I was an hour ahead of last year’s pace, so I was still in complete darkness, rather than enjoying a sunrise. That kinda sucked, because this would have been the most scenic part of my route, and I couldn’t take any photos or video in the dark. I was especially disappointed not to be able to see Lake Travis, which had risen 40 feet in recent weeks due to flooding rains after years of prolonged drought.

What I did see along the way was a lot of wildlife: a possum, a skunk, some rabbits, and a coyote, who fortunately didn’t show any interest in a passing cyclist. And plenty of the ubiquitous and oblivious deer. Whenever I ride past these ruminants, I make a point of yelling, “Hey, bum! Go get a job!”

I finished the Volente loop around 6:30am, just as the sun was rising. Despite missing the scenery, I felt pretty good and had kept a steady – but not taxing – endurance pace.

Heading back toward town via Spicewood Springs Road, at 7:30am I came upon an unexpected roadblock. Spicewood criss-crosses over Bull Creek no less than seven times in four kilometers, and – unlike most places I’ve lived – those crossings have no guardrails or even a shoulder… There’s just asphalt, then a very sudden 6-12 foot drop-off into the creek, which you can see at 1:30 in my ride video. Since it’s a twisty, swerving road that’s popular with “driving enthusiasts”, it wasn’t a big surprise to find emergency personnel trying to haul a recently crashed sedan out of Bull Creek. Fortunately, they let me sneak through the roadblock, but it wasn’t appropriate to stop and take any photos to share with you.

From there, I did the climb up Yaupon Drive and made my way back home on hilly but uneventful and familiar roads. I completed my big 100 km loop at 8:30am, after 5 hours’ ride time. My Garmin bike computer – which estimates my remaining stamina based on my heart rate, VO2 max, and training history – said that I had 77 km left in my legs, which matched up nicely with the 80 km I had left to ride.

After checking in with my support person (my partner Inna) and a 25-minute rest and the comforts of home, I headed out on my 40 km Truancy loop. It’s mostly uninspiring urban riding, but there are a couple opportunities to enjoy the city skyline near the ride start in downtown Austin. I captured a couple videos, and also rode past the Mañana cafe patio to see if any other riders I knew were hanging out there (nope).

By the time I finished that second loop and returned home, it was 11am, and the temperature had risen to 31°C. With 140 km complete, my Garmin said I had 34 km of stamina left, and my Training Stress Score (TSS) – which usually hits 100 on a long training ride – was already at an impressive 264. At least I was going to finish earlier in the day than I had in 2024!

My final 40 km loop was another trip downtown to Mañana and back, but via different roads, including lakeside Scenic Drive and the Walsh Boat Landing. I took it much more leisurely, conserving my remaining strength.

At noon I stopped at Mañana and ran into Paulie, who leads the Friday Truancy group ride. We chatted for 15 minutes, and another guy walked up and asked me about my bike. Then I got a text of encouragement from my old Pittsburgh riding buddy Ben, sending back a photo of myself in front of Lance Armstrong’s “Mellow Johnny’s” bike shop and captioning it “The scene of the crime”. That stop provided a relaxing and delightful way to enjoy the last segment of a very long day in the saddle.

Eventually Paulie wandered off, and I still had my last 20 km to knock out… but it was my final homeward leg! Heading north on Hartford Road, I surpassed 100 miles, completing my first imperial century in a year – and my 111th total – at 12:43pm.

A couple videography stops and a few last, familiar streets, and I arrived home, completing the day’s 180 km ride with 1,600 meters of climbing at 1:52pm. I’d ridden for 10 hours and 17 minutes clock time (including rest stops), but finished 90 minutes earlier in the day than last year. My final TSS was a staggering 324.

It had been a good day, and I’d felt strong and confident throughout, even remarking that some of the hills felt shorter than usual. As my Garmin had predicted, I had begun to struggle at the very end of the ride, but not much and not for long. In that respect, I seem to be fine until I suddenly hit the wall, which can happen due to overtaxed legs or overheating. Finishing at 33°C, the heat wasn’t anywhere near the factor it had been in 2024, when it reached 36.7°C.

With a mere 12 hours until I had to crawl out of bed and do it all over again, I dove straight into prep mode for Monday’s 120 km follow-up: showering, hydrating, more Thai food, charging my devices, laying out clothes, and downloading photos and videos. All the while being very careful not to move in any way that might cause my calves to cramp up, because ain’t nobody needs that! Then I set the alarm for 3:30am and tried to sleep.

Monday, 4 August 2025

It wasn’t easy waking up at 3:30am. I was achey, tired, my butt hurt, and I had a minor but inconvenient scrape on my foot. I made do by popping an Excedrin and liberal application of chamois cream to a fresh pair of cycling bibshorts. But beyond my fatigue, I was inspired by a Facebook Memory that reminded me that on this date – August 4th – I’d ridden my very first PMC ride, back in 2001, 24 years ago.

