"Mojo" Cosgrove First to $2,000

Rider "Mojo" Cosgrove is the first Wheels North participant to reach his goal of raising $2,000 to take part in the ride.  Congratulations!!

Online donations are being accepted by Mojo and all of the Wheels North riders--to find their fundraising pages, go to the "2009 Riders" page at www.wheelsnorth.org and click on the rider's fundraising link.

Updated AYPE Conference Info

You can now find a detailed listing of all the presentations at the annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild ... including the Wheels North presentation at 3:10 p.m. on March 7th.  Click here for a full conference program.

The Wheels North program will include a discussion by Evelyn Gibb about writing "Two Wheels North" and an overview of the upcoming Wheels North ride.  This year's PNHG conference is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Alaska Pacific Yukon Exposition.  See you in Seattle! 

New Rider: Kevin Ziegler

Wheels North welcomes another addition to our 2009 group: Kevin Ziegler.  Kevin will be coming from Katy, TX, to do the ride.

Kevin will be setting up his online fundraising page soon--go to the Wheels North web site and click on the link for "The 2009 Riders" and look for Kevin's profile.

Wheels North: The Movie

We just heard today from the folks who make Flip Video cameras that we will be using their cameras to record our event.  A variety of riders and support crew will have Flip cameras to record their Wheels North experiences.  We will be blogging the video every day, and when the event is over we'll use the footage to create a documentary about Wheels North.

Thank you to Flip for helping make our video efforts possible!

Training Update: January 2009

Ride start is less than six months away, which means it's time to start training in earnest for Wheels North.  Three WN riders--Eric, Mojo, and Peter--are riding from San Francisco to Santa Barbara in three days (about 125 miles per day) this weekend.  Here's a video from aboard Eric's bicycle:

Our Destination: Drumheller Fountain

We've selected the famous Drumheller Fountain on the campus of the University of Washington as the final end point for Wheels North. The fountain is in an area known as "the pond" that was the "Geyser Basin" for the 1909 AYPE, and is one of a handful of locales that remain from the 1909 event.  A photo of an early airship flying over the fountain during the AYPE is shown below.

See you at the fountain on July 16!

Fixed Gear Riders, Join Us!

Wheels North is open to all kinds of bicycles (the most important thing is the motor: you), but we expect to see several riders on fixed gears. We went to a screening of a new fixed-gear movie over the weekend and passed out flyers--we hope to see some of the riders we met when we start in Santa Rosa on July 4!

Info on the movie, "Macaframa," is available at http://www.macaframaproductions.com/

A New Sponsor: Doma Coffee

We're pleased to announce that Doma Coffee, a family-owned coffee roaster based in Post Falls, Idaho, has signed on as the official coffee provider for Wheels North!  We'll be sipping Doma's hand-roasted coffee every morning as we prepare for the day ahead.

Doma Coffee co-owner Terry is an avid cyclist.  We're thankful for his support of our cycling efforts.

The Centennial Year is Here!

It's January 1, 2009, which means that we are now in the Centennial Year of the original Two Wheels North adventure!  Our thoughts today turned to what Vic and Ray were doing 100 years ago as their adeventure loomed on the horizon.

It also means that the countdown to Wheels North has begun in earnest--just six months and three days until we roll out of Santa Rosa.  If you're thinking about participating in Wheels North, now is the time to start training and collecting donations (go to the Wheels North web site for more info).  

Our 2009 training started today with a 70-mile ride from Davis to Calistoga (stopping in Winters, the first overnight stop on Wheels North).  Here's a video report (or click here to see a high-res version):