It was great to get a call earlier this summer from an editor at Putnam Magazine, asking me to write about cycling in Putnam County. So I worked on two tracks. First, I scheduled a regular Westchester Cycle Club Monday night ride from Lake Secor to develop a good route to share with the readers. Over six weeks, Nick Jubok, who showed up regularly, helped me find a challenging 27-mile loop from Mahopac, through Putnam Valley, Kent, Carmel and back to Mahopac. Then I took my sons on what I called the Trailway Challenge – a 16-mile round-trip on the Putnam Trailway from Carmel to Baldwin Place and back. Here’s what I found: To read the whole story, click here.

In 2004 the Rockland Bicycling Club put on the first of two charity rides in conjunction with Good Samaritan Hospital, in Suffern. The event, which we called the Ice Cream Ride due to the copious amounts of free ice cream we had available at the end of the course, brought cyclists from all over.

One particularly memorable pair was a father-and-son team decked out in US Postal kit. I’m sure there were a lot of dual-generational riders but these two stuck out because the son had done the full 75 mile route, and he couldn’t have been older than nine. The kid, with his super-small road bike was incredibly cute, and obviously incredibly strong—he completed the ride when many other people succumbed to the day’s heat and heavy climbs.

I hadn’t thought about them in a while, and then just this weekend I was out in Westchester visiting the cows at Blue Hill, when they rode by me. I might not have recognized them had the father not been wearing the same US Postal jersey from our ride, and there’s no way I’d have recognized his son if he weren’t near his dad’s jersey.

After four years it’s great to see that they’re still out there riding together, still on the road. It looked like they were probably mid-day, trying to decide which routes to take. If you guys are out there, post a comment here and say hello.

While out bike riding in Beijing I shot some video for the LoHud community. Here’s a little look at riding in China.

A big fan of bicycles and bicycling, I spend a lot of time reading materials on cycling both online and off. One of my favorite combinations of the two media is found at Urban Velo, a site dedicated to providing information on all things about cycling in and around the various metropolises of the world.

More than just a website dedicated to cycling fanatics though, the organization makes the excellent Urban Velo magazine, which is not only printed but (to save the trees) is available online to download as a PDF and is also free as an iTunes podcast. That means you can subscribe to the magazine and it’ll download automatically into your iPod.

Cycling available even when you’re off the bike, what a great idea.

When my Dad was still alive, he and my stepmother bought a EZ-1 SX Quadribent recumbent tandem, a hulking steel-framed bike that provided hours of joy. It was essentially two recumbent bikes that were joined together side-by-side, so you have four wheels, two handlebars, two drive-chains, and two seat, side by side.
My Dad was a avid athlete, playing tennis and skiing up until he turned 70 when he lost his left leg to necrotizing fasciitis, the flesh-eating bacteria. He perservered, and happenned upon the EZ-1 one day at the bike shop. It was perfect for a guy with one leg. There weren’t any balance issue, and he and his wife were able to chug along the bike trail in Collinsville, Ct. near their home in Canton.
They were able to transport the bike in the back of their Dodge Grand Caravan. After his death last October, it appeared that my stepmother’s cycling days were over, even though, at 79, she still had some pop in her legs.
But a few weeks back, I visited Canton with my Saris bike rack on the back of my car. We took the EZ -1 from the storage shed, and realized that the cross-bar holding together the tanden in front would fit on the rack, with the back two wheels remaining on the road.
On Saturday I returned with my boys to go for a ride. We lashed the EZ-1 to the rack and off we went to the trail along the Farmington River. We had a great ride up through Collinsville, past the old ax factories and by the falls that once generated power for the factories. We even made it up the steep incline on the bridge over the river. My boys, always trying out new tricks on the road, figured out a way to hold onto the tandem with one arm while they stayed on their seats. So we had four of us riding along, stretched across the trail, on a glorious late summer afternoon. We’ll be back for a ride this autumn.

