|
© May
27, 2009
Welcome to Arizona Road Cyclist News,
which is sent out by E-mail every other Wednesday and is posted
to the "Back Issues" page of
www.azroadcyclist.com
several days later. This newsletter attempts to address issues
of interest to people who cycle the roads and streets of
Arizona, be they commuters, club riders, recreational riders,
tourists, or racers. Arizona Road Cyclist News is free
of charge. Feel free to forward it to your friends. If someone
has E-mailed this newsletter to you, you may sign up for your
own free subscription at
www.azroadcyclist.com.
This newsletter is copyrighted. You may send
individual articles to others if you identify Arizona Road
Cyclist News as the source. However, it's much easier to
forward the entire newsletter, in which case the copyright
information is already included.
In this issue:
Live Giro Video on the Web
Arizona State Road Race Championship
Other Upcoming Races in Arizona
Wednesday Ride: Paradise Valley to Hidden Hills
Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists Seeks Photo
GABA's Escape to the High Country
The Race Across America (Including Arizona)
Live
Giro Video on the Web
In the last issue, I wrote that there was no free coverage
of the Giro in the USA. That turns out not to be true.
Universalsports.com is carrying live video
feeds of the Giro d'Italia daily, and for those of us who
cannot be at the computer during the race, the videos are
archived online and can be viewed later on demand. There is
also race commentary in English by a knowledgeable
announcer, although his delivery is a bit halting. The best
part is that the race coverage is free! Other online sites
are charging a fortune to view the Giro.
Arizona State Road Race Championship
The Arizona State Road
Race Championship will be held in the Globe area on Sunday
June 7. There are separate races for men and women in
five-year age increments for those over 18 and in two-year
increments for the youngsters from 10 to 18 years old. The
course is an out-and-back route with a distance is 18
miles for juniors 14 years old and younger (the race
brochure lists the distance for women in these age
categories as 35 miles, but that has got to
be a misprint), 35 miles for men over 60 and women over 50
years old, and 87 miles for the other categories. The races
for the various categories start between 7 and 7:40 a.m. The
entry fee is $25 for adults and free for riders 18 years old
and younger. Competitors must hold an annual license from
USA Cycling, the
governing body for bicycle racing in the USA, in order to be
eligible to win a championship medal. In addition to the
medals, the winner of each category with 10 or more riders
will receive an Arizona State Championship jerset. To view
the event's brochure in PDF format, click
here.
Other Upcoming Races in Arizona
The bicycle road racing season is front loaded in Arizona
these days. Most of the races are held in the spring, and by
the end of May, most of them are over. Most
of the races that do occur in summer and fall are time
trials. Gone are the big, high-country summer road races of
yesteryear such as Waputki, the Flagstaff Stage Race, Mining
Country, Springerville, Skull Valley, etc. and the big
season-ending Turkey Day Criterium in the Phoenix area,
which attracted top riders from all over the United States.
Well, Skull Valley is actually still on the calendar and
takes place at the end of August, but the others are now a
memory. Old timers still remember when Eric Heiden,
fresh from winning five gold metals in speed skating in the
Winter Olympics, crashed a borrowed bike in the 1980 Turkey
Day Criterium when he hit a pedal rounding the corner by the
Memorial Union at ASU. (Incidentally, that day he was riding
in a Phoenix Consumer Cycle Club jersey, thanks to the fact
that he worked for Schwinn Bicycles, which was then the
club's main sponsor.) Arizona no longer has races
important enough to attract large numbers of
international-caliber riders.
But, to business:
The White Mountain Road Club's informal Tortilla Tuesday
road race series takes place most Tuesday evenings until the
end of August from Apache Junction
out the Apache Trail
and then returning via the same route. The
start time is 5:30 p.m. through July and 5:15 p.m. in
August. There are two races: an A race for advanced riders
and a B race for less experienced races. If enough women
show up to race, there is also a separate women's race. The
entry fee is a reasonable $10 per race or $95 for the series
of 11 races. For more information, click
here.
May ends with the Thunder Road Time Trial on May 31 in the
Tucson area. The race starts and finishes at Sahuarita Road
and Alvernon Way, 2.5 miles east of Old Nogales Highway with
the first rider off at 7 a.m. The total distance is 16 miles
with an uphill ride on the way out and a fast downhill on
the way back. Registration is $15 for adult riders and $2
for juniors. For more information, click
here.
