Potholes and Road Apples

USA Cycling, the governing body of professional bicycle racing in this country, today published its 2009 National Racing Calender on its website. The schedule lists 34 events, up by one from this year. Strangely absent from the list are nearly all the annual professional races held in this region by the Norristown-based Pro Cycling Tour.

The only Pro Cycling Tour event listed in the NRC is the Liberty Classic, a women’s only race, which will be held in Philadelphia on June 7. Not listed are any of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling races: the Lehigh Valley Classic, the Reading Classic or the Philadelphia International Championship.

The Pro Cycling Tour website does have dates listed for the races. The Lehigh Valley race, held near the velodrome, outside of Allentown, is slated for Tuesday, June 2. The Reading race, in downtown Reading and climbing to the Pagoda, is slated for Thursday, June 4. The Philadelphia race is listed for Sunday, June 7. The Lehigh and Reading events are also slated to have professional women’s races, which are also not listed in the NRC.

The Lehigh race was held for the first time there this year. Previously, the race was held in Lancaster. It was moved to the Allentown area after Lancaster officials rejected plans to change the race from Sunday afternoon back to Tuesday afternoon and balked at a $25,000 city contribution to the organizer.

The NRC also has no listing for the Tour of Pennsylvania. The cross-state under-23 “espoirs” race was held for the first time in June. Although the stage race was intended to mark this year’s250th anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh, Pro Cycling Tour Director David Chauner said prior to the race that he hoped to make the race an annual event. There is no indication on the Pro Cycling Tour website that the Tour of Pennsylvania will be held in 2009. 

Races in the Mid-Atlantic region which do appear on the NRC for 2009 will require more driving. They are:

The Kelly Cup, Baltimore, May 17

The Tour of Sommerville, New Jersey, May 25

The CSC Invitational, Arlington, Va., May 30

The International Tour de ‘Toona, Altoona, July 13-19

And the ING Direct Capital Criterium Powered by CycleLife, a men’s only race in Washington, D.C., Aug. 23

The gates of the Valley Preferred Cycling Center, otherwise known as the Lehigh Velodrome, near Trexlertown, open tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. for the 33rd annual Fall Bike Swap.

The largest bicycling-specific swap meet on the East Coast will include 20 shops clearing out old inventory at greatly reduced prices and about 175 individual bike enthusiasts who will be cleaning out their basements and garages of bike, parts and accessories. There will be offerings for road, mountain, cyclocross, track and BMX cycling. Last year, more than 2,500 people attended the swap meet.

The Bike Swap will be held rain or shine. A $7 fee is charged for entry. Children age 12 and under are free. The swap meet remains open until 2 p.m.

Directions are here.

Representatives of the Trek Bike company will be pulling into Camp Mack, off Route 501 north of Brickerville, pulling a trailer of Trek and Gary Fisher bikes on Sunday, Oct. 26. Both road and mountain bikes will be available for test rides between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The event is being sponsored by Green Mountain Cyclery, Reading Road, Ephrata.

According to the Trek website, anyone interested in doing a free test ride should bring a drivers’ license and a credit card. The credit card will not be charged unless you disappear with the bike. You can also bring riding shoes, a helmet and pedals. The bikes will have most common pedals and a few helmets will be available, if you don’t have one. For minors, under age 18, a parent or guardian must sign a release form. Trek asks that rides be kept to 30-40 minutes so that someone else can have a turn.

Bikes in the trailer are expected to include the Madone 5.2 Pro, a $4,000 carbon road bike, and the Gary Fisher HiFi Pro Carbon mountain bike, priced at $7,150.

On Wednesday morning, in the pre-dawn darkness, I was counted a half-dozen other bicyclists on the 12 miles of road I covered between Lititz and downtown Lancaster. The number was unusually high. I have noticed more commuters in recent months - those cyclists like myself, carrying bags of clothing and sometimes a coffee thermos on their bikes.

As the mornings have grown darker and cooler, I have been watching to see if commuters who began riding in summer’s daylight and warmth would continue. Would the slightly lower price of gasoline, lack of tights or lights send them back to their cars? I am glad to see them persevere.

Yet, commuters make up only a small minority of even avid bicyclists. The League of American Bicyclists’ commuter tips page makes the case for commuting: it saves money on gasoline; it save time at the gym; it is less stressful than driving; it reduces traffic congestion; and it is healthier for the rider and the environment.

A list of common excuses people use for not commuting, and the League’s responses to them are here.

Commute by Bike, a web site devoted to bicycle commuting, is another resource for getting started. It has beginner tips, product reviews, news and links for more information.

The page also has this calculator that can estimate how much a commuter would save by taking their bike. The tool calculates only the savings in gasoline costs. If you were to make the leap of giving up a vehicle, you would save about $3,000 annually, according to the League’s web site.

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong made his return to professional cycling official today at a press conference in New York City. Armstrong said he hopes to win an unprecedented eighth Tour. Armstrong, who was introduced by former President Bill Clinton and praised by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced he would rejoin his former director sportif Johan Bruyneel at the Kazakhstan-supported Astana team in 2009.

The complete story is here on Velonews.

Also this morning, the New York Times published a well-written article on racing the Tour of Missouri by Columbia rider Michael Barry.

Barry previously wrote the book Inside the Postal Bus, his account of being a domestique on Armstrong’s former Postal Service team.

One hundred and twenty bicycle riders will pedal out of Manhattan at 10 a.m. Saturday to start the 2008 Brita Climate Ride.

The riders will take five days to cover the 320 miles from New York City to Washington, D.C., where they will take their message about global climate change to federal legislators. Along the way, they will attempt to raise awareness about the climate crisis.

