Welcome back. I appreciate all the well wishers and supporters that have been following my tale of riding my bike and raising money to fight Leukemia and Lymphoma. I'm here to share another installment about my latest challenge. As you may recall I've raised money the past 3 years to in honor of my mother-in-law Margie Griffin. Each year I've done something to encourage donations. In the past I've ridden a mile for every dollar donated and last year we had a raffle. This year I've come up with something a little different. The idea for this year's fundraiser comes from my daughter's college alumni association. They sent her a solicitation letter where they were selling sponsorships for chairs in the new music hall. For a substantial sum you got to pay to have your name on a seat in the auditorium. Not a bad idea. So I decided to take that idea and make it better.

For this year's fundraising recognition, I'm going to sell sponsorships on my bike and apparel. That's right you can have your name prominently displayed on a part of my bike. When I'm riding I'll be reminded of people that have supported me this year. It will also remind others of what I'm doing.

Now I realize many of you don't know what the parts of a bike are. So here's a list of parts that are available: handle bars, hoods, drops, forks, top tube, down tube, seat tube, steerer tube, chain stays, seat stays, cranks, hubs, seat, bottle cages. For a, shall we say, $25 donation (of course you're not limited) you can request which bike part you wish to have your name emblazoned. For example, you can visit my donation site at http://pages.teamintraining.org/sf/ambbr09/sasche , make a donation and simply send me an email. You can say "Steve, I want a fork" or "I want your crank" and I will gladly put your name on my crank (left or right) or you can have the fork or any other bike part you can think of. Then I will take a picture of the emblazoned part and your name will be for all to see.

Additionally I'm offering items of apparel. I always wear a helmet so you can sponsor that. Or for that extra special someone I'm offering to my to put a select name on the pad of my bicycle shorts. Now you could put anyone in there but this is ideal if you want to send a message to someone that did you wrong. It could be the cop that gave you a ticket this morning or your 9th grade civics teacher. Whatever name you choose, just sponsor me and send me a message that says "I want to be on on your helmet or I want xxxx to be in your shorts"

Check out the bike picture, as you can see there are a plethora of sponsorship opportunities awaiting.

Act fast, all of the best spots are sure to go quickly. Now this is much better than buying a chair in a concert hall. And the best part, it's just as tax deductible.

As always, be sure to check out the blog at http://notabouttheback.blogspot.com/ And if you no longer wish to receive these updates, drop me a message.

Thanks
Steve