The Arizona Track Series takes place on the weekend of June
13 and 14 at the velodrome in Balboa Park in San Diego.
(When are we going to finally get a velodrome in Phoenix?)
For more information on the track series, click
here.
Saturday, June 20 brings the second in the 3 Bears time
trial
series, which takes place on Park Link Drive, which connects
I-10 to to US79 near Red Rock, which is in turn near Picacho
Peak. The course length is 20 kilometers, and the
registration fee is $20. For more information, click
here.
Finally, the end of June brings us the 12.5-mile Mount Lemon
Time Trial, which goes straight up Tucson's Mount Lemon to
Bear Canyon, a vertical gain of roughly 3000 feet.
Registration is on-site from 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. with the
first rider off at 7 a.m. Registration is $15 for adults and
$2 for juniors. For more information, click
here.
Wednesday Ride: Paradise Valley to Hidden Hills
Weekday rider opportunities in the Phoenix
area for those not
working are limited. Most of the weekday rides are short and
held either before or after work hours such as the Hour of
Power (5:30 a.m. all year starting at Exeter Boulevard and
64th Street), the Gainey Ranch Ride (starts at Scottsdale
and Double Tree Ranch Roads, currently at 5:30 a.m.), and
Tribe (Thursday evenings at 7:10 p.m. starting at the Tribe
Multisport ship on Scottsdale Road at Palm Lane).
For those whose schedules allow them to ride
later in the mornings, a ride leaves the traffic circle at
Northern and Invergordon in Paradise Valley every Wednesday
morning at 6:30 a.m., proceeds out to Hidden Hills, and then
returns to Paradise Valley. On the return route, the group
stops for coffee at A.J's at Vila Linda and Mountain View.
The ride is informal and open to anyone who can safely ride
a paceline at 20+ mph. For safety reasons, helmets are
encouraged, and aero-bars are discouraged. This is not an
organized ride, and all riders participate at their own
risk.
Coalition of Arizona
Bicyclists Seeks Photo
The Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists is
looking for a new photo for the home page of its Web site,
and it is holding a contest to encourage everyone to submit
suggestions. For more information on the contest, click
here.
GABA's Escape to the High Country
On the weekend of June 13 and 14, GABA Tucson is sponsoring
what it calls the 2nd Annual Escape to the High Country.
The ride starts on Saturday at the Happy Jack Lodge near
Clint's Well and offers 100, 60, and 45-mile ride options.
The Saturday ride progresses past the Happy Jack Ranger
Station and Lake Mary into Flagstaff, where riders will
spend the night camping out or optionally at a motel.
Sunday's ride retraces the same route. A shuttle takes
riders on the 45-mile ride over a segment of the course. The
cost of the ride is $85 for those of us who are not members
of GABA. GABA members with a user name and password can log
onto a special section of the Website and receive an
unspecified discount. For more information and to register,
click
here. (As I
have mentioned before, other bicycle clubs in Arizona give
GABA Tucson members the normal member discount on their
events, and I find it a bit tactless of GABA Tucson
to seldom reciprocate.)
The
Race Across America (including Arizona)
The world's most famous marathon cycling event, the Race
Across America starts
from Oceanside, California on June 17 and faces some serious heat and some serious climbing
in Arizona. Riders, who come from all over the world to
participate in the event, will cross into Arizona from
sweltering Blythe, California and then pass through the
Arizona cities and towns of Salome, Congress, Prescott,
Cottonwood, Flagstaff, Tuba City, and Keyenta before
crossing the state line into Utah. The climbs in Arizona
include Yarnell Hill, Mingus Mountain, and the Mogollan Rim.
Solo riders, the real heroes of this event, pedal day and
night with occasional short stops for a few hours sleep. The
race clock runs 24 hours a day, so time spent sleeping is
time lost from racing. This race is so tough that riders
often hallucinate from the strain on their bodies and the
lack of sleep. Riders can also participate in teams of
various sizes, which gives them the chance to trade off
stints on the road. To access the RAAM Website for
information on how you can follow the race, click
here.
The Bullshifters Bicycle Club runs a time station for the
event at Congress. To see a photo of the swanky digs where
these lucky dogs work in luxurious comfort, click
here.
|