Miles for Mariann is top Bike MS Fund Raising Team

Michelle (front, left); Cele (back, 3rd from left) Carolyn (back, 4th from left)

One of the great things about our bike tours is the friendships we make while on them. Michelle, from our office, met Carolyn on our Pennsylvania Dutch Country tour last year. This year, she joined Carolyn and another WomanTours fan, Cele, on their Bike MS team MS Miles for Mariann. Together they were the top find raising team for the Finger Lakes Challenge. They raised $20,848.13 for the National MS Society - Congratulations!

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Bike Guides

If you're lucky enough to travel with Michelle as your guide, then you've probably heard her pick her guitar and sing a song or two. But if you dream about becoming a bike tour guide yourself, you may want to think again. Michelle graciously shared these lyrics wish us from one of her latest songs.

If you want to see and hear Michelle sing another one of her songs, watch our Moab bike tour video here.


Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be bike guides
Don't let em pick guitars and drive them old trucks
Their bikes are worth more than their retirement funds.
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be bike guides
Cause they'll never stay home and they're always alone
Doing the work that they love.

Bike guides ain't easy to find, they don't answer their phones
Facebook's the only way you know where they're at on the globe
The college degrees we've all gotten have just turned to dust
Cause the thought of the blue cube and living inside
Just turns our minds to mush.

Beat up sunglasses and old Pearl Izumi
Cut off t-shirts and tanned feet
They drink too much coffee and beer
Cause they never sleep.
Them that don't know em think their life's like a rock star's
Working is really all play
But they get up at dawn and they're always on
Until the last light of day.

Bike guides get the smoky motel rooms and roll away beds
They have to be cook, mechanic, counselor and friend
Backing the trailer's a skill that they do to no end
And they can dance on the roof in high winds with a bike in each hand.

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be bike guides
Don't let em pick guitars and drive them old trucks
Their bikes are worth more than their retirement funds.
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be bike guides
Cause they'll never stay home and they're always alone
Doing the work that they love.

Barbara Minnick

It’s taken me a long time to be able to write about this. We lost a WomanTours bicyclist last month. Barbara Minnick was hit from behind while she was biking on our Northern Tier Western Segment Tour near Minot, North Dakota.

The driver was a 48-year-old man in a pick-up truck. He was on the way to his son’s wedding. It was a 4-lane divided road, straight, with little traffic. It was a warm sunny afternoon with a nice tailwind, and you could see for miles, but he didn't see her until it was too late. She flew off her bike and landed in soft, tall grass.

That's the part I’d like to remember. It was a beautiful resting place, with farmland all around. I want to believe she died instantly and painlessly.

The Meandering Mississippi was Barbara's first tour with us in 2007. She did a tour every year after that, and I saw her on each of them.

I’ll never forget the first time I met her. She told me that we needed to proof our printed material better. It was as if she’d stabbed me, but she was right. I’ve tried to do better ever since, but I always knew I could count on her to point out our itinerary inaccuracies. Every year, she’d go over them at home before the tour and email me so I could fix our mistakes.

I was cycling with her once when her bike got caught on a lip in the pavement and she fell over. She hurt an arm that had been healing from a previous injury.  After a little first aid, she got up and back on her bike. She may have been 70, but she was tough. And she loved that bike and bicycling.

I could also tell that she loved WomanTours as a community more with each year.  We all watched her blossom into the confident, kind, funny, caring and loving person she was on this year’s tour.  My heart goes out to the women who have biked with her and known her through the years with WomanTours. And my heart goes out to her friends and family at home.

She died doing what she loved, so I try to remember that to make the loss easier.

I received an email yesterday from Marissa who is about to do her first tour with us. She’s new to biking and is madly training to get in shape for the tour. I emailed her, “Isn’t the biking fun?” And she replied, “Its more than fun, it's a whole new sense of freedom!”

Sometimes that freedom can be all too fleeting. Be careful out there. Wear bright colors, bike defensively and cherish every moment. I am honored to have known Barbara and to have biked with her. I will miss her.