With the Tour de France starting next week it’s time to register for the Tour de Putnam. The Tour de Putnam is a terrific event that covers the beautiful roads of Putnam County on Sunday August 30th. It begins and ends at Veteran’s Memorial Park on Gipsy Trail Road in Kent.

You can choose from 15,30,50,75, and 100 mile road routes or mountain bike loops. Pre-registration is $25, five dollars less then day of registration. You will receive a  t-shirt and terrific picnic lunch. They do restrict riders under the age of 12 and do not allow bike trailers or child seats.

I really enjoyed riding the 75 mile loop last year. It took me on roads I didn’t know and now include on many weekend rides. The rest stops are well supplied with friendly folks serving your refueling needs.

For those in the city or southern Westchester a free shuttle is provided from the Southeast Train Station, please call 800-470-4854 for reservations.

Click here to go to the Tour de Putnam website.

Sunday morning I went for a 40 mile ride out of Cape May, NJ where I was enjoying a weekend with my wife. I was looking forward to some flat tempo riding that is impossible to find in our area.

The wind made the out a little tougher then heading back, which was nice. I was surprised how my legs started to ache a little around the halfway point. The terrain here causes a constant change in effort and muscle use, while heading into a headwind it is a steady effort.

Riding a bike also allows you to sense your surroundings unlike blasting by in a car. Sunday was father’s day and what I saw while riding near Dennisville, NJ touched me. I believe what I saw was a father was visiting his son’s memorial on the side of Route 42. A number of items made up the memorial including a cross and football practice jersey. The morning was cool and misty, as time seemed to stand still as I passed him in the silence of the moment.

At 50 miles per hour it would have been easy to miss, but at 18mph you sense things from the seat of a bike you’d miss otherwise. The ride back also gave me plenty of time to think about my father and how lucky we still have each other.

Registration is open for the Hershey’s Tour de Pink multi-day cycling event on October 2-5 2009. The event supports the Young Survival Coalition which is an organization that does tremendous work for the young women, men and their families as they survive breast cancer.
I volunteered for last year’s event and will be back this year driving a sag wagon and supporting the 175 riders as they leave Chocolate World in Hershey, PA and make their way to Clifton, NJ covering over 225 miles. The route is through beautiful farm county, Valley Forge National Park, New Hope, Pa, and Trenton, NJ before you finish in Clifton. Last year the fall colors and weather made for perfect cycling. On Monday morning you will finish in New York City at a ceremonial finish line and appear on a morning television show.

I have never been involved in a cycling event, which included such amazing people. Their stories and deduction to each other and the cause were truly inspiring. Two former Olympians will be on the ride agian this year, Mari Holden and Frankie Andreu. I have to say, both really showed what great people they are first and cyclists second as they helped riders during the event. In the photo  Holden lends a helping hand on the final miles in New Jersey last year. 

If you’re interested in riding please visit their website by clinking here. Each rider must pay a $99 registration fee and raise at least $2,500 in tax-deductible.

PHILADELPHIA (AP)  / Google is sending a pedicab-like vehicle with an 8-foot (2.44-meter)-high camera rolling around the walkways at the University of Pennsylvania to collect 360-degree views for the “Street View” feature of Google Maps.

The California-based company has been using car-mounted cameras to capture images from roadways.

The human-powered tricycle will cover pedestrian-only areas like college campuses and parks as well as hiking and bicycling trails.

Officials say the photos will allow prospective students to get a good feel for the campus. They will let incoming students map out routes to classes and let alumni fondly remember their school days.

Street View, now in more than 100 cities worldwide, has faced some privacy complaints from individuals and institutions that have been photographed.

In case you were wondering Astana has named Lance Armstrong to their Tour de France squad Johan Bruyneel the teams general manger announced.

Not that there was much doubt. Joining Armstrong will be the likely team leader, Alberto Contador who won in 2007. Four other riders are assured to be riding, Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Kloden who have both stood on the final podium in Paris with Yaroslav Popovych and Haimar Zubeldia.

Each team starts with nine riders July 4th in Monaco. The other three riders will come from this list: Jani Brajkovic, Chris Horner, Benjamin Noval, Dmitriy Muravyev, Sergio Paulinho, Gregory Rast and Tomas Vaitkus.

The selection of the final three could prove interesting. Armstrong will want Horner and Brajkovic, while Contador would like Noval and Paulinho.