On Monday, the riders will make their first scheduled stop in Lancaster County at the Strasburg Country Store & Creamery, 1 W Main Street, at 1 p.m., where they will stop for ice cream.

Beginning at 3 p.m., they will be at Camp Andrews, 1226 Silver Springs Road in Holtwood, where there will be sharing their traveling “climate conference on wheels” before bedding down for the night.

The public is invited to the camp to meet the riders. During the evening hours there will be speakers, including:  Gary Ferenz, of Conectiv Energy, from 7-7:10 p.m.;  Wood Turner, of Climate Counts, from 7:10-7:40 p.m.; presentations on carbon trading from Point Carbon, beginning at 7:40 p.m.; followed by discussions by individual riders. The featured speaker of the evening is Randy Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association.

 The public is invited back on Tuesday morning to wake the riders for their 7 a.m. departure and see them off as they head to Washington.

The morning air is cooler. Bicyclists are breaking out arm and leg warmers and vests. Autumn officially begins Monday.

You know what that means: ’cross season.  

The Mid-Atlantic regional cyclocross series opens Saturday with the Nittany Lion Cyclocross Race, sponsored by Penn State University’s Lehigh Campus. The race, in Fogelsville, is the first UCI-sanctioned cross race of the 2008-2009 season in North America.

On Sunday, ‘cross racing heads to Baltimore for the Charm City Cyclocross Race, in the city’s Druid Hill Park. Registration for the Category 4 Men’s division has already been closed after reaching the 100-rider field limit. Other divisions remain open. Advance, on-line registration closes at 9 this evening.

The weekend races are the first of the Mid-Atlantic Cyclocross, or MAC, series. There are a dozen races in the series which goes until Dec. 7. Those races are held over an area that stretches from Long Island, NY to the north to the Washington, D.C. suburb of Reston, Va. to the south.

Other races in the series are:

10/18: Cyclocross at Granogue, Granogue Estate (Wilmington) Delaware (UCI C1)
10/19: Wissahickon Cyclocross, Ludwig’s Corner (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania (UCI C2)
11/1: Fair Hill Cyclocross, Fair Hill Maryland (Newark Delaware)
11/8: Beacon Cross, Bridgeton, New Jersey
11/9: HPCX, Jamesburg, New Jersey (UCI C2)
11/22: Whitmore’s Landscaping Super Cross Cup #1
Southampton “the Hamptons” New York Day (UCI C1)
11/23: Whitmore’s Landscaping Super Cross Cup #2
Southampton “the Hamptons” New York Day (UCI C1)
12/7: Capital Cross Classic, Reston, Virginia (Washington DC) (UCI C2)

For more information, see www.midatlanticcyclocross.com.

The series does not include Wonderland Cyclocross Race, in East Lampeter Community Park, on Nov. 22. That race, being presented by Christiana Cycling, is the only ‘cross race in Lancaster County this year. Registration for that event opens Monday.

A former Elizabethtown man, whose bicycling group raised money for the fight against childhood cancer, has been charged with stealing almost $6,000 from donations, the Lancaster New Era reports today.

Jeffrey S. Schaeffer, 40, formerly of the 300 block of North Market Street, Elizabethtown, was founder and president of a charity group called Cycling For Life, which collected money for The Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, police said. Between February 2005 and October 2006, according to Elizabethtown Police Detective Clair Martin, Schaeffer had access to the money that had been collected and “during that time, on many separate occasions,’’ took a total of $5,929.

Schaeffer, himself a cancer survivor who now lives in Middletown, Dauphin County, had been injured at his job and was unable to work, according to Martin. Consequently, the detective added, “he was experiencing money problems and used cash or took money to buy gas.’’

When other members of the cycling group noticed discrepancies in the funds, Martin said, they tried to ask Schaeffer “who kept dodging their questions.’’
“So they went to the bank and looked at things on their own,’’ Martin said.

That’s when they discovered the problem. The members – all residents of Lancaster and Lebanon counties – went back to Schaeffer and he admitted what he had done, Martin said. He also promised to repay all the money, police said, and is in the process of making restitution.

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The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal this morning has a article on local bicyclist Steve Farrah, who rode  from the Pacific to the Atlantic with friend Joe Peko of Lewisberry.

After dipping their tires in the Pacific in June, they crossed the desert, the Continental Divide, the Great Plains and the Appalachian Mountains as they journeyed east. They survived New Jersey traffic to dip their wheels in the Atlantic on Aug.2.

The two, who chronicled their adventure on 2geezers2oceans.blogspot.com.

“All you need is time and ambition to take a bike trip cross-country. If your heart is in it, you can do it. Most anybody can,” he said.

The full articles is here ….

After Steve Farrah finished the five-mile Red Rose Run in May,he hung up his running shoes for bicycle shoes.

The 62-year-old Lancaster Township resident and his friend 61-year-old Joe Peko of Lewisberry dipped their back wheels in the Pacific Ocean at Oceanside, Calif., on June 5 and began a coast-to-coastbike adventure.

“Joe’s wanted to do this for years and years,” Farrah said. “I was just along for the ride.”

Last year, the two rode in the Bicycle Tour of Colorado and had such a great time they thought they would try a longer course. Farrah said he kept an article he had read about a year ago about Thomas Talbot and his four daughters who bicycled across the country.

When he and Peko decided to make their own cross-country trek, Farrah contacted Talbot. “He was very enthusiastic. He gave me many pointers and said I’ve just got to do this,” Farrah said. Farrah did a lot of searching on the Internet and read up on what they would need for the trip.

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