Page last modified: June 12, 2008

Here are the published rules for the PFW Philanthropy process for PFW riders to use:

Regarding philanthropy, the Board passed the following process that we will use going forward for PFW to give funds to charities, and also support the club "social" perspective.

For Charity rides taking place from June - October, the club will set aside a maximum of $2500 to be donated to charities from the PFW on the behalf of PFW members that participate in a charity ride.

• A minimum of 4 PFW members must participate in the Charity ride.

• The $100 is a donation by the PFW on the behalf of the riders and is NOT part of any registration fees which are the responsibility of each rider.

The process:

1. When 4 or more club members enter a specific charity ride, and

2. Send a request via a single e-mail with their names to Philanthropy.

3. The first group of club members making the request, no sooner than 60 days prior to the rides starting date, will be selected.

4. This e-mail must be followed by confirmation e-mails by each of the members named within two weeks of the initial e-mail submission.

5. The club will donate $100 to that charity ride in the name of the riders on the original e-mail.

When is a race not a race?  

When it is a Cyclosportif!                   By Brian Ignatin

If you’d like to experience a day in the life of a pro cyclist without the elbow-throwing mayhem of a field sprint or without a cigar-chomping Belgian Team Director screaming at you out of a car window, then perhaps you should try a Cyclosportif.  

Cyclosportif is a Euopean term for organized, mass-participation, timed recreational cycling events .   A Cyclosportif falls between a traditional road race and a non-competitive ride such as a charity ride or century. 

Typically held annually, Cyclosportif participants experience the organization, atmosphere, and challenges of a pro event, while riding with friends, at their own pace.   They get to ride through the barricades, past the announcers, and across the finish line, with spectators lining the entire course.

Though not races in the traditional sense, Cyclosportif riders wear race numbers and timing chips, so finishing times can be recorded.  There is usually an upper time limit within which the course must be completed, and the front runners are often competing for exclusive prizes. 

The courses are challenging, and frequently take place on courses that comprise classic professional races, often featuring mountains, long climbs, or other difficult conditions.  Depending on the event, roads may be closed or open to normal vehicular traffic, but most courses are well marked and/or marshaled.  Riders are able to use feed zones positioned along the route; mechanical and medical support are also provided.

Cyclosportifs are cycling’s equivalent of running’s marathon; as with the 26-mile running event, rather than racing other participants, cyclosportif riders challenge themselves in a personal battle against the course, the distance, and ultimately the clock.  While some faster riders often push the pace, the majority of participants are typically happy to complete the distance within the allotted time.

Some Cyclosportifs attract thousands of participants- L’Etape du Tour, held each July over a mountainous stage of that particular year’s Tour de France, offers places to 8,500 riders.   The Amstel Gold Race and Ronde van Vlaanderen offer Cyclo Sportifs of varying differences over the race route, the day before the professional race. 

While there are hundreds of Cyclosportifs each year in Europe, there is only one held in the US, the Univest Grand Prix Cyclosportif is held in nearby Souderton, PA.  2008 marks the 11^th year of the event, and will be held on September 6^th.  For more information, see www.cyclosportif.com

Why My Son's Superhero Rides a Bike
Read this inspirational article by member Sonya Aronowitz

I’m helping to clear up the remains of the week strewn on my 5th grader’s floor. Amongst the detritus, is an early draft of a novella Raphael (aka the self-titled Literature Boy) has been working on at school. I glance to the end of his piece and the illustration catches my eye: it’s the hero on top of a bicycle, pedaling his way furiously away from the villains and into a new set of adventures in the next chapter.

Well, having a hero ride a bike does make sense. You see, both my children witnessed the huge personal leap I made in this past year, and which took me from 0 miles on a bike (and huffing and puffing up the stairs) to 300 miles in Israel in a matter of months. The ride in Israel featured inching up mountains of biblical proportions (I said a special prayer of thanks for the granny gear and for Morris who kept on my tail and made sure, even for just his sake, I didn’t give up). And then there was the desert dry heat of up to 106 degrees, where a bus shelter provided an unlikely oasis, and my water supply ran dangerously low.

It was a magnificent trip. I connected in a new way with a land that I had bussed, driven and walked a little on before – for a great environmental cause. But at least as most important was the process of my conversion from non-cyclist to cyclist. I began with early morning spin classes in the winter -- in the company of “Gandhi and The Spinners” – my name for the group with the lean, wise-looking bald guy who sat front and center in the class. (I have to mention that exactly on the one-year anniversary of my first spinning class – and how well I remember hobbling bow-legged into work that morning one year ago thinking that my derriere would never recover – I took one of the spin bike’s pedals right off the bike attached to my shoe. Mechanical failure? Of course not…I was just spinning so damn hard!!)

