BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH RIDE SPONSORSHIP

We are proud supporters of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month Ride taking place on October 3rd, 2015 in Weston, FL.

As members of our community, we try and do our share of good stewardship. And that's why we joined this cause. This is part of our program:

We donated a PRO-Level bike fit service to the raffle that will be held the day of the event. Want to get a chance for our best bike fitting service? Please buy many raffle tickets to help your chances. We hope you are the one winning our service.

The ride will leave Markham Park at 7:30 AM with a variety of distances and speeds for everyone of almost every skill level. This ride is not just for the fast and furious. Cyclists of all walks of life and bikes of any variety are welcome to join the event. Here is the link to the FaceBook Event: 2nd Annual Ride to Support Breast Cancer Awareness Month This is a charity ride that runs slightly unconventional as compared to others. "I wanted a ride where everyone could participate and not feel the burden of having to collect a minimal donation. Not everyone is comfortable asking for money, even if it's for a good cause. So, I thought to myself: What if we do a ride where everyone is welcome to donate as much or as little as they want? And they can invite their friends. Without the onerous duty of a collection, more people will donate. The amounts may be smaller, but the end result should be that we engage more people. And, hopefully, that leads to a large donation to the cause." says Eve Mart, the lead event organizer.

The cause is not only creating breast cancer awareness -which today is also a concern for a growing number of men- but the goal is also to reach out to the segment of the population that may not have access to early detection services otherwise.

We live in a society where there is a growing divide in access to healthcare. However, disease doesn't discriminate. The game is catching it early enough.

Eve Mart wanted to create an event where all collected funds would actually be funneled into donation. "It seems that many charity events are unclear of the total donation amount. There is always an unknown donation amount as a percentage of the total profits. I wanted to create an event where there is complete clarity."

From the Facebook event page, the ride statement reads as follows:

Eve Mart (left) and our owner and senior fitter, Steffi Bici, sealing the sponsorship

'This is a local fundraiser event wherein 100% of all donations will be directed to The Women's Breast & Heart Initiative (WBHI), a local 501(c)(3) non-profit. There is NO advance registration and NO minimum fundraising requirements. Donations are voluntary and very much appreciated. Support and contributions enables WBHI to provide breast health education, community outreach and access to free mammograms, particularly to the underserved and uninsured population. Checks made payable to the WBHI are 100% tax deductible. If you cannot attend and would still like to make a donation, please go to http://flbreasthealth.com/ for more information. With one in every eight women in the US getting breast cancer in her lifetime, most people have a close friend or family member affected by the disease. The goal of this cycling event is not only to raise funds for education, screening and community outreach, but to unite the local cycling community in the effort to raise awareness of the importance of breast health in a fun, supportive environment.'

That's easier said than done. When there are street closing, traffic directors, rest stops and safety involved, there are a number of permits, police personnel and city managers involved. That means, costs. And not small ones.

Eve approached the daunting task for tackling ever-growing expenses with the aid of the sponsors and bringing the community together to make this event a reality.

"Ideally, all costs are covered by sponsorship donations and partnerships. This way, all rider donations can go to the cause."

Great job. We are happy to do our part.

AFTER RIDE UPDATE

The event couldn't have been any better.

The weather was simply perfect: low humidity and nice temperatures. The turn out was incredible. Cyclists of all walks of life attended.

Eve Mart did a wonderful job with the organization and the ride went without a hitch. The A, B and C rides saw everyone come home safe and sound. The rest stops were well stocked and very nicely managed by a wonderful number of volunteers and bike shop representatives.

Here we captured a rider with a 36in wheels bicycle. Very unique. And also a cyclist on a hybrid city bike - proof that you don't need fancy equipment to make a difference.

The donations were even more generous. The ride collected nearly $12K in donation just the day of the ride. More when all online donations are accounted for.

That shows how much heart our cycling community has. Nobody else comes together as strongly as our community does. It also shows that a great charity event can be a lot of fun and be successful when run by a well-organized manager. Eve? You did a great job!

WHO WON THE BIKE FIT? We did our (small) part in helping the collection with donating a Pro-Level bike fit for the raffle. We hoped to encourage more people to by more tickets. There were many excellent raffle prizes. And a lot of tickets were sold. We couldn't be any happier that our give away went to a deserving cyclist. Julio Aluenares is a hard-working cyclist. He racks up the miles and doesn't let anything slow him down. He has never been fitted before. Julio couldn't have been a better winner. How wonderful for him to have a chance to experience the best fitting technology has to offer for his first-ever bike fit: Retül 3D motion capture. We look forward to seeing Julio in the studio and see what we can do to make his riding experience even better.

A Perfect Bike Fit Pro Studio owner, Steffi Bici, with the happy winner of the Pro-Level bike fit Julio Aluenares

A Perfect Bike Fit Studio also participated in the ride to show support and share in the festivities. Several of our customers were present - too many to mention everyone by name. Seeing such a large turnout made us very happy and feel as if we had achieved our goal of contributing to the success of this event.

The ride course was very well laid out and the ride leaders did a great job in keeping the ride together and safe. A chase vehicle from the Brevet Bicycle Shop did a wonderful job in sagging and keeping everyone safe when in traffic.

We opted for the A ride together with our star athlete Candace Chin Fatt (Elite Women Mountain Bike National Champion of Trinidad) and a few of our customers who also met us in the peloton. To make things more interesting, our owner, Steffi, rode her cross bike. "It seemed a good idea at the time. I wanted to work hard. I ride the cross bike on the road as a way to challenge myself. I just didn't know I would be challenged as much as I could handle."

The A group was true to its name:  it was a hard ride. The knobby tires at 29 mph don't do too well aerodynamic-wise. Steffi had the work cut our for her, but she hang in there together with Candace.

If we were looking for a workout, we got one! But you know what? It hurt less than cancer.

#Cancersucks