I found this quote from Contador very interesting shortly after his third place in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. “I will have to deal with [Denis] Menchov, [Cadel] Evans, the Schleck brothers, [Carlos] Sastre and my teammates Armstrong and Leipheimer,” he told Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport.

This Tour is shaping up very nicely and should be very explosive.

( AP Photos)

The 2010 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup calendar was released this morning from their meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. Eight counties will host world cup races with two new locations in Dalby Forest, in North Yorkshire, England and the big news for the Hudson Valley is Windham Ski Resort in New York will host two days of racing in August. This will be just a few days before the World Championships in Mount-Sainte-Anne in Quebec, Canada.

The events at Windham will comprise three styles of racing including the worlds best cross country Olympic, downhill, and 4-cross specialists for the final season race August 28-29, 2010. The U.S. has not hosted a World Cup race since 2005 at Angel Fire resort in New Mexico.

This is a real honor for Windham Mountain to host a major race like this.

The resort is about 2.5 hours North of us on the north side of the Catskills. I’ve never seen a high level mountain bike race but know I’ll be there in 14 months.

2010 World Mountain Bike Calendar

April 24-25: World Cup XCO #1, Dalby Forest, Great Britain
May 1-2: World Cup XCO #2 & 4X #1, Houffalize, Belgium
May 15-16: World Cup DHI #1 & 4X #2, Maribor, Slovenia
May 22-23: World Cup XCO #3, Offenburg, Germany
June 5-6: World Cup DHI #2 & 4X #3, Fort William Great Britain
June 19-20: World Cup DHI #3 & 4X #4, Schladming, Austria
June 7-10: European Continental Championships, Haifa, Israel
July 17-18: National Championships Weekend
July 24-25: World Cup XCO #4 and DHI #4, Champéry, Switzerland
July 31 – August 1: World Cup XCO #5, DHI #5 and 4X #5, Val di Sole, Italy
August 8: World Marathon Championships, St. Wendel, Germany
August 28-29: World Cup XCO #5, DHI #6, and 4X #6, Windham, New York, USA
August 31 – September 5: World XCO, DHI & 4X Championships, Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec, Canada
September 25-26: National Marathon Championships weekend

There’s been a lot of little things going on in the pro ranks. Here’s a wrap up from the Associated Press.

First is the long awaited UCI blood passport program to catch cheats has named five riders. Maybe the bigger news is the program maybe showing the sport is really cleaning up.

AIGLE, Switzerland (AP) — Five cyclists face doping charges based on suspicious test results gathered in a pioneering blood profiling system.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) said Wednesday it wants disciplinary cases opened against three Spaniards — Igor Astarloa, Ruben Lobato and Ricardo Serrano — and Italians Pietro Caucchioli and Francesco De Bonis.

They are the first riders facing charges based on evidence provided by the biological passport system that was launched 18 months ago by the UCI and World Anti-Doping Agency.

Caucchioli’s team Lampre said it had suspended the rider according to the terms of his contract.

Astarloa was the world road race champion in 2003. Lobato was a Saunier Duval teammate last year of Riccardo Ricco, the Italian who won two stages of the Tour de France before being thrown out of the race for doping.

The governing body said the announcement was “a very important step in the battle against doping.”

“The UCI is proud, once more, to be the pioneering international federation in this field,” it said in a statement. “The UCI emphasizes that these proceedings are being initiated as a result of the recommendations of the independent experts appointed when the biological passport program was launched.”

More than 800 riders have been giving blood and urine samples for laboratory teams to create individual body chemistry profiles. Scientists can search for evidence of doping rather than identifying specific substances. Suspected doping is spotted by fluctuations from their known baseline levels.

Scientific analysis is presented to a panel of nine UCI-appointed experts who decide if the evidence is strong enough to support opening a disciplinary case.

The UCI has said it would wait for clear evidence before bringing the first cases to ensure the system stands up to expected legal challenges.

It said fighting doping by using blood profiling tactics “will greatly reduce the possibility that cheating in the future by any athlete who decides to disrespect the rules of the sport remains undetected.”

Armstrong’s Astana team solves financial woes

BRUSSELS (AP) — Lance Armstrong’s Astana team appears ready to participate in the Tour de France after reaching an agreement with its Kazakh backers to solve financial problems that have plagued the team this year.