My ride began shortly after 4am with a couple quick climbs and descents in the Northwest Hills, followed by my Crestview and Great Northern loop in the opposite direction as the previous day. At 27°C and 71% humidity, it felt a little warmer than the day before. And it looked like the rain chances had come down a bit from that ominous 30% prediction.

Being considerably shorter, I would finish Day 2’s ride long before the afternoon heat, and my Garmin told me my legs were good for 168 km, so I kept a relaxed pace. Once I got going, I felt pretty good, considering the previous day’s expedition, tho my heart rate was staying suspiciously low.

After taking the shorter Boggy Creek Greenbelt to the start of the longer Southern Walnut Creek Trail, the sun began to rise; but a few clouds low on the horizon, made sunrise seem to last nearly an hour. But the wooded creekside bike path was swarming with flying insects, making for the second day in a row when I’d wished I’d brought clear lenses for my sunglasses. It was like riding in a snowstorm! I passed one shirtless guy walking the path, and I can’t imagine how he could stand it.

After 3 hours and 64 km, I reached the end of the path in the suburban town of Manor (amusingly pronounced “Mainer”). With the sun fully up, I had a realization. Back in the northeast, I always thought of the sun as a welcome friend. But in Texas, it’s more like your frenemy; most of the time you like it, but sometimes it can be a little too much, too intense, and sometimes even a sun-worshipper like myself just needs a little time apart.

With the day’s ride already halfway done, I happily set off on my homeward leg, back down the Walnut Creek Trail the way I’d come. But there were some clouds around, and it started actually getting darker again, rather than lighter. I left the path at 51th Street (sic) for a brief stop at a convenience store to refill my bottles with ice, cola, and water, and noted at 9am, “Even if it does rain, I’m probably fine.”

As I left the parking lot, I immediately felt a couple sprinkles. A few minutes later at 9:20, just as I was rejoining the Walnut Creek Trail, the skies opened up. There wasn’t anything else to do but plod on through it, reminding myself of my rain mantra: once you’re wet, you can’t get any wetter! And at least it would keep the heat down.

It was eerily similar to last year’s ride, when a very brief passing shower had caught me on the same bike path just after 8am. Both happened on my Day 2 rides, when I was wearing my Team Kermit kit, which left me wondering if there might be some correlation…

Unlike 2024’s shower, this year’s rain continued for about 20 minutes, while I finished the Walnut Creek Trail and made my way back up the Boggy Creek Greenbelt. It tapered to sprinkles and then began clearing off over the following 40 minute as I did the last bit of urban riding that would see me home. I was very surprised riding up Shoal Creek – in a pretty well-to-do neighborhood – to see (and smell) a vulture eating a carcass in the middle of some Yuppie’s driveway.

Rolling home, I finished the Day 2’s 120 km ride with 921 meters of climbing at 11am. I’d ridden for 6 hours 40 minutes, and accrued another 191 points of training stress.

My combined two-day ride totaled 300 km with 2,521 meters of climbing (which was still more than the traditional PMC route), in just under 17 hours’ clock time (that’s time door-to-door each day, added together).

Overall, I felt remarkably good. Similarly to Day 1, I had felt pretty strong, with plenty of endurance, and I’m sure the cooler temperatures helped my stamina. My butt, hands, and feet all ached, and I’d accumulated miscellaneous scrapes and bruises that were exacerbated by my being on blood thinners. But I was delighted that I got through my PMC ride remarkably well, and that buoyed my emotions. A stroke and heart surgery will certainly give you the perspective of how big a blessing it is to be able to enjoy a long bike ride.

On the other hand, my bike was a filthy mess after the rain and all the gravel I had kicked up. And I was in desperate need of a shower, as well. I recorded a quick end-of-ride video clip and headed indoors to begin the extensive post-ride cleanup. I’d have opted for a relaxing dip in the neighborhood pool, but it is unfortunately closed on Mondays.

That’s the bike-riding half of my 2025 Pan-Mass Challenge. But extending well before and after the riding, there’s the fundraising…

Fundraising

Because I didn’t know whether I’d be able to ride this year or not, I didn’t even register as a rider until late June, and even then it took some time before I got my fundraising effort off the ground. All that put me well behind my usual schedule, but after a focused effort, by PMC weekend I had pretty much caught up with my 2024 fundraising. I was also tracking well toward my $7,500 goal for the year, although I’d secretly hoped to raise substantially more (for reasons that will become clear later).

Those hopes were realized, as my supporters generously contributed $9,450 toward this year’s record $78 million gift to the Dana-Farber. In addition, their donations brought my own lifetime PMC fundraising total up to $140,250, which sets me up well for next year’s fundraising goal, which I’ll talk about later.

There are a few other things related to my 2025 fundraising that warrant mention.

You may or may not remember that last year I rode as a member of Team Kermit, whose fundraising is specifically earmarked to support Dana-Farber’s Pediatric Low-Grade Glioma lab.

This year I again rode for Team Kermit, but I felt an overriding concern about Donald Trump’s plan to slash NIH funding by 44%, which will reduce Dana-Farber’s research budget by $200 million.