Just two days left for early registration for the 27th annual Golden Apple rides, set for Sunday Sept. 14 from the Goldens Bridge train station in Lewisboro, right off Exit 6A I-684.
You can register at http://www.westchestercycleclub.org/goldenapple.php and learn more about the ride.
The rides, sponsored by the Westchester Cycle Club, will take you on routes of 25, 50, 75, 100, and 125 miles. The longer routes are in a figure-eight, so you can bail out and cut those rides short if your ambition exceeds your conditioning.
So far, 555 riders have signed up for the ride, and more than 1,000 riders are expected for the daylong event. There are food stops along the way – in Croton, Purdys and South Salem – and six-foot-long wedges will be on hand Sunday afternoon for those famished after the ride.
It’s a great ride for folks from New York City. They can take Metro North’s Harlem line right to the start. Trains that morning Grand Central at 5.40 a.m. and arrive at 7.03; 6.30, arrive at 7.55; 7.46 arrive 8.55. Proceeds from the event are donated to the NY Bicycle Coalition and Friends of Karen.

Road Race – the best team was Garmin-Chipotle with second, third, and fourth, but cannot get the job done as Hamilton wins by an inch.

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) _ Tyler Hamilton edged Blake Caldwell by two-thousandths of a second Sunday to win the USA Cycling Professional Road Race championship.

Hamilton and Caldwell finished in 4 hours, 38 minutes, 19 seconds. From the chase group of three riders, Caldwell’s teammate Danny Pate took third place, 4 seconds back.

Of the 108 athletes who started the race, 44 completed the course. Temperatures remained in the 80s all afternoon, but humidity made it feel like 94 degrees on the road.

Zabriskie wins third straight cycling title by just 5 seconds.

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) _ David Zabriskie won his third straight USA Cycling professional time trial championship Saturday.

The 29-year-old rider from Salt Lake City is the only cyclist to win the pro-only event since its inception in 2006.

Zabriskie completed the 20.7 mile event in 40 minutes, 39.40 seconds, finishing 5 seconds ahead of the surprise of the day Tom Zirbel of Boulder, Colo.

Christian Vande Velde, also of Boulder and a Garmin-Chipotle teammate of Zabriskie, was third — 10 seconds behind the winner.

Zabriskie finished 12th at the time trial event in the Beijing Olympics. He was pleased with the win, particularly that it came only three months after fracturing a vertebrae in a crash at the Giro d’Italia in May.

The time trial was Zabriskie’s fourth national title. He also won the event in 2004 when both pros and amateurs competed together in the national championships.

Ben joined my Westchester Cycling Club Wendnesday night ride in Mid July to prepare for his four-week, 1,400 mile cycling trip through Europe. The Journal News wrote about him and how he was using the trip to raise money to fight Multiple Hereditary Exostosis, a disorder he, his mother and brother live with. He been back riding just about every Wednesday in a much less tenitive way. Before he left he struggled to hang with the group but always hung tough, now he’s one of the strongest riders and soft peddles for me to hang on his wheel. Ben’s aterrific young man and will be back for his senior year at Blinde Brook High School, I’ll expect him to win his third journalisim award from this paper next year.

By Ben Lubkin
After biking almost 1,400 miles across Europe, I finally approached the city of Barcelona with adrenaline pumping throughout my body. When I reached the Mediterranean, I stripped down to my shorts and ran into the sea. To be truthful, though, my attempted sprint turned into a dramatic hobble on the uneven sand.
The group trip was composed of a dozen high school students and had begun a month earlier in Amsterdam. Going into the trip I was unsure if my legs could handle the physical stress of the European mountains. I was born with multiple hereditary exostosis, a bone disorder, and underwent 16 operations to remove bony tumors that grew off of my normal bones. My journey across Europe would be both a personal accomplishment and a fundraiser for MHE research.
On the trip, I experienced a few days of tendon and hip pain, though my body functioned better than I expected. I moderated my speed and stretched daily to be successful. Each day our group woke up at 5 a.m. We left camp by 7 and arrived at the next campground in the late afternoon. Our group had morning snacks at bakeries and lunch breaks to buy the next day’s meals. Food, tents and clothes were all carried on our bikes, often creating oversized loads and difficult climbs.
New sights, cultures and cuisine made each day unique. After leaving Amsterdam, we traveled through rolling countryside in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Luxemburg. In Switzerland, we climbed thousands of feet up into the Alps and saw gorgeous snow-covered peaks in the distance.
After a scary, rainy descent out of the mountains, we were greeted by the heat and pastry shops of southern France. Though my stomach would have preferred to remain in France, we soon crossed the nation and arrived at the base of the Pyrenees. Our final three days were marked by 21-mile climbs and breathtaking sights at 6,000 feet.
When we reached Barcelona, I was thrilled to have overcome the challenges presented by my bone disease. However, I would miss the lifestyle of biking and eating European cuisine! I greatly appreciate the generous contributions our foundation received for my fundraiser, and I hope to pursue even greater biking endeavors in the future.
For more information on MHE and the fundraiser, visit the Lubkin Fund for MHE Research web site at www.LubkinfundMHE.org.