Astana riders have held repeated protests since April over debts owed by the Kazakh Cycling Federation, putting the team’s participation in the Tour in doubt.

The agreement “gives riders and staff of the team sufficient guarantees for the operation and functioning of the Team for the remainder of the season,” the statement said.

Bruyneel added: “With only 16 days left to the Tour de France, the riders need rest in their minds. … It was hardly imaginable that our strong team would not have been able to participate in the world’s largest cycling event.

Ex-mountain bike champ Missy Giove takes cycling to a whole new level of doping.

WILTON, N.Y. (AP) — A former mountain biking world champion is being held on $250,000 bail after federal authorities say they seized more than 200 pounds of marijuana from a truck she was driving in upstate New York.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials say 37-year-old Melissa Giove, of Chesapeake, Va., and 30-year-old Eric Canori of Wilton were charged Tuesday with conspiring to possess and distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana.

Police say they seized nearly 400 pounds of pot from the truck and from Canori’s home outside Saratoga Springs, 25 miles north of Albany.

At a detention hearing Thursday, Giove and Canori were jailed on $250,000 and $500,000 bail, respectively.

Sprinter Tom Boonen banned again from the Tour.

PARIS (AP) — Tour de France organizers banned former world champion Tom Boonen from next month’s race after the Belgian rider tested positive for cocaine for the second time in less than year.

The 28-year-old Boonen’s latest positive test came in April. The Quick Step team rider previously tested positive for the drug in May 2008 and was banned by Tour organizers from last year’s event.

“Following Tom Boonen’s recent test, after a first test in 2008, the Tour de France, after meeting Quick Step team representatives, can only state that the image and behavior of Tom Boonen do not match the Tour de France’s image or the one that should be promoted by such an exceptional champion,” the Amaury Sport Organization said in a statement.

ASO said that Boonen, who was resting between the spring classics and the preparation races for the Tour when he tested positive, was entitled to take an appeal against their decision to the French Olympic Committee.

Despite the Tour ban, the ruling International Cycling Union said Thursday that it would not take any sanctions against the rider.

Experts have said he only came in contact with the drug as others used it around him. The levels in his hair samples were very low and he did not ingest it.

So I’ve met one of my lifetime goals this week as I turn 50 years old today. My resting heart rate is now below my age at 48bpm. This tells me my fitness level has really come back since my serious return to cycling last year after two years of riding little. I went an got a physical a month ago and told my new doctor of my goal. I could see him laugh to himself, as I’m sure he thought my heart rate would not be that low. But even in his office I was at 54bpm and he realized I was serious.

My weight is also slowing dropping into my New Years goal of the mid-160’s at 168. Now my thoughts turn to returning to racing next year in the over 50 group. This will take more miles and still less weight. Using a Body Fat calculator on line I’m around  14%.

I was close to having a rate match my age in my mid-thirties and the best shape of my life I was under 150lbs and resting heart rate of 40, not bad at 6 feet tall.

Resting heart rate is a terrific measure of your over all fitness and gage of your training. If you’re training correctly your RHR will slowly go lower over time. If you see it creep up for a few days it’s a sign you’re over training and need to cut back to allow you’re body to catch up.

A lower resting heart rate also extends your maximum rage during exercise. My zone is 175bpm max with a training zone of 113 to 150 to stay in the 65 to 85 percent area that is best for building.

My wife tells me I’m trying to cheat death by always checking my heart rate and weight, I tell her I’m just trying to get the most out of life. Fifty feels good, last Sunday I rode 104 miles with three new friends. I hadn’t ridden a century in 15 years and it felt great.

Larry Hertz, Poughkeepsie Journal | Just over a year after he killed a bicyclist in a collision with his van in East Fishkill, a Putnam County man was sentenced yesterday to up to three years in prison for the crime.

