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.
When he’s not biking, Felpel has been busy maintaining grades good enough to make him salutatorian of his class of 28, which graduates June 5. He received both academic and cycling scholarships at Lees-McRae.
He is president of the National Honor Society, which does school and community service projects, and he has been a four-year student council member.
Felpel is a member of Mechanic Grove Church of the Brethren, Quarryville, where he has been active in the youth group. He also worked as a ride operator at Dutch Wonderland the past two summers.
He is the son of David and Pam Felpel of Willow Street. The teen has a younger sister, Sarah.
