Some of you may know that I have a slight infatuation with the Internet.
For years I was a member of an online group of piano enthusiasts, and industry pros (builders, retailers, and techs) called pianoworld.com.
Eventually, a group of us split off from that, and became a new forum known as “The Coffee Room.” We are all mostly still piano folks, but don’t talk pianos much anymore. Instead, this very diverse group of people get together daily at www.coffee-room.com and discuss all of the topics that aren’t supposed to come up in polite conversation.
Through the process many of us have become close, online friends – and one of those close friends, “Mark” began cycling about a year ago. I have sort of lived vicariously through him, watching him make extraordinary strides as he trains, and has gone from riding a hybrid around local bike paths, to completing centuries now.
About two weeks ago, he mentioned the RAGBRAI race, and joked that TNCR (The New Coffee Room) should assemble a team.
Now, just a couple weeks later, we officially have a team, and we’re all super excited to be riding this 500 mile journey in July.
That’s right, we’re training for, and riding in, the 7 day, 500 mile RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). We will be joining close to 20,000 other cyclists in a somewhat casual (grueling for us) multi-day ride. Our team, will be riding to raise money for Taylor’s Gift Foundation (my amazing kidney donor), in order to raise awareness for Organ Donation. We’ll be looking for corporate sponsors who will get logo placement on our jerseys, and per-mile pledges from family/friends/individuals to help us raise some money. Please help us spread the word, and let us know if you, or someone you know would like to help support us, and in turn, this cause.
More than 100,000 people are waiting for life saving organ transplants in the U.S., and only about 30% of eligible donors are registered to do so – help us increase that number! Contact either Anna or I with any questions – I’ll be blogging/tweeting/facebooking throughout our training (my blog is located on my web site at tollidee.com), and will also keep up some sort of digital record of the ride itself.
You can also follow me on twitter (@jonathanFinger) if you want to keep up with this. Thanks in advance for your support, advice, and encouragement.

We hope to grow our team a bit, and our list of corporate sponsors. We’re still in the early stages, but pieces are rapidly falling into place, and it’s quickly becoming a very exciting adventure.

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