Potholes and Road Apples

The Tour de France, the world’s most celebrated and watched cycling event begins Saturday with a prologue in Monaco. ESPN’s Jim Caple has a nice write-up on the Americans who will be riding in this year’s Tour.

Velonews.com and Cyclingnews have extensive coverage, including live online coverage of the stages of the Tour. Expect much of the mainstream coverage to focus on Lance Armstrong, who, in case you’ve been living in a cave, is making his first return to the race in four years.

Closer to home, the Lancaster Bicycle Club is celebrating the Grand Bouche with a tour of its own. The Tour de Red Rose begins Monday, at 6:30 p.m., with an 18-mile, all-pace ride that starts at Lancaster Catholic High School. Rides are scheduled each weekday evening through July 23. Unlike other bike club rides, the Tour de Red Rose rides are limited to club members only.

Cycle Smart, a program of Lancaster’s Dream Ride Projects, is also sponsoring a series of rides in conjunction to the Tour de France. The Tour de Lancaster includes five stage races and a prologue for junior riders.

The first riders began the 3,000-mile Race Across America this week and unlike last year - and, hopefully, next year - there was no Lancaster riders registered.

Last year, Team Cycle Smart, led by local bicycling advocate Mike Ridgeway, did the epic race. Ridgeway said the two-man-two-woman team is sitting this one out. They plan to regroup and train for the 2010 RAAM, Ridgeway said.

Along with training of the riders, RAAM requires extensive volunteer help and logistical support from crew members who drive vehicles and support the non-stop race.

The first solo races left Oceanside, Calif. on Wednesday afternoon. The winners are expected to arrive in Annapolis, Maryland, on Wednesday, June 24.

In case you missed it in Saturday’s Intelligencer Journal, there was a feature article on bike-racer-turned-homeless-addict-turned-bike-racer-again Chad Gerlach. He was in town for Saturday’s Race Avenue Criterium and using the Lancaster race as a warm up to Sunday’s Philadelphia International championship race.

At the criterium Saturday, Gerlach, of the Amore Vita Professional Cycling Team, was narrowly edged out of the win of the pro/1/2/3 race by Joey Rosskopf, of Decatur, Ga., riding for the Jittery Joe’s Under-25 Presented by Kudzu.com. On Sunday in Philadelphia, Gerlach finished 86th, 9:35 back from the winner.

The article is here:

In 2002, Chad Gerlach abandoned cycling.

Caught up in a life of crack cocaine and alcohol abuse, Gerlach, a former professional cyclist who used to race against Lance Armstrong, became homeless in his native Sacramento, Calif.

For five years, a disheveled Gerlach, who was once a rising star, seemingly destined for greatness in his sport, was reduced to panhandling for money and drugs.

But now he’s back on his bike, his pedals spinning a story of hope and inspiration.

“It seems a world away to be on the streets,” said Gerlach. “My life completely turned around. It’s a humbling experience.”

Gerlach, who is in Lancaster today competing in the Race Avenue Criterium, is now a member of the Italian squad Amore e Vita. The team name means “love and life,” things for which Gerlach has newfound gratitude after nine months of sobriety.

“Once you lose something and get it back, you can appreciate what you had so much more,” said Gerlach, 35. “I found that not only did I want to race again, I wanted to do well again. Win races, or at least attempt to.”

Gerlach got back into cycling eight months ago and was approached by his friend Roberto Gaggioli, the director of Amore e Vita. The team has a history of giving riders a second chance.

“The last couple of years, they’ve tried to help guys who have addiction problems,” Gerlach said.

However, the gesture doesn’t always work out as intended.

A recovering addict who was signed to the team last year, Valentino Fois, relapsed and died of a drug overdose.

“Obviously you never want to forget you are an addict,” Gerlach said.

Gerlach’s cycling career started at age 15, when his father encouraged him to take up the sport after he served time in a juvenile detention facility for arson charges.

Gerlach quickly became a standout cyclist, winning races and joining the U.S. Postal Service squad in 1996. Lance Armstrong joined the team in 1998 and won his first Tour de France with it in 1999.

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Lancaster County native Floyd Landis will be home, or at least in the area this weekend. He is arguably the biggest name racing in Sunday’s TD Bank Philadelphia Championship race.

Landis, who lives in Southern California, is back racing this year with his OUCH Pro Cycling Team after a two-year, well-chronicles hiatus from the sport.