My kids actually saw little of my progress through the winter and early spring last year. Other Free Wheelers, however, may remember me as the woman who decided to take on a first (borrowed) road bike and clips – all on the same day. Naturally my first fall of the day occurred before we had even left the parking lot in Cranbury. Clipless pedals or not, I didn’t even know how to stop on the bike without being able to put two feet down. In fact, I really tested Norman Batho’s strength when I fell into him at one red light. It doesn’t bear thinking about the domino effect on the rest of the tight group if he hadn’t held his own against me. I’ll also never forget the kindness of all those Cranbury riders on that day who applauded me for arriving back in one piece…and (again thanks to Norman) without a search party. And I do remember with some pride, that even though I was a complete novice, I always had the right gear, thanks to my wonderful colleagues, Jane and Jerry.

My conversion to cycling was akin to a baptism of fire. My children didn’t come out with me when I cycled, but what they did see, though, was the blood and the wounds from the falls that I took. And they knew that I was getting right back on the bike and working hard at those 6 am classes.

The journey to the desert and back taught me some important lessons about myself, chief amongst them that for the first time in my life, I was able to take on a physical challenge. I felt worthy of the admiration of the plane load of tourists from Las Vegas who had seen us as they crisscrossed the country on their tour bus. I discovered strength, courage and perseverance that I knew I had through other areas in my life, but had never tested myself in a purely physical way. At a low point, when I found myself quite alone in the desert, sucked into the middle groove of the group with no one visible ahead of me and no one behind me coming up, I did not give up: in fact, when the Bedouin woman crossed the desert highway on the back of her donkey, I didn’t even cross my mind to think of asking her if she would consider exchanging her donkey for my bike. (Translating “your ass for mine” into bedouinese might have got me into trouble anyway.)

I’ve also learned locally here that cycling amidst great beauty can elevate me to a great sense of the grandeur of nature, the great scheme of things. (Of course, I’m referring to the flat and downhill versions of beauty. Who has the extra brainpower and energy to deal with the spirit ual dimension – unless sending some direct prayers upwards – on a climb?) And this philosophical level brings me back to Raphael. I’ll always remember his epiphany as a 3-year old tot on his trike as I pushed him along in Village Park. “I wonder what it’s all about” he said. The “it,” so he revealed, was life itself.

In the meantime, I’ve just discovered that that his biking hero story was written before I got on my bike, so I can’t claim that my own adventure influenced him putting his hero on a bike. (“I wrote that when I was young,” says this 10-year-old, with the disdain of an author who knows that only his more mature works are worth a read.)

But I have a great maternal glow nonetheless. At back-to-school night this year, when I had to write down how Raphael might describe me, I reached for words such as kind, loving, empathetic. I found out later that week that I was wrong, in fact completely wrong. For according to Raphael, in his estimation, there was only one word to describe me: I was simply (and shockingly) “cool!” I was stunned. The bike ride and my training was the reason I’d entered the land of the cool.

I don’t think you’ll ever, even years from now, catch me on even as much as a B ride. I’ll sooner dance off another half an ounce than get a carbon bottle holder. And I have my children, work and other great interests to keep me from getting in the saddle consistently enough to call myself a cycling nut (oops, I mean enthusiast.) But I’ll happily cycle on my own “cool” pathway in life, by showing my kids that getting up from those falls and persevering is part of life’s journey – while wearing the right, cool gear of course.

Mount Washington Ride Report
By Jud Hand

On February 1, 2006 at about 8 am, the last of 600 spots on the Mt. Washington hillclimb was taken. I got to my computer about 9 am, and all I could get was a spot far down the waiting list. Fortunately for me, the organizers decided to hold second race, which they called Newton's Revenge, for those who couldn't get into the regular race.

So on Saturday, July 8, 2006, six weeks before the main race, I once again was riding up the mountain. The 7.6-mile Auto Road is open to cyclists only for races and practice rides. It climbs about 4800 feet and averages 12 percent overall. This climb attracts riders from throughout the country and overseas and is probably one of the two or three best-known uphill bike races in the U.S., along with Mt. Evans in Colorado and one or two others. Counting this July's race, I’ve now cycled to the top of Mt. Washington six times. Hands down, the weather this time was the best I've ever seen.

The 180 or so riders who lined up by the Auto Road toll house could not believe what organizer Mary Power was saying, "Fifty-Seven degrees at the summit, winds at 3 mph." Just four weeks earlier, on the practice ride, I had encountered sustained 65 mph winds, 38-degree temperatures , 20-degree wind chills, fog, rain and hail near the top. My wife said I had turned into a human popsicle. When someone says the weather is unpredictable, it is an understatement. This time, the weather was as close to perfect as the mountain ever gets. There would be no excuses based on weather.

My strategy was to conserve energy at the bottom. Veteran climbers know that the mountain can be divided into two very different environments. The first four miles is sheltered in trees, steep, but usually protected from the winds. At mile post four, the road takes a sharp left-hand bend around "the Horn," as the trees disappear and the pavement turns to dirt and gravel. You begin a slow slog up a steady 15 percent stretch in the dirt, a rock wall on the right, a sheer drop of what looks like a couple of thousand feet on the left.