William Mancusi, 32, of Carmel turned to the rear of the courtroom at the Dutchess County Courthouse and apologized to more than 40 friends of family members of 48-year-old Alfred Poggiogalle, who was fatally injured in the June 12, 2008, crash. Poggiogalle was instrumental in the success of the MS Tappan Zee Ride. Here’s what the MS ride site says about him. Al Poggiogalle, lovingly referred to as “Puggy,” was a devoted husband to his wife Cindy and a devoted father to his children Juliann and Tyler. Al was a dedicated cyclist for many years and he organized and served as the Captain of Team Balance a group of Kraft employees and friends that rode together as a team in the MS Tappan Zee Ride.  Al organized weekly group rides for friends and co-workers.  Al continually invited new riders to join the group rides and he also offered tips on how to ride safely within groups. Al was the glue that held a diverse group of cyclists together for many years. As an employee of Kraft Foods, Al was instrumental in coordinating Kraft’s participation as the host site for the MS Tappan Zee ride for many years. In addition to cycling, Al was an avid and highly skilled skier. As with cycling, Al organized many informal group ski trips, building a group of ski buddies, and keeping the group together. On June 12, 2008, Al Poggiogalle was cycling with a friend in Dutchess County when he was struck by a passing motorist. He passed away doing what he loved best, bike riding on a beautiful spring day, and the Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society lost a “true friend of the tour.”

“I am remorseful. I am very sorry,” Mancusi said. “What I am going through is a small fraction of what you are going through.”

Mancusi admitted last month he had ingested morphine and marijuana before his van struck Poggiogalle, who was riding his bike on Route 52. He entered a guilty plea to vehicular manslaughter.

“You chose selfishly to self-medicate with street drugs, and that was bad enough,” County Court Judge Thomas J. Dolan told Mancusi during the 20-minute proceeding. “Then you chose to get behind the wheel of 2 tons of machinery and drive down a highway. That kind of conduct cannot and will not be tolerated.”

Dolan then sentenced Mancusi to a minimum of one year in prison and a maximum of three years.

Before Mancusi was sentenced, Poggiogalle’s wife, Cindy, stood a few feet away from her husband’s killer and addressed the court.

The Associated Press, COLUMBIA | From its extensive trail system to a 76-year-old mayor who pedals to work, one Missouri college town that takes pride in its bike-friendly status is threatening jail time for motorists who aren’t so friendly.

The Columbia City Council heard from a steady succession of cyclists who’ve been victims of road rage — including a bike shop owner who was pistol-whipped — before unanimously approving a new ordinance Monday night. It makes harassing cyclists a misdemeanor, punishable by stiff fines or a year in jail.

Similar laws are on the books in Colorado, Nevada and South Carolina, and a Louisiana proposal is awaiting the governor’s signature. National cycling advocates suggest that Columbia, home to the University of Missouri and its 30,000 students, is one of the few local governments to follow suit.

“Cyclists have every legal right to be on the road,” said Jeff Peel of the League of American Bicyclists. “Motorists just need to realize we’re out there as operators of legal vehicles just like they are.”

Forbidden activities under the new ordinance include throwing objects toward cyclists, making “frightening or disturbing” threats and honking horns or shouting to rile riders.

Karl Kimbel, owner of Klunk Bicycles, has numerous road-rage stories, from an ash tray being dumped on him by a passing motorist to getting hit with a gun downtown. Although police quickly tracked down the pistol-wielding assailant, who was charged with assault, the recourse at the time for less serious forms of intimidation was minimal.

In his appeal to the council, Kimbel said some motorists have a “fundamental hatred or contempt” for the bicycle.

Like much of the country, Columbia has seen an increase in cyclists lured to two-wheel transportation by rising gas prices and a slumped economy.

In 2005, the city was one of four in the country to receive a $22 million federal grant to build more bike lanes, sidewalks, walking trails and other urban pathways. A local nonprofit working with the city teaches bike safety and maintenance classes and encourages students and families to ride for health and fitness.

The increased attention to bicycles — and the tax dollars spent — has created a culture clash of sorts in a town of 85,000 where city streets quickly turn into rural roads and suburban housing tracts give way to farmland.

The mere mention of bicycles is sure to draw heated responses on the Columbia Daily Tribune’s online forum, with regular complaints about lawbreaking cyclists and calls for a “bike tax” similar to vehicle taxes.

“It’s such a contentious subject,” said Robert Johnson, education coordinator for the nonprofit PedNet Coalition. “Motorists have been conditioned to have the road to themselves. They’re a little nervous about sharing the road.”

Unlike more hardened riders, the new cyclists who Johnson teaches are particularly vulnerable to intimidation, he said.

“Harassment by motorists is one of the reasons people stop cycling,” he said. “They don’t want to get cursed at or threatened. They’d rather just stop.”