Triathlete attempts 50 states in 50 days by bicycle

How many bike rides are you going to get in during the next 50 days?

Triathlete Max McManus, right, is banking on 50 bike rides, averaging 150 miles a day.

That frenetic pace will enable him to visit all 50 states during that period. What's more, he'll arrive in New York City on Sept. 11 to deliver funds he has raised on the road for survivors and families of the the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

You can follow his progress at the Freedom 50/50 website. He's hoping to raise an average 1-cent per US citizen along the way to the way for the 9-11 Help America Foundation....

Source: http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/_archives/2011/7/26/4866113.html

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Team RadioShack, By The Numbers

As we now head full steam into the 2011 racing season, with several major races, and victories already in the record books, it seems a good time to provide a brief overview of the 29 riders making up this year?s Team RadioShack roster and compare some of their statistics. You can always find more [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/team-radioshack-by-the-numbers/

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Routes & Maps Twitter Update

Last summer when we first announced that our routes & mapping department was embracing Twitter and encouraging the use of route-specific hashtags, I was a bit apprehensive. Not knowing exactly what to expect or how much time it would take, I posted tidbits and waited. Over the course of the 2010 touring season a few questions came in, there was a sprinkling of tweets in the hashtag feeds and our follower count grew along with my confidence in the technology. It was fun to check in daily to see who else was showing up.

Today, it's even better. We have over 1,000 followers and over 2,500 tweets! As @acaroutes, I field questions regularly and engage in conversations about our routes, share links to items I believe to be of interest to traveling cyclists, and follow our route hashtag feeds.

Cyclists are using our route hashtags to report their food recommendations, lodging updates, campground experiences, and bike shop kudos as well as links to blog posts and pictures. I could spend much of my day exploring every one of those tweets. In reality, I respond to as many of them as practical, follow up on route updates, and retweet from our followers.

The busiest feeds right now are the TransAmerica Trail, Northern Tier, and Pacific Coast routes. They are another great way to tour vicariously, and gather inspiration for your own trip.

If all this talk of Twitter, hashtags, followers, and retweets has you a bit befuddled, be sure to check our initial post on the topic for clarification.

P.S. I'm taking a break next week. I'll be back with a new post the following week; see you then!

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GEOPOINTS BULLETIN is written by Jennifer 'Jenn' Milyko, an Adventure Cycling cartographer, and appears weekly, highlighting curious facts, figures and persons from Adventure Cycling's Route Network with tips and hints for personal route creation thrown in for good measure. She also wants to remind you that map corrections and comments are always welcome via the online Map Correction Form.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/07/routes-maps-twitter-update.html

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Muravyev Rides Strong at Three Days of De Panne

Team RadioShack?s Dmitriy Muravyev (KAZ) made his presence felt in the opening stage of the 35th running of the Three Days of De Panne, staying with a 4-man breakaway that somehow kept clear of a peloton loaded with expectant sprinter?s teams. Dmitriy crossed the finish line 3rd behind the winner Omega Pharma-Lotto?s André Greipel [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/muravyev-rides-strong-at-three-days-of-de-panne/

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Quick Tips for Dealing with Summer Heat

After a long winter up in Montana, we're pretty excited to have some summer weather. But while I love taking advantage of the warm weather, a long day in the saddle under the hot sun can really take its toll, and I often find myself looking forward to the temperature dropping back down. Fortunately, there are a lot of little things you can do to keep your cool and enjoy the summer sun at the same time. I actually wrote a post about this a few years back, but sometimes it's good to revisit an important topic such as this.

My previous post on this topic focused on hydration, riding at cooler times of the day, and finding routes that are inherently cooler due to shade or topography. For this post, I'll check out some smaller details that might give you more freedom to ride where you want, when you want--and won't require a lot of extra effort.

1. Ice is Nice! When you stop at a gas station or convenience store to top off your water bottles, hit the ice dispenser on your way out. I like to drop a few cubes into the water bottles to keep the water cold for a few extra miles, and then toss a handful of ice cubes in my jersey pockets to help keep my body temperature down. It's nothing that will last for a long haul, but it's highly refreshing for the short time that it lasts. If you can think of it ahead of time, you can also freeze a couple of water bottles the day before your ride, and toss them in your back pocket when you head out (frozen bottles tend to rattle around a lot in bottle cages).

2. Soaking the jersey in cold water can really knock down the body temperature and make you feel rejuvenated when the heat is bearing down hard. This is a trick I picked up after moving to Montana, where the streams run clear and cold. Back in my hometown stomping grounds of Iowa, the slow moving, muddy water was a little less inviting.

3. Take your breaks in the shade. This seems super simple, but I always have to remind myself to roll a few extra feet to grab some shade under a tree while I'm taking a rest stop, or perhaps fixing a flat. Sitting stationary in the sun when you're already heating up can really hit you hard.