This report from writer Will David in Yonkers caught my eye today.

YONKERS – A feisty 17-year-old Bronx girl tussled with two muggers who robbed her of her cell phone yesterday in a parking lot at the Cross County Shopping Center, police said.

The two men who were riding bicycles managed to wrestle the girl’s cell phone away from her, but she held onto one mugger’s bicycle, forcing him to flee on foot.

The girl was talking on her cell phone in the northwest parking lot near Macy’s department store at 4:15 p.m. when the two bicycled up to her, Yonkers Detective Lt. Thomas Cleary said.

The pair tried to take her cell phone and she fought back. They finally got the $300 cell phone but lost a bicycle. They escaped in opposite directions. One mugger ran away and the other rode the bicycle.

The girl turned over the bicycle to the police when they arrived to investigate the robbery.

One mugger is described as a 5-foot-9, 160-pound, 18-year-old black man. He wore a white T-shirt and blue jeans. The second was a 5-foot-5, 140-pound, 18-year-old black man. He wore a long-sleeve black shirt.

The girl was not injured.

You may have read Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy artical in Monday’s Journal News about the Tour de Putnam. Here’s her lede:

KENT – Bill Grimes eagerly awaited his 14-year-old son Andrew’s return at Veterans Memorial Park yesterday morning after his first public bike ride through the scenic and winding country roads of Putnam County.

Andrew, who is deaf and blind, rode on a yellow tandem bike with Ian Diamond, his teacher’s husband, on a 15-mile route as part of Tour de Putnam, a popular cycling event.
Clicke here to read the whole story.

When I saw the photos come in to The Journal News from Kathy Diamond of her husband, Ian and Andrew on the bright yellow tandem I needed to know more. Here’s Ian’s first person report piloting the tandem with a verys special stocker.

Doing the ride was really my wife’s idea. She is a Teacher of the Deaf, and she has been working with Andrew Grimes during his summer school program for the past 5 years. Andrew also goes to “Camp Abilities,” a summer camp for disabled kids. His favorite activity there is tandem bike riding, which he does with one of the counselors. Andrew’s grandmother, hearing about his love for bike riding, bought him the yellow tandem to ride with his mother. Andrew is deaf and blind, so he cannot ride on his own, but it has become more difficult for his mother to ride with him as he grows bigger each year.

My wife, Kathy, suggested that we ride the tandem in the Tour de Putnam. I’ve been an avid cyclist for many years, and she thought Andrew and I would both have a nice time riding together. We decided to do the 15-mile route, which is an out and back to the first rest area. Believe me, it was no cake walk. The route consisted of rolling hills on the open road.
We were riding a single-speed tandem. We struggled up some of the hills, especially on the return, but Andrew never gave up and we kept turning the cranks.

I think it was a special day for Andrew because he had never ridden so far at one time. Also, he demonstrated a great deal of persistence and tenacity in never giving up on those tough rollers on Route 301. It was a special day for me because I was happy to share my love of bike riding with a budding cyclist.

By the way, it would be very helpful to Andrew if you know of anyone who would be interested in fostering Andrew’s growing interest in cycling. I live too far away to ride with him regularly, and his mother has been searching unsuccessfully for someone who would be interested in riding with her son. If you have someone in mind or can refer her to a local cycling club, it would be wonderful. If you would like to help Andrew and pilot his tandem or your own, please contact me at rkwolf@lohud.com and I will put you in touch with Andrew.