The 114-mile men’s professional race, which was saved from cancellation by casino-backing, begins at 9 a.m. Sunday. The field of 200 men are expected to finish at 3:10 p.m. The professional women’s Liberty Bell Classic race is held on the same 14.4-mile course. The women start 10 minutes after the men. The 100 women will race 57.6 miles.

There will also be a junior race, for teens 15-18, held in the midst of the professional races, a Lifestyle Expo with demonstrations and vendors held throughout the race, across from Eakins Oval, a Philly Fun Ride on the closed race course beginning Sunday morning at 7 a.m., and a Family Fun Zone with games and activities for kids at the steps to the Philadelphia Art Museum. More information about those activities is here.

Also this weekend, there is Saturday’s Pedal to Preserve ride, benefiting the Lancaster Farmland Trust, beginning at Garden Spot Village. The first riders to depart are those doing the 51-mile course. They begin at 8 a.m. There are also 20-mile and 6-mile routes. Same-day registration is available at a cost of $35 each.

And, also Saturday, is the Race Avenue Criterium, at Lancaster City’s Buchanan Park, adjacent to Franklin & Marshall College, beginning with the Category 4/5 race at 10 a.m. There were 217 racers pre-registered for the criterium when registration closed Thursday night. Same-day registration is available. There will be free kids races. The last category to race is the over-age 55 group. They start at 4:20 p.m.

Organizers of Altoon’s stage race, the International Tour de ‘Toona, became the latest to shelve race plans for this year. On Friday, it was announced that the race will not be held this year. Plans call for a revival of the race in 2010.

“I’m very disappointed that we had to postpone this year’s race, but, times being what they are, we had to do this,” said race director Larry Bilotto, on the Tour de ‘Toona’s website. “This year, time are tough all over, but, as times improve, we will be back with our partners,” said Bilotto, referring to sponsors and groups that volunteer to help hold the annual race.

The four-day series of races was scheduled for July 17-19. The series included races for men’s and women’s professional teams and elite amateurs. Bob Leverknight, the tour media manager, said there is still some hope for unnamed portions of the race card - such as the Cat. 5 race - to be held this year. Those portions would require relatively few sponsorship dollars, the tour website states.

The Tour de ‘Toona has been held annually since 1987. It joins the professional races in Allentown, Reading, Providence, R.I, and the tours of New York and Georgia in being cancelled this year.

In case you missed it, Zac Felpel, a local Cat. 2 racer on Team Alliance Environmental, was the featured “Teen of the Week” in the Saturday edition of the Lancaster New Era/Intelligencer Journal. This is the article:

When a ribbon of open road is rolling beneath his two tires, Zachary J. Felpel is in bicycling heaven.

The 18-year-old senior at Lancaster Christian School spends most of his free time pedaling country roads in Lancaster County, particularly in the southern end, in preparation for the amateur cycling competitions he takes part in regularly.

Felpel, who used to bike in the woods behind his house as a child, got his first taste of bicycle racing at age 12 when his father, a cyclist and a race promoter, suggested he enter a mountain bike race in Delaware.

“I loved it,” he said. “It grew from there, and I’ve been racing ever since.”

Felpel has since switched to road racing on bikes with thinner tires than mountain bikes.

He rides on a local elite amateur team, Team Alliance Environmental of West Chester.

In a sport with categories rated 5 to 1, with 1 being the most advanced, Felpel is a category 2 racer, a notch below professional. As a younger teen, Felpel competed in junior categories, and he was a state champion for the age 17-18 criterium (short-circuit course).

Now an adult rider, Felpel has ridden in such local races as the Tour de Ephrata and the Turkey Hill Road Race, both 80-mile rides. Then there’s the Tour de Christiana, where he saw his best result last year — sixth in the criterium for the category 1, 2 and 3 racers.

On May 3, he finished eighth among category 1, 2 and 3 riders in the Memorial Hall Criterium in Philadelphia.

In 2006, when he was 16, he spent more than a month racing in Belgium.

“They’re crazy about their cycling in Belgium,” said Felpel, one of only six young American cyclists chosen for the experience. His selection came after he took part in a USA Cycling camp in Texas that spring.

He took part in 10 races over five weeks. “It was a learning experience,” he said.

The following summer, he was selected by USA Cycling to attend a junior talent selection camp in Colorado.

Felpel will be on the cycling team at Lees-McRae College in North Carolina, racing in the A (highest) category. The small school is one of only a few in the nation where cycling is an NCAA Division I sport.

Felpel had participated in Lancaster Christian’s soccer (10th grade) and cross country (11th grade) teams, but this year he has devoted himself to cycling.