4. Don't forget sunscreen. Aside from limiting the risk of a nasty sunburn, it can keep your skin hydrated, which can help prevent moisture from evaporating from your skin too quickly. Sport-specific formulas are great since they don't run off too quickly when you sweat.

5. Wear sunglasses. They might not make you feel cooler, but they have the potential of making you look cooler. More importantly, they help prevent squinting in the sun; this not only improves your vision, but can actually make you feel fresher (surprisingly, squinting can take a fair amount of energy out of you over the course of a few hours).

Photo by Sarah Raz

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TOURING GEAR AND TIPS is written by Joshua Tack of Adventure Cycling's member services department. It appears weekly, highlighting technical aspects of bicycle touring and advice to help better prepare you for the journey ahead.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/07/quick-tips-for-dealing-with-summer-heat.html

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Lance Armstrong?s Twitter Ride for Queensland Flood Victims

Around 4000 cyclists donned their helmets Saturday in Adelaide to join Team Radioshack’s American cycling star Lance Armstrong on his Twitter appeal bike ride to raise funds in aid of Queensland flood victims. Amateur cyclists flocked to the city in South Australia to answer the seven-time Tour de France champion’s call. Lance Armstrong’s huge entourage took over [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/lance-armstrongs-twitter-ride-for-queensland-flood-victims/

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2 Weeks on the Great TransAm Divide

"A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." -- John Steinbeck

And so it went with my recent planned adventure on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Due to a combination of 1) certain sections of the route in Wyoming still being closed for snow and 2) the tiny matter of some small kidney stones (think hospital emergency room in Lander, Wyo.), I ended up riding a hybrid route comprising sections of both the Great Divide and the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail.

My ride took me from from Bannack, Montana, to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, over a mix of dirt and pavement. It's a trip I would recommend to anyone. Luckily, the sections of the Great Divide I missed are some I've ridden in the past. And by detouring onto the TransAm I had the opportunity to meet some road cyclists whom I would have missed otherwise. (It also compelled me to make three Continental Divide crossings in Yellowstone that I would have missed on the Great Divide.)

We hear so much about how great the locals are who live along our routes, which is true. What we hear less about is how great some of cyclists sharing our routes are, which is also true. Riders like semi-retired minister and national Lutheran Church fundraiser John Cross, who pedaled the Southern Tier earlier this year and is now riding the TransAm. And a federal police officer (whose name and website I will find and report on later), who is riding the TransAm to raise money for cancer research. I ran into both of these fellows between Jackson Hole and Togwotee Pass, along a stretch of pavement that happens to serve as both the Great Divide and the TransAm. 

Back along the dirt roads of the Great Divide, on three occasions in and around southwest Montana's Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge I encountered Tour Divide racers heading north. Amazingly, I also ran in Dr. Greg and Susie Rice (below) of Libby, Montana, folks I knew while living up in northwest Montana 30 years ago, but hadn't seen since. This was their ninth outing aboard their Santana tandem on the Great Divide in Montana. They planned to reach the town of Lima the next day, which would complete their quest to bike all of the Big Sky State's contribution to the Great Divide.


Later, after joining up with my friends Ramsey and Teri at South Pass, Wyoming, the three of us began encountering a string of foreign riders heading north. First it was a Scottish couple, Phil and Isla (pronounced "EYE-la," like the peatiest of Scotch whiskies), who had ridden 9,000 miles over the course of the previous ten months, beginning in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The friendly and energetic couple are capping their adventure by following the Great Divide to Banff, Alberta (and looking forward greatly to beers there). Next up was Poul, from Denmark, with whom we shared a camping site at the high and dry A&M Reservoir in the Great Divide Basin.


Finally, we ran into Roel (above), a rough and ruddy rider from the Netherlands who was not only pulling a BOB trailer, but was loaded down with front and rear panniers and a huge stack of stuff piled atop his rear rack.

What a privilege and joy it was (and is), getting out on the Adventure Cycling routes and meeting up with a few of the people whose lives we influence by doing what we do.

Photos by Michael McCoy.


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BIKING WITHOUT BORDERS is posted every Monday by Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling?s field editor, and highlights a little bit of this or a little bit of that ? just about anything, as long as it?s related to traveling by bicycle. Mac also compiles the organization's twice-monthly e-newsletter Bike Bits, which goes free-of-charge to more than 41,000 readers worldwide.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/07/2-weeks-on-great-transam-divide.html

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Cycling in the Yorkshire Dales: a 100 mile bike ride (with some pushing)

A weekend cycle tour in the Yorkshire Dales as originally described in The Cyclist magazine by L.G. Fothergill in 1937 became a one-day ride when CycleSeven met each other for the first time and cycled the route in July 2011. We were joined by my cousin Mike, and Dan Baritono from the CTC Forums. Mick [...]

Source: http://cycleseven.org/100-mile-bike-ride-in-the-yorkshire-dales

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