Brace yourself.  Because we’re going to ask you a very personal question.  Here goes: How’s your booty?

If your booty is just fine (thank you very much!), then you probably haven’t been sitting on a bike lately, preparing for the epic 24 Hours of Booty ride here in Charlotte, NC.  And you know what, that’s totally fine with us!  Because you don’t have to sit on a bike to support a fantastic cause.

If you knew Jen Pagani, then you know that there were three places where she felt completely at home: in the water, on a bike, and on the road (running ridiculously fast).  It comes as no suprise, then, that 24 Hours of Booty (a 24-hour cycling event named for the 3-mile “booty loop” in Myers Park) was near and dear to Jen’s heart.  The event raises money for local and national cancer-fighting initiatives and because Jen was so well known for her amazing Go Jen Go Foundation, she was invited to kick off the ceremonial starting lap at last year’s event.  And if you saw her on her trusty red bike, you saw a smile that was wider than all of the booties on that lap combined!  Just look at her in this picture.  She was joy in motion.  She was luminous.

Sadly, Jen won’t be with us this year as a loyal team of Go Jen Go participants lines up to ride (on July 25 and 26), but she’ll be watching, we feel fairly sure.  And we’re also fairly sure that she’d want you to support her team.  There will be ten Go Jen Go “booties” riding out there and you can support any number of them with a financial donation. Or you can come out and cheer as they ride by — they’d love that too!

So ultimately, it’s a win-win.  You can keep your booty comfy on the couch or on the sidelines and still support the ones whose booties will be in the saddles.  And after 24 hours (more or less) on a bike, you certainly won’t need to ask the “How’s your booty” question to them, huh?  Maybe you (and your booty) just keep quiet and smile.