Jeff Chin's PMC Page

Welcome to my webpage dedicated to my participation in the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC).  To find out more about the Pan-Mass Challenge, go to http://www.pmc.org/

A few years ago my college buddy Stu called me and asked me if I'd donate money to support his ride in the PMC.  Being the cheapskate that I am, I said "Nah - how about I ride with you instead?"  Famous last words.  I bought a new bike (a Felt 70) in 2004 and did my first PMC.

The PMC is a century bike ride (meaning about 100 miles in a day) but more importantly, it is a fund-raiser.  In fact, it is the single largest fund-raising athletic event, raising about $20 million each year the past few years for cancer research.  That number goes up each year and in 2007 the goal is $27 million.  Each rider is responsible for a significant fund-raising obligation.  The route that Stu and I ride is 87 miles in one day, from Wellesley to Bourne (the Cape Cod canal) and it obligates each rider to raise about $2000 (in 2007 it was up to $2500).   It was fun and more importantly an effective fund-raiser.  The money goes to the Jimmy Fund, an organization which the Red Sox (Go SOX!) also support.  The PMC is a very lean fund-raising organization: about $.97 of every dollar that riders raise actually goes to cancer research (as of 2007 that number has improved to 99%).

We ride 87 miles in one day.   There is a second day but we wisely skip that.  While I was recuperating, I wrote my thoughts about the event and emailed them to all the people who had supported my ride.  You can read those comments here.

One of the things the ride did for me was to raise my awareness of cancer.  It helped that there was a lot of publicity for Lance Armstrong's unprecedented sixth Tour de France victory in 2004.  I read both of his books that summer and bought a bunch of yellow wristbands from his Livestrong website.

Here are some pictures of Stuart and me in the 2004 ride.

This is what we looked like before the ride at about 7:30 in the morning.

This is what we looked like half-way through at the lunch stop.

This is what we looked like at the end, about 90 miles later.  Not too bad for a couple of old farts!

Stuart and I did  the ride again in 2005 and this time we resolved to ride together.  That made it a whole lot more fun.  I wrote more comments after the ride and you can read them here.  The comments will explain the picture below.

As of late August 2006, I survived another ride and finished writing up my comments.  Here are some pictures from the 2006 edition of the ride.

These are from the lunch stop. 

Don't ask me why the Red Sox mascot is green!  (Oh yeah, the "green monstah!")

Here we are at the end of the day.  Another century ride.  Another $2000+ raised for cancer research!  You have no idea how tired my legs were in this picture.

The 2007 ride is now history.  Click on the link if you want to read my comments.  Here are the obligatory before, during and after pictures.

The 2008 version of the PMC was a little different. The annual meeting of the American Sociological Association was the same weekend. That was bad! But at least it was in Boston. That was good! Well, sort of. It required some compromises. Read all about it here.

What's with these jerseys?

In 2009 we decided to do the Sunday Wellesley-to-Wellesley ride again.  Thanks to digital photography, the pictures were ready long before the blog.  Here's what we looked like before the ride.

Here we are after the ride.

Here's the blog.

Thanks for reading and I hope you'll support my ride in 2010!

Last updated: August 27, 2009

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