In terms of training, racers concentrate on weight and power. The lower your weight, the higher your power, the better you climb. People look for every way they can to shave pounds off themselves, their clothing and their bikes. They also work on sustaining as much power as they can for the 1-2 hours it takes most to reach the top. I elected to race with my Power Tap powermeter, knowing it adds 600-700 grams and about 30-40 seconds to my time. I did this for two reasons: First, I wanted to have the data from the race to review. Second, I thought the power readings would help me pace myself.

The race is divided into four waves. The first top notch wave, those who have completed the course in an hour and 20 minutes or less, went off first. A small cannon, it's too loud to be called a toy, goes off for each wave, which leave five minutes apart. I was in the 45 and up wave, which leaves last, 15 minutes after the top notchers. I later learned there were 67 people from my group who finished, out of 174 total finishers. The older group is almost always the largest in the race.

Soon the cannon blasted for my wave and, with a ringing in my right ear, I clipped in and began riding the couple of hundred yards before the climb really begins. The grade hits immediately. It can seem shockingly steep to newcomers. Invariably, many take off too quickly at the beginning, going far beyond any sustainable pace. I saw many of them in the next few miles, either riding at a crawl, walking their bikes, or stopped altogether at the side of the road. I'm smarter than that, or so I thought at the time.

For the first half mile, I stuck to my plan, as many riders glided past. But after a while, I decided to ignore the power readings and go on feel. I was feeling good. We'd see about later. During the four miles to the Horn, I passed about a dozen people in my wave, then began picking up the slower riders from the earlier waves. I had finished this race in 2003 in 1:44:08 and last year in 131:06. My goal was to break 1:30 this year and, until last month, I dreamed of getting in the 1:25 range. Those dreams got shelved pretty much when a project at work slashed into my training time and left me chronically sleep deprived. My June miles ended up as low as my February miles. We'd see after the Horn how much this would affect my ride.

As I rounded the Horn, I became aware of the heavy breathing of another rider right behind me. I later learned this guy was wearing a yellow jersey with red polka dots. As the pavement turned to dirt and we hit a sustained 15 percent stretch, he and I stayed together and slowly gained on several riders ahead, including a guy in blue jersey who I later learned had started in a wave 10 minutes before and a guy in our wave with one of those Serotta jerseys with an "S" on the back. The warm air and lack of wind felt weird, given the polar conditions just four weeks earlier. My low gear of 26-34 came in handy on the dirt section, as I was able to spin more quickly and gain traction that way. But my legs were protesting loudly. I simply was running out of power.

Looking at the power meter data at home, it was plain what happened. I did the first four miles at basically a 1:20 pace, or top notch level. But my pace dropped to about a 1:40 after that. My heart rate stayed in the low to mid 170s, which is 90-95 percent of my 185 max (don't try this with coronary problems), so I was working just as hard. My legs sold out. Polka dot guy glided past at about mile six and "S" guy fell in behind him. I later learned that the polka dot guy finished about two and a half minutes ahead of me, "S" guy about a minute and a half ahead. I knew if I tried to keep up with them any longer, I’d blow up completely and lose any chance of even breaking 1:30. It was all I could do to stay with the blue jersey guy from the earlier wave.

Somehow I made it to the final 500 feet, where the course tilts to 22 percent and you have to negotiate a hard right, followed by a hard left, before it finally flattens a bit for the last 50 feet or so. Blue guy was right in front. I was determined to stay on the bike this time and I pushed through the turns and actually accelerated to the finish line. I saw my time in the low 1:29 range and I pumped my fist in satisfaction over the line. I later learned that my heart rate had spiked at that moment at 183, the highest I had recorded this year.

Turns out I finished in 1:29:20, nearly a 2 minute improvement from last year. The weather was much better this year, so my times were probably equivalent. On the other hand, my poor pacing and inability to train properly in June probably cost me this year. With better pacing and more time to train, I think could shave off yet another couple of minutes. Maybe. Overall, I was 11 of 37 in the 45-49 male age group and 55 of 174 finishers overall.

Next year is the 750-mile ultra long distance Paris-Brest-Paris ride and I probably won't ride Mt. Washington. But there's always 2008. I'll be in a higher age group then. Maybe I can get a better time. You never know if this year is going to be the best one.

Interested in learning more about this event?

Check out the webpage @ www.newtonsrevenge,com (race results are posted there as well).

The TinMtn.org site is a good resource as well

Got a Story You’d Like to share?

The FreeWheelers are always looking for material like this that would be of interest to other Bicyclists. Got an idea but not sure you could write it? Share it with the editor and we’ll get it down together. Send email to: infoguy@princetonfreewheelers.com or call 609-882-4739

  RIDE ON!!