Potholes and Road Apples

After a failed attempt to join Rock Racing for 2010, Lancaster County native Floyd Landis will be racing for the new Bahati Foundation team begun by former national criterium champion Rahsaan Bahati, it was announced Tuesday.

Landis, the winner of the 2006 Tour de France before being stripped of the title, will be at the official presentation of the Bahati team in Santa Monica, Calif. on Friday. He joins Topton, Pa. resident Bobby Lea on the Bahati team. Both men were on the OUCH pro team last year. That team is racing as UnitedHealthCare for this season.

Landis left the domestic American OUCH team late last year in the middle of a two-year contract after saying he wanted to race the longer, harder stage races such as those he had done in Europe.

Rock Racing was seeking a 2010 license that would have allowed European competition, but that bid was rejected by cycling’s international governing body, the UCI. An appeal was also rejected. Rock, owned by Rock & Republic fashion jeans founder Michael Ball, then tried to merge with a Mexican team and reapply for an international license. That bid also failed. Ball, in an interview published this week, said Rock Racing will continue as an amateur team this year - without Landis.

The Bahati team will race national races in the United States this year. Landis will be racing against many of his teammates from last year’s OUCH team. Rahsaan Bahati founded the team as a face for his foundation. He hopes to use professional cycling to as a means garner support for programs for disadvantaged youth. Bahati himself grew up in Compton, Calif., an area of Los Angeles known for poverty, drugs and gang violence.

 The Pro Cycling Tour, the organizers of the Liberty Classic race in Philadelphia, are planning to expand their offerings in that city this year.

The PCT has announced plans for the Philadelphia Bicycle Show to be held in the Pennsylvania Convention Center on June 4 and 5, the Friday and Saturday before the 26-year-old professional race. The show will move outside to the Ben Franklin Parkway, near the grandstand, for Sunday’s race.

The show is expected to host 200 vendors who will be showing “everything to do with bicycles -from commuting to competition,” a press release about the show states. Also, as part of the show, attendees will have the opportunity to meet cyclists who will be racing in the Philly race, officially called the TD Bank Philadelphia International Championship.

The show will be held Friday, June 4, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the convention center, 1101 Arch Street. On Sunday, June 6, it will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the race. Admission to the show is $10. Children 12 and younger are admitted for free.

For anyone who missed it, the Championship Roller Racing competition scheduled for Friday at Gusto restaurant in Lancaster was cancelled due to snow. This event was rescheduled twice earlier this year - once due to snow and once due to injuries sustained by the organizer after crashing his bike.

It was also cancelled last year. The event seems cursed in Lancaster.

Other events in the roller racing series have been held elsewhere. The finale of the eight-event series is scheduled for Saturday night at the Irish Rogue, a bar in Manhattan. The last race is being sponsored by NY Velodrome, a group seeking to build and operate an indoor cycling track in that city.

Even if the forecast snowstorm does not materialize, we’ll still be dealing with high winds and temperatures 10 degrees below average.

What better time to get in your miles inside?

There will be a charity Spin-A-Thon on Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Brooks Gymnasium on the campus of Millersville University. Riders may spin for between one and eight hours. Refreshments and fluids will be provided. The registration fee is $30. Registration is available Friday, from 5-7 p.m., at Brooks Gym, or at the gym after 7:15 a.m. on Saturday.

Proceeds from the event will go to benefit Aaron’s Acres, a non-profit organization that provides recreational programs for children with disabilities.

Formula Fitness, Hempfield Area Recreation Commission, Gold’s Gym, New Holland Recreation Center, Hempfield School District, the Lancaster Family YMCA and Conestoga Valley Community Center are providing spin bikes for the event. Most of those organizations are also providing spin instructors to lead the event.

Championship Roller Racing may finally be headed Lancaster’s way, but so is snow - again.

The roller-racing competition is scheduled for Friday night at Gusto Restaurant, 335 N. Queen St. It was canceled earlier due to snow and before that when promoter Jack Simes suffered a serious fall. Now, snow is again in the forecast. Meteorologists say it is too early to accurately predict the tract of the storm. Lancaster could get between 3 inches and a foot on Thursday and Friday, the different forecasts say.

The evening at Gusto begins with rider registration at 5:30 p.m. and is expected to conclude with an award ceremony ar 10 p.m. Pre-registration is not required. Riders may register at Gusto when they arrive. There is a $20 entry fee for competitors and a $5 fee for spectators. More details are available at the Web site of local promoter All That is Good.

