This past weekend our Fresno cycling community suffered a big blow.

29 year old Crystel Stanford, a native of Chowchilla, was critically injured during a bicycle race on Saturday afternoon May 21st. Her family has chosen to donate her organs.

Tom and I have contacted her boyfriend, Dirk and he has given us his blessing to carry Crystel's picture with us during Race Across America. We are so honored.

I wanted to share with you a little about Crystel and her amazing life.

Crystel was born September 28th 1981 in Merced, CA, to Larry and Penny Stanford. She grew up in Chowchilla and graduated first in her class from Chowchilla High. Crystel went on with a full scholarship to UC Davis where she double-majored in economics and political science. After graduation she went into the financial industry and after just a few short years was the vice president of a firm managing over 375 million dollars in assets. She also sat on the board of several financial advisory organizations.

She was adventurous; she started sky-diving soon after college. She then went on to experience base-jumping, wing-suiting, para-gliding, hang-gliding, and other air sports. She loved yoga, bicycling, and being healthy. Crystel was well-traveled. She studied and lived in Europe and spoke several languages. She crossed the South American Andes Mountains on a 150cc motorcycle in 2009.

Crystel always strove to make others happy and the world a better place. She was a universal blood donor and frequently gave blood, plasma, platelets, and bone marrow. In her death she gifted her organs to save the lives of up to 8 people and help even more.

Crystel had a special way with people. She excelled at public speaking but also had the ability to make instant friends with anyone no matter what language they spoke. She lived her life filled with love, generosity, and compassion and was loved by many people. She will be missed by thousands but her impact on the world will forever be with us.

Crystel is survived by her loving parents, Larry and Penny Stanford, two younger sisters, Callie and Lacey Stanford, her grandparents Eleanor and Rudy Moreno, aunts and uncles, and her boyfriend Dirk Morris. She was predeceased by her grandparents Jack and Nell Stanford. She will also leave behind thousands of friends from all over the world.

Our local news channel did a story about the our cycling community doing a Memorial Ride on May 28th and interviewed Tom and I and our plans to carry Crystel's picture during RAAM

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=8153124

Broken

Yes, broken. My body might be broken but not my spirit. I'm very thankful to have the people around me that I have. My awesome teammates who haven't thrown in the towel on me. My wonderful, awesome, amazing fiance Rachelle who left work early to be with me in the ER for almost six hrs. I just wanted to do flats on Thursday before Saturday's Davis Double. Well we all know that didn't happen. I was on my way back from Sac State and almost to Sunrise. I was actually a good tenth to two tenths of a mile from the exact spot where Jason and Elizabeth crashed. I think that road spot is a bad spot for TDL. Right at that spot I had slowed down to see if there was any cross traffic and little did I know Jason W., Ryan and Jared E. came screaming by me. They all yelled my name and so I picked up the pace and caught up to them. About two minutes later I was on the ground grabbing my shoulder wondering what the eff just happened. I keep playing what I think happened in my mind over and over. What had happened was, I was going around a turn Ryan was behind me and we were just about to get into a pace line and when I bent down for the turn I pedaled through it and my pedal scraped the ground and it was all over. I don't remember exactly what I did. We made numerous phone calls for someone to come and pick up me up. Low and behold when someone finally came and picked me up it was the same person who picked me up last year when I crashed. Quite funny. When I got to the ER I sat there for hours waiting for some sort of drugs to take the pain away. I didn't get anything until about an hour or so before I was released. While I was there, I got a cat scan on my head to make sure I didn't have any brain injuries because I have a dent about the size of a nickel in my helmet. Had to get a new seat that will be here later this week. Tomorrow I will be sending my x-rays to Eric Heiden and Max Testa to see what they about it. From what I saw it is a definite break in my clavicle. I still have hope until those doctors say yes or no because they have experience not the douche bag doctor from the VA. Thats a whole different story. Thanks to everyones kind words of hope and not counting me out! Thank you and I love you all!

A crazy couple of weeks.

Team Organ Re-Cyclers have been busy with a few more fundraisers these past few weeks. Crew member Kathryn Scofield put on a successful golf tournament at Lincoln Hills Golf Course. Starbucks in Folsom hosted a friends and family night where we rode on our trainers and gave out many raffle prizes. Macys also hosted their annual Community Shopping Day where crew members Joe and Mary and riders Bill and Elizabeth spent the afternoon spreading organ donation awareness to Macy’s shoppers.

Aside from all of the fundraisers we have all been busy putting miles in on our bikes. The weather has still been an issue for the outdoor rides, but thank goodness we all have trainers.

Elizabeth had a successful surgery on her elbow. She is already back on the trainer and doing all she can to keep up her cardio to be ready for RAAM in a few more weeks. Her positive attitude and motivation will help her heal in time to race next month.

But we have more bad news. Kenny Britton crashed his bike on Friday and spent the evening in the hospital. The doctor determined he broke his clavicle and told him he could not ride. Well, Kenny won’t take no for an answer and is getting a second opinion from a TDL affiliated doctor. Like Elizabeth, we believe he will be back on the bike in no time.

Our Team Captain, Cayden, has decided we should all be bubble wrapped when we go out on a ride until we leave for RAAM. If she can figure out how we can ride while wearing bubble wrap, then we would all be happy to oblige.

We leave in 24 days to go to Oceanside and 26 more days until the start of the race. I still can’t believe it’s coming up so soon. There is so much left to do and many more miles to ride before we leave. It’s going to be here before we know it.

First Time

Theres always a first time for everything. Like this, my first blog post. I can't believe this is happening, RAAM. It is less than a month away. My fiance Rachelle and I watched Bicycle Dreams for the first time last week and it just fueled the fire even more. She's sad she can't go (as am I)and I am amped up to go. This is so surreal that this even happening. I have so many things going on in my head, I could write on this forever. There hasn't been a day that goes by that I am more and more excited to do this exciting crazy adventure. I keep asking people what this is going to be like and I get answers all over the board. I'm hoping this will be an adventure of a lifetime which I know it will be. I can't get this whole thing out of my head. It's all I think about. I just want it to be here already. I don't think I have ever been so all over board with anything in my life. All the miles, fundraising, talking to people, or anything can really get somebody ready for the things that might and will go wrong on this experience of a lifetime but it will make it that much better. I am glad I am on a team with the people I am. I couldn't be more ecstatic. Sure we have had our bumps in the road but we as a team will figure out a way to overcome it. I can't wait for this experience of a lifetime. I know I keep saying that but it's true. Just sitting here writing this I have a big smile/smirk on my face. Can't it just be here already? I am glad I have met the people I have while being on this team and in this organization. I just hope that I can do my load and sustain it through the entire race. Thanks again everyone.