DEADLINE! DEADLINE!

The deadline to register for a full week of RAGBRAI is tomorrow (Friday). If you’re just riding part of the week, you have till June, but if you’re going to spend the time training, you might as well do the whole deed.

It’s not a bad price for a week’s vacation… but you might need another week to rest and get back into your skinny jeans (spandex only on the ride).

• Week-long Rider ~ $150
• Week-long Non-Rider ~ $35
• Daily Wristbands ~ $25 a day

Only 8,500 week-long riders and 1,500 daily riders are technically allowed to ride. If the entries exceed the number of riders allowed, a lottery will take place. That’s when it’s good to be part of a team, because if one person in the team gets chosen in the lottery, the whole team goes.

Getting ready for #30daysofbiking. I think I’ve persuaded at least one co-worker to take the challenge. We’re eyeing Wednesday as a good warm-weather ride for the week.

Get out there and bike!

Tweets, Twitter, Tweetchat and Hashtags.

Tweeting and writing this blog during my road to RAGBRAI has opened me up to all kinds of great social groups. The Mullet’s to Mars ride resulted in a handful of really entertaining twitterers and a few fun Facebook friends and through my followers on Twitter I’ve discovered some really great activities to take part in.

So, I was sitting at my desk, tweeting about biking, minding my own business, and I fall into this Tweetchat. Follow a few links and I find myself signing up to bike every day in April… Sometimes I sign up for things like 30 Days of Biking and RAGBRAI and later think to myself, who do I think I am?

Well, here’s the deal. According to their website: http://30daysofbiking.com The only rule for 30 Days of Biking is that you bike every day for all 30 days in April—around the block, to work, 20 mile workout, whatever suits you—then you share your adventures online. Tweet it, tell your Facebook friends, write a blog, call your mom… Whatever suits your fancy, tell the world about your adventure during 30 Days of Biking.

It’s the second year of the adventure and people seem to already be excited about it. I heard about it on #bikeschool. If you don’t know what’s up with the #, let me give you a tutorial on #hashtags.

Hashtag is a social media term that Twitter followers uses to categorize tweets and make them easier to search. #Bikeschool uses a hashtag to create a chatroom-type atmosphere in TweetChat with a few chosen people asking the questions, and everyone else answering using the hashtag: #bikeschool.

The chatroom updates at http://tweetchat.com/room/bikeschool and automatically refreshes the page with tweets that you and others have hashtagged.

Like #bikeschool, 30 Days of Biking will use a tweetchat to organize the tweets of participants using the hashtag #30daysofbiking.

If none of that makes sense to you, don’t fret. 30 Days of Biking can be done by anyone anywhere with or without complex twitter understanding, a twitter account, or even a computer! If you do, in fact, have a computer, go to http://30daysofbiking.com/bike/register and register with me, under the team name WHO Riders (there’s a space to enter it at the bottom). It’s just a little physical activity and some camaraderie. Now where’s Jeriann, I want to make sure it’s gonna be warm in April.