For Felpel, who rides 12 to 15 hours a week, being on a bike is liberating.

“I just sort of love the freedom I get, just riding on the open road,” he said. “I like exploring different roads, different places.”

At college, Felpel will major in athletic training. He plans to attend graduate school to become a physical therapist. But cycling will always be a major part of his life.

“One day I would love to race as a pro cyclist and, if possible, race in Europe. That’s the ultimate goal,” Felpel said.

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Racers can choose to do a criterium, a road race or both in Lancaster County this weekend.

On Saturday, there will be the inaugural Smoketown Airport Crit, presented by the International Christian Cycling Club and Shirks Racing presented by Trek Bikes. The first group, Category 5 racers, begin at 8:15 a.m. Online registration for the race closed Thursday afternoon. There are 95 riders registered. Same-day registration will be held Saturday morning. The cost to register is $35.

The airport will be closed for the race, but the runway may open for 15-minute periods between races to allow plans to take off and land. The race course includes the taxi-way and the runway. A free breakfast for pilots and racers will be available at 7 a.m. More information on the race is available here.

On Sunday afternoon, the inaugural Conestoga Challenge Bicycle Road Race will be held, beginning at 1:03 p.m. Online registration for that race closes at 1 p.m. today. So far, 143 riders have registered. Same-day registration will be available. The same-day cost is $37 for category 4 and 5 racers and $40 for all others. Those amounts are a $5 increase over the pre-registration fee.

That race is being presented by the All that is Good promotion company. Following the race, there will be a post-race party at the Rock Hill Tavern. The tavern is along the race course, two miles from start/finish line.

Altoona’s Tour de ‘Toona is the latest race threatened with cancellation due to a lack of sponsorship dollars, the Altoona Mirror is reporting today.

Organizers are now weighing whether to cancel the four days of racing now planned for July 16-19, but are holding out for one major sponsor. If cancelled, the Altoona race will join a list of races cancelled this year for lack of funds, including those in Reading and Allentown, the Tour de Georgia, the U.S. Open of Cycling in Providence, R.I., the Mount Hood Cycling Classic and the Tour of New York.

Organizers had high hopes for the Tour de ‘Toona this year. For most of its 22-year history, the tour was an annual week-long list of races. Last year, it was shrunk to a single day. This year, organizers had planned four days of racing.

Raising money has been harder this year than ever for the event,promoter Rick Geist told the Altoona Mirror on Wednesday. Geist said he expects to know soon whether the races will be held.

“We certainly don’t want to put on an event where we can’t pay the purses,” Geist said.

If cancelled this year, Geist said they will try to pull the race together for 2010.

The professional race in Philadelphia is on, but organizers say they still can’t do it without help. The Pro Cycling Tour, the promoters of the TD Bank Philadelphia International Cycling Championship race on June 7, are asking for volunteers to serve as course marshals, stage crew, foreign language interpreters, hospitality, marketing and public relations assistants and support drivers.

Jerry Casale, chief operating officer of the Pro Cycling Tour and a co-founder of the race, said volunteering is a unique way to experience the race - which is being held for the 25th year. Casale said many volunteers return year after year to be part of the race festivities.

Anyone wishing more information on becoming a race volunteer, including requirements, sign-up procedures, and job descriptions can click here.

Also, the Pro Cycling Tour is offering race enthusiasts the chance to ride the course prior to the pros. The course will be open from 7:15-8:45 a.m. on Sunday, June 7, just before the professional riders take to the streets at 9 a.m.

Anyone age 12 and older may ride the course, including the famed Manayunk Wall climb. Access to the course, being called the Philly Fun Ride, is available for $40 for those who register in advance on BikeReg. The cost is $50 for those who register at the Art Museum that morning, beginning at 6 a.m. That fee also includes an official “Embrace the Race” T-shirt and a snack.

Grandview United Methodist Church, 888 Pleasure Road, Lancaster, will host a neighborhood Bike Swap and Tune-up on Saturday, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

People who have a bicycle that is gathering dust in their garage are encourage to donate it. Used bikes will be tuned-up and sold at the swap. There will also be lunch and baked goods for sale, a raffle, fliers with local bicycle routes and information on cancer screenings.

Proceeds from the event will go to Jay Horning’s participation in the Philadelphia LiveStrong Challenge century ride on Aug. 23. Riders must pay a $50 fee to register for the event and raise at least an additional $250 to participate.

Anyone wishing more information about the event may contact Horning at 859-2452.