GOAL Hosts Start of NES "Cross-X" Charity Ride for Darius Arbabi

Ride report:

Sunday 10/25/10.

Yesterday's temps started off in the upper 30s as riders headed to GOAL for registration. A little chilly, but with the proper gear everyone arrived in great spirits and nobody was complaining about the weather. A big Kudos has to go out to Mike and Jim at GOAL. Jim for getting us permission to use the facility as our starting point and Mike for being there with us during the registration process.

Registration was a little light with 2 bikes arriving from 9am to 10am, with the bulk of everyone showing up right after 10am. All told we had approximately 20 bikes registered. This included 5 riders who showed up right at 11am just as we were about to head out. Prior to the start the riders enjoyed some good conversation, hot coffee and donuts and a table full of warm GOAL merchandise Mike had out for sale.

I cannot say enough good things about the support we received from the Northborough, Marlborough and Berlin police department. Northborough and Marlborough had a cruiser and a motorcycle at GOAL to lead us out. Because we were on a schedule, we had to leave GOAL before the late riders were ready so they left a minute or two behind the main line with K-Dub (Ana) following them in the follow truck.

Thanks to the police escort we easily made it through the lights by the Solomon Pond Mall and the Berlin police got us through the first big interesection we hit after leaving Marlborough. We were a little behind schedule at that point and officers were not available any longer as we hit West Boylston and Holden. We were lucky though as we hit good cycles on the lights, everyone made it through and the group stayed together.

Once past the lights in Holden, the bulk of the ride was light free. This was the best part of the ride with windy roads through very rural areas with great views of lakes, hills, valleys, etc'. A very beautiful ride with the whole group sticking together. We made one stop at the Tower in the Quabbin Reservior for a rest stop and to let people stretch their legs. As we were parking a group of about 25 classic Ford Broncos were leaving. Some really nice trucks there.

At the end of the ride we ended up at TJ O'Briens in Sturbridge where our riders enjoyed a great spread of Cheese and Crackers, Veggie Platter, Salad, Roles, Ziti in Meat Sauce and Wings. Not to mention a few frosty beverages. Thanks to Atmay (Alex) we also had a very nice DJ playing some great music. Didn't take long for everyone to warm up and enjoy some food and relaxation after a great 110 mile ride.

On the not so good side we were down a few riders as we pulled into TJs. Ana explained that there was a mishap at the start of the ride with one of the 5 late riders running into one of his friends within a few miles of leaving GOAL. The bike that was hit was out of commission, needed to be towed and the rider who ran into the bike came off his bike and did a superman move. 3 riders in that group showed up at TJs and let us know that the guy was fine, which is a good thing.

At TJs I had accumulated some raffle items and GOAL also donated some swag to raffle away. Two of our own (I'll leave names out to protect the innocent ) were very lucky in the raffle. While there were a number of raffle items, the most popular was a bottle of Tequila with a big cup full of potential winning tickets to choose one from.

A special kudos has to go out Big Red as he was the winner of the 50/50 drawing and he kindly gave the money back to the donation total. Thank you Big Red!!!!

A thank you also has to go out to FreeWillie and his wife as well as PatsFan02356 and her husband for volunteering during registration. Their being there definitely helped out!

Finally, a thank you goes out to all of those that couldn't be there but donated as well.

Thank you!

Troy Dupuis