French officials have put out an arrest warrant for Lancaster County-native Floyd Landis in connection with the hacking of the computer system of the lab that processed his Tour de France urine samples.

The warrant comes after Landis failed to respond to a summons issued in November for him toappear in France to testify about how his defense during his arbitration hearing in 2007 acquired lab reports. Allegedly a Trojan virus on the lab’s computers traced back to an e-mail sent by Landis’ friend and adviser Arnie Baker.

Despite initial reports that it was an international arrest warrant, the warrant can only be enforced in France or any of its territories.

The absurdity of the French move is really beyond explanation. Apparently this is a slap-down for Landis’ daring to defend himself, chest-pounding on behalf of French anti-doping officials and a warning to Landis never to try to ride the Tour or any other race in that country again.

It seems unlikely that Landis would return to France anyway.

Last year, Landis opted out of his contract with what is now UnitedHealthcare presented by Maxxis, saying that he wanted to race the longer, harder races of Europe which the Continental team could not contest. Yet, when Rock Racing did not secure a Pro Continental license, Landis’ plans to race with that team in Europe appear to have ended. He did race last month in a Rock Racing kit at the Tour of the Bahamas, but he was reported racing again last weekend in Valley of the Sun stage race in Phoenix in the kit of his 2009 OUCH team.

Another chapter in a long, unfortunate saga.

Championship Roller Racing, an event that was canceled last year and already rescheduled once this year, has been rescheduled again.

The competition which was to be held Friday night at Gusto Restaurant, has been pushed back two weeks, to Friday, Feb. 26, due to Lancaster city’s ongoing snow emergency.

All other details of the event remain the same. More information is at the website of local organizer All that is Good. 

Lancaster County native Floyd Landis’ future in professional cycling has been in doubt in recent months since announcing he was leaving the OUCH-Maxxis team. End-of-the-season announcements such as that one usually say to which team the rider is moving, or that the rider is retiring from the sport.

There has been speculation that Landis would go to Rock Racing, a team with a history of giving suspended riders second chances. No formal announcement has come from the team.

On Monday, it was reported that Landis was racing in the Tour of the Bahamas in a Rock Racing kit. On Tuesday, Cyclingnews.com followed up on that story. Cyclingnews reported that Landis broke the race’s lap record in the individual time trial. It also quoted from an e-mail Landis sent to NeilBrowne.com.

“I told them [Rock Racing] that I wanted to do that race so they sent me a kit,” Landis said.

But even Landis himself wasn’t sure whether or not Rock Racing would continue to be part of the American racing scene this season after being denied a Professional Continental license by the UCI.

“I honestly don’t know,” he continued. “I don’t know even if [team owner] Ball has thought about the team these last two weeks. I have no clue what’s going on. After the Tour of the Bahamas I’m going back to my shack behind the car wash. Maybe I’ll write a book.”

The article follows a blog post earlier this month by Joe Lindsey at Bicycling.com in which Lindsey ponders Landis’ future after a lackluster 2009 comeback season. A good read.

Stay tuned.

Jack Simes, one of the organizers of the roller racing series that was to have been in Lancaster tonight, took a nasty fall on black ice, resulting in three broken ribs, a broken back and a concussion.

As a result, the roller racing competition scheduled for this evening at Gusto restaurant has been rescheduled for Friday, Feb. 12. Other details remain the same. More information is available at the All that is Good website.

The League of Lancaster Bicyclists, a recently formed organization of the Dream Ride Projects program, is holding a bicycle ride this Thursday and every Thursday through the winter.

The rides, from 6-8 p.m., will alternate between starting locations at the Lancaster County Public Safety Training Center, 101 Champ Blvd., Manheim, and the Southern Market Center, 101 S. Queen St., at the corner of South Queen and West Vine streets, in Lancaster City.

This evening’s ride will begin at the public safety training center.

The weekly rides are intended to be a combination of road ride, educational training and advocacy discussion for riders interested in completing the League of American Bicyclists BikeEd Road 1/Smart Cycling Course and participating in discussions of cycling advocacy. Rides will be held rain or shine. Training will include night riding and commuting techniques. Bring lights. Indoor classroom activities will include open discussion of League cycling education materials.

More information, and the dates and starting locations of rides, are at: http://www.dreamrideprojects.org/CyclinginLancaster.html#education