In response to that, I asked our team captain, Steven Branfman, if I could split my fundraising into two parts, and he graciously assented. This year, 25% of the funds I raised will go to Team Kermit’s designated recipient; but 75% will be unrestricted, so that Dana-Farber can choose how best to respond to the funding cuts imposed by the Trump administration. Huge thanks to Steven for his understanding and flexibility.

If you are curious about how PMC donations are used, I encourage you to look at the 2024 PMC Impact Chart (PDF).

This next bit might only be amusing to me, but I’ll share it anyways. With more donors using payment methods that take time to clear (eChecks, Venmo, DAFs), the PMC has instituted a “pending” status for some donations. Usually, I wait for those transactions to clear before sending my thank-you emails, which means some days I’m waiting for a dozen people’s donations to finalize before I thank them. I keep a list of pending donations, which I’ve named my “Thank Queue”, which is of course a homophone for “thank you”. Like I say, maybe I’m the only one who finds that amusing.

Something more noteworthy is that when I created my will earlier this year, I named the PMC and Dana-Farber as major beneficiaries. That enrolled me in two groups: the PMC Legacy Society and the Dana-Farber Society. That membership is prominently displayed on the PMC name tag that goes on all riders’ bikes, which was a new source of pride for me.

But any and all talk about my fundraising has to convey my profuse thanks to the people who make my ride and philanthropic achievements possible: my dear friends, family, and former coworkers. My nearly two decades of fundraising for cancer research is only possible due to how amazing you are.

I can ride a bike pretty much anytime, but I need your help to enable me to meaningfully impact cancer treatment and outcomes, and you’ve come through most admirably. I am deeply honored and indebted to you for your gracious generosity and your interest in my ride. Thank you so much!

Lessons Learned

Every year I make mistakes, so every year I take note of my lessons learned. Sometimes I still repeat the same mistakes; it’s a learning process…

• If you’re gonna ride at night, spare the time to put clear lenses in your sunglasses. Getting insects inside your eyeballs ain’t good for anyone.
• If you’re gonna ride at night, be a little extra wary. Here in Texas, there are, in fact, wily coyotes out there.
• Chamois cream, both days. You won’t regret it.
• Excedrin at the start of Day 2 is a smart idear (sic).
• Electrolyte supplements: they may not do anything, but they’re cheap insurance.
• Stroopwafels (and specifically the mini-bites) are actually a great, palatable source of both carbs and sodium.
• Before you ride, make sure the dates and times on all your recording devices are set correctly and in sync. Being able to sort media by date is a necessity, and it’s also helpful in validating what time something happened.
• Most important of all: don’t schedule your PMC to end on a day when the neighborhood pool is closed! Don’t sacrifice that post-ride swim!

In Closing

To a large degree, this year’s remote PMC was about testing my limits following my stroke and heart implant, and it was an unalloyed success. Being physically able to complete this ride – even tho I was all alone and far from any other participants – delighted me to no end. Never forget how blessed you are to be able to ride.

And, as always, it reminded me how many people out there care about me and are interested in this very important part of my life. Yawl are kind, generous, and sources of hope in a mostly self-absorbed and isolating world. I am honored by your friendship and your support of my ride and its mission to eradicate cancer.

And there’s something else to say about this year’s ride… something I haven’t talked about yet.

I’ve made no secret that this was my 19th Pan-Mass Challenge. Reading between the lines, that means next year will be my 20th PMC ride. So let me take a moment to tell you about next year’s ride…

An Announcement

None of the goals I’m gonna share are carved in stone. But here’s my hopes and my plan for next year:

• 2026 will be my 20th PMC ride, a huge milestone worth celebrating!
• I intend to travel back to Massachusetts, to ride the classic PMC route in-person for the first time since 2014!
• Coincidentally, for the first time, the 2026 ride will start in the city of Worcester, rather than the traditional (and now former) host town of Sturbridge. Riders will inaugurate 37 km of new roads!
• My fundraising target is to reach a 20-year total of $150,000 raised. To get there, I’ll need to raise $9,750. No lie, this will require a ton of help from all my friends, but I know it’s doable, and my anniversary ride will be the perfect time. So sock away a few extra bucks for next year’s donation, if you can!
• If I surpass that ambitious fundraising goal, it could be my 10th year as a PMC Heavy Hitter, and my first time reaching that status since 2014.

Of course, being in Massachusetts for next year’s ride also provides a precious but brief opportunity to meet with so many friends. PMC CEO Jarrett Collins. Captain Steven Branfman and the Team Kermit riders. Lots of my old riding buddies. And dozens of my dear friends who have so kindly sponsored my rides over the past two and a half decades.

There’s so much to look forward to! I’m tearing up just thinking of it, and expect there’ll be lots more tears shed on PMC Weekend 2026. I hope you’ll be part of it, in one way or another.

Until then: thank you, and be well!

Maps and GPS Tracklogs

Scroll the embedded images to view a thumbnail ride map, or click through to view full details of my rides on Strava.