April 5, 2023 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

We began withTony’s Trivia: Take Me Out to the Ballgame edition

 

50/50 was won by Sharon

Card game: Last week me made the unfortunate discovery that the ace of spades was missing from the deck. Tony bought a new deck and Mike won the chance to drawer the ace, but instead pulled the jack of spades

 

Denise introduced our speaker,Justin Legassey. Justin helps teach the kids at Mt Prospect to do outdoor activities. Originally from Maine, he owns a business called Out In Life to teach kids and adults how to have outdoor fun safely. Today he will share 5 lessons he learned from the 2022 Enduro World Series tour. 

 

What is the spirit of Enduro? It is a race format, biking up a mountain and racing down, and then repeat for a total of 5 descents. Most of the time participants are NOT racing, but talking to friends during the climb. In 2018 the race came to Burke Mountain but Covid short-circuited it. In order to qualify for the series, Justin had to achieve one of the top 250 spots. So for practice, he did the Marianas Trench ride at Burke (the distance from the depths of the Marianas Trench to the surface, a 36,000 feet climb). This took 36 hours. While he was on the ride, he heard that he was 238/250 so he had earned his spot in the world series. Ultimately he did ride Whistler, Burke, Sugarloaf, Krezsmontana in Switzerland and in Loudenvielle in France.

 

So here are the 5 lessons:

 

Lesson 1: What could go wrong? Trees don’t move. He hurt himself training, dinged up his shoulder and broke the manubrium of his sternum. So he got a new bike and went bike packing.  Bikepacking involves being outside all day, so he loved it. He recovered enough to go to Whistler 6 weeks later. He tried to ride mellow and not go too fast but still, it was a race!

 

Lesson 2: Rocks are not our friends. Rocks can break bikes. You must ride with the same front fork, frame, wheel set, etc. during the race. This means that if something breaks, you have to make it work…you can’t swap parts. You will see a lot of duct tape on bikes that are being nursed down to the finish line.

 

Next race after Whistler was Burke, followed by Sugarloaf. 

 

Lesson 3: Celebrate the Good Times!  He got married after the Sugarloaf ride.

 

Then Justin went on to Europe…his first times there.

 

The first European venue was Krenzmontana in the Swiss Alps, where he learned Lesson 4: Take more pictures. 

 

Finally, he went on to Loudenvielle, France and picked up Lesson 5: Food tastes better when shared with friends. He had the best burger ever in France!

 

Justin’s goal: To go back to Europe in 5 years as a coach for a youth Enduro team, showing young people how to go to the places only a bike can take you. 

 

His latest project was a fundraiser. In winter he does ski-mo (ski mountaineering, where you climb up a mountain and ski down). It will be an Olympic sport at the next winter Olympics. Justin did 52K vertical feet for True Strength Foundation at Mt Abraham and raised a bunch of money!

 

Denise brought flyers for the Kane cleanup on 6/3 and Pinkham Notch on 7/22. Bring your friends and family.

 

Denise also had a happy dollar. She thanked Alex for his generosity to the Mt. Prospect Academy. They sent a team to the state underwater robotics competition this year and Alex allowed them to train at the Common Man pool. Last Friday they came in 10th in the state, beating out wealthier schools.

 

Mike: District assembly was held this past Saturday. There were 9 contestants in the speech contest from the district and they all did an outstanding job. The top 2 will go to the event at Jay Peak at the end of April. 

 

Mike also asked members of the Styrofoam committee to stay afterwards. Signup list is here today for the event so please indicate what you would like to do. Renee’s company designed new banners to be put out on Sunday. The committee is applying to the district for a grant to buy styrofoam bins for the transfer stations. If you can’t make it to the collection yourself, we can collect styrofoam from Rotarians ahead of time. 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary