So I initially set my fundraising goal for the MS bike ride to be $250, which is the minimum that riders must raise. That got blown away within 24 hours, so I doubled it to $500. You folks are great! I think I’m well on the way to making that goal (a couple of folks are giving offline), so we’ll see if I want to raise it again.

I was out biking the day before I posted about the fundraiser, in part to get a good picture of myself for the page. This is the picture I ended up using:

I took the picture using the timer setting on my camera, with the camera perched on a picnic table.  Behind me is the Connecticut River, and some public docks from which people can launch canoes and other small craft (and from which the UMass rowing crew launches their boats).  While I was there to take this picture (which took several tries), I also snapped a few pictures from the shore and the dock.  Here is a view upriver to the North:

That’s looking under the bike and pedestrian bridge, which you can see here:

The bridge has various graffiti on it, and the one in the right of this picture amused me:

Also took a picture looking South at the Calvin Coolidge bridge, which carries cars over the river:

In other charity ride news, I went for a long ride today to train for the 50-miles I’ll be covering in less than 4 weeks.  This ride was from our house in Northampton to the visitors center at the Quabbin Reservoir, over in the East part of Belchertown.  The ride was about 40 miles round trip, with some large hills to climb, so it gave me a good indication of how ready I am (answer: mostly) for the big ride in the Berkshires, and it will help boost my endurance and strength.

Here are some pix I took of the reservoir while there:

Here is the top of Winsor Dam, one of the 2 dams that created the reservoir back in the 1930’s by interrupting the flow of the Swift River:

The name is explained by the reverse side of that pillar:

It’s a very beautiful area, but you can’t go near the water (at least at this part) as it’s used for drinking water.  Thus, these signs are all over the place:

For some reason unknown to me, the flags outside the visitors’ center were at half-staff:

I may take another training ride there in the next few weeks, and see if I have enough energy to ride up to the observation tower on one of the hills.  You can see much more of the water from up there (the whole thing is pretty huge).

More updates on fundraising and training to come.