It is difficult for me to believe that yet another
cycling year is coming to a close. I
have seen many. Over twenty of them
with the SJW…and a good ten more before joining. Yes, the miles are becoming harder and the hills a bit
steeper. No longer do I wake before the
sunrise to attend tours that begin hours away.
Strange…I started cycling with my daughter riding with me…thought little
of the danger of being on the road with her.
Started this year thinking of getting a trailer for my granddaughter to
ride with me. Decided against that and
now not willing to take that same chance.
Much of my cycling time is simply spent with her more safely at the
playground or in my backyard.
Also difficult to believe two months have passed since my
last release of Freewheel’n. The August
release provided a pair of links for the Tour de France…now with the Tour a
memory, we must ponder what happened!!!
We celebrated as Floyd Landis won the tour…only to be crushed by those
allegations of taking a banned substance.
Many have asked if I believe Floyd actually is guilty. The true facts may never be known. What is being overlooked for the most part
is that the sport of cycling is years ahead of all other sports in testing
their athletes for illegal substances.
This is a very good thing and one that I applaud and encourage to
continue. I would like to see this same
level of testing used for baseball, football and all our sports. Every member of contending team should be
randomly and routinely tested during the season. Failure to pass the test would not result in a fine…but immediate
suspension. And this would be enforced
for any member of the team…not special allowances for a player that is
considered ‘important’ to the team.
Perhaps Floyd may be part of an over zealous testing procedure. But if this allows our sport to be clean of
the drugs, we have much to be proud about.
Our heroes are truly heroes…and not any concoction of drugs. You can view Bob Roll’s view of this topic
at http://www.olntv.com/tdf/. Email me with your comments.
Well…both the Zoo and the Devil on now history. I really enjoyed seeing so many of you at
these events. Also took photos and plan
to display these on my website soon. It
excited and saddened me to see the Zoo had a much larger turnout than our
premier event the Jersey Devil. This
only goes to prove that all the preparation and cost for the Devil does not
ensure a large turnout of riders. The
Devil has suffered because of four factors…the weather, weather forecasting,
the MS 150, and our own failure to adjust to these conditions. We can’t do much about the weather or the
poor forecasting, but we can address the other two. We have been faced with competing with the MS 150. There is no way we are going to be able to
have successful well-attended Devil scheduling this on the same weekend as the
MS tour. If we were to somehow succeed,
fear we would be faulted for taking ridership away for an extremely worthy cause. Either way we as a club are the loser. I have reviewed the weather for the Saturday
after Labor Day going back to 2002.
During those five years it has not rained on that day. The lowest temperature was 48 in 2002 and
the highest temperature was 82 in 2006 and repeated in 2005. That is excellent conditions for our Devil
ride. We need to change this tour to that date to take advantage of these
conditions and avoid clashing with the MS 150.
Hopefully this can be discussed at the upcoming club’s convention and we
can begin using for next year.
And now it is time to close…this is my last regular release of the year. Next month will be my annual holiday greetings. This year has again gone so fast. I wanted to ride so much more than has been accomplished. Some of that time has now filled with my granddaughter. Not such a bad trade-off. What about next year? Ah…we have a busy holiday season to go through…then the long cold days and nights of Winter must come and go. There are the illness…and employment issues that must be faced. The future is not guaranteed to us. To all that I came in contact with this year…you each brought something into my life. Thank you.