Potholes and Road Apples

For each of the past five years, Mike Ridgeway has spent days and nights in late June camped out in Georgetown, in Lancaster County’s southern end, waiting for tired bicyclists to arrive.
Ridgeway, a local bicycling advocate, has manned Time Station 54, the last manned checkpoint in the Race Across America. Bicyclists pass that point in their final hours of riding from the California coast to Atlantic City.
Ridgeway has cheered and encouraged the riders and has been inspired by them. Next month, he will become one of them.
Ridgeway, of Lancaster, will be one of 215 athletes from 13 countries who will compete in the cross-country race. He will be on a four-man team, with two riders from the Harrisburg area and one from New Jersey.
Riding in shifts non stop, they hope to arrive on the Atlantic City pier within five days of their start on the Oceanside, Calif., pier on June 12.
Ridgeway, 47, who doesn’t own a car, has ridden across the country six times. He’s even ridden a bicycle the 13,105 miles around the perimeter of the continental United States.
But, Race Across America is something completely different. Ridgeway has never raced. Those earlier trips were done alone over a month or more.
And, Ridgeway is thrilled.
“It’s been years since I’ve been on any kind of team. I’m excited. I’m giddy about this,” an enthusiastic Ridgeway said recently.
Training for the ride involves much more than riding. Along with strengthening his legs, Ridgeway must also train his internal clock.
Since last month, he has taken to sleeping in four-hour segments to adjust to the rhythm of the ride.
Rather than riding straight through — as solo riders do during the race — Ridgeway will be paired with another team rider. They will alternate half-hour spells on the bike with half-hour periods off the bike, over four hours. For the next four hours, while the other two team riders are alternating, Ridgeway will be eating and trying to sleep in a moving car.
“We’re always going to be moving forward,” Ridgeway said of the process.
Unlike other bicycle races, such as the famous Tour de France, the Race Across America doesn’t stop. It does not divide the cross-country course into stages and take overnight rest breaks. Solo riders have been known to rest for as little as 90 minutes at a time between 350-mile lengths on the bike.
Ridgeway said he has taken to sleeping during the day, with his radio tuned to a talk radio station, to simulate the constant noise he will have to endure during rest periods.
He is also training himself to ride faster. On his solo cross-country rides, he rode about 14 mph on a bag-laden bike. With accompanying support vehicles carrying his equipment, Ridgeway is trying to maintain 19 mph.
“I would think of myself not as the hare, but as the turtle,” he said of his usual riding style.
Ridgeway has been training by repeatedly riding the seven-mile professional bicycle race course through Lancaster between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. daily.
What is typical of Ridgeway is his effort to use the Race Across America as a means to raise money for charity.
The founder of Dream Ride Projects, which raises money for charitable organizations through annual, local bike rides, Ridgeway is asking for donations for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in conjunction with Race Across America.
TeamEndeavor, the team with which he is riding, wants to raise at least $100,000 for cancer research. To do so, they are raffling a new Volvo C70 convertible, donated by Lehman Volvo of Mechanicsburg. Tickets are $250 each and only 600 will be sold.
Ridgeway himself hopes to raise $3,000 — $1 for every mile of the race.
Last year, Ridgeway announced he was forming a Dream Ride team to do the Race Across America in 2008. That team — two men and two women — is still planned for next year.
Ridgeway’s participation in this year’s event came after Mike Bernard, a bicyclist and leukemia survivor from New Holland, was unable to do the race. He asked Ridgeway to take his place.
“I was more than honored. I had to do it. Mike couldn’t do it, and I was able to,” Ridgeway said.
Joining him on the Central Pennsylvania-based team are two faithful Dream Ride volunteers. Rohrer Eshelman, a retired physician, and George Stoltzfus, of Friendship Community, who completed a cross-country bicycle ride of his own two years ago, will be among about 13 crew members who will be assisting the TeamEndeavor riders.
Ridgeway said he is excited about the camaraderie of the team effort. He is also looking forward to riding his bicycle into the Georgetown time station.
“I’m actually the only one that will be riding through my hometown,” Ridgeway said of his team.
Along with his work organizing Dream Rides and the Cycle Smart bicycling safety program for children, Ridgeway, of the 200 block of Ross Street, is also the outreach coordinator of the Susquehanna Air Quality Partnership. He is a member of the county’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Council.
“It’s all time management,” said Ridgeway, who is single.
Information about TeamEndeavor, including information about the car raffle, can be found at: http://www.teamendeavor.org. Information about Race Across America is at http://raceacrossamerica.org. Information about Time Station 54, at Whitelock & Woerth, Route 896 in Bart Township, is at: http://www.timestation54.com.