Wildcat Ridge Ride for Wednesday, June 3

A change of pace for our Wednesday mountain bike ride this week - Wildcat Ridge! We'll meet at a small dirt parking lot on Meridan Road off Green Pond Road in Rockaway, NJ at 5:30 p.m. For those driving from West Milford, it will be a left off of Green Pond Road after you travel past Lake Telemark and throught the town of Hibernia. For those coming off of Rt. 80, it will be on your right before you get to Hibernia (and before you start climbing the mountain.) See this map if you are unfamiliar with the area- http://tinyurl.com/mdup6k . The map from Google shows Heddy Road coming off of Green Pond Road, but we're pretty sure the street sign say Meridan. This Mapquest map shows it a bit differently - http://tinyurl.com/leulff . Any questions about the area, give us a shout.

The dirt parking lot is on the left less than 1/4 of a mile in off of Green Pond Road. The riding will be a medium paced ride on a combination of newer single track and fire roads. It'll be a great change of pace for us - come join us!

King of the Mountain, Part Deux

Our first King of the Mountain ride was great, and now it's time for the second installment. Join us on Sunday, May 31. The ride and format are the same as the first event. Please be ready to leave Town Cycle at 9 a.m. (and please be considerate of the church attendees when you park!). The ride will be about 3 hours long and cover approximately 40 miles. From the shop, we will go up Warwick Turnpike (Peak 1), down into Warwick, up Route 94, over Mount Peter (Peak 2), into Greenwood Lake, and up Sterling Forest(Peak 3). From there, we will go past IBM to Sloatsburg Road, to Margaret King, Greenwood Lake Turnpike, and back to the shop.

Like last time, at the top of each climb, we'll award points ( and maybe some prizes!) for the first 3 riders in each category. At years' end, we'll award a polka dot jersey (and the right to do some big bragging!) to the top winner in each category! There are 3 categories - Women, Men's Club Riders/Cat 3/Age 14 and under, and Cat. 1/Cat. 2/Age 15-18. Town Cycle has graciously offered to supply us with some prizes for our King of the Mountain events, so come on out try to be a King of the Mountain - or Queen of the Climb!

Friday and Saturday rides

OK, we're a little behind here, but better late than never, right?

Friday, May 29 - Regular Clinton Road ride, meeting at 6 p.m. at the parking lot across from Village Square Inn. There is a possibility of bad weather - we'll ride in light rain, but heavy rain/thunder/lightning cancels.

Saturday, May 30 - Road ride. We were thinking about the W. Milford to Denville road ride and back. Begin at Town Cycle at 10:00, ride down though lower WM into Kinnelon, to Denville...quick stop in Denville, and return back to WM up Otterhole and into town. For those looking for a shorter ride we can meet a crew in the Kinnelon High School parking lot on the way out and drop off on the way back. This will be a 2-3 hour ride at a medium pace. Any takers?

Sunday - we're still working on it - stay tuned and check back in!

Memorial Day Weekend Rides

Hope you all have a chance to get out and have some fun on this long weekend! We know many of you will be out of town for the weekend, but in case you are around, here are a few rides for the weekend.

Friday - The usual Friday night ride - a great way to start out your weekend! Meet at the Village Square Inn parking lot on Rt. 23 at 6 p.m.

Saturday - Meet at Town Cycle at 9:30 a.m. for a moderately paced road ride of approximately 20-25 miles.

Sunday - Join us for trail building at Jungle Habitat by 9 a.m. Bring your bike - hopefully we can get a group ride going after our trail work!

Monday - we're taking the day off! Have a great weekend!

Club ride to New Paltz, NY

On June 14^th, join us for The New Paltz 50/100 Miles of Fun! The ride Leaves Town Cycle parking Lot at 9:00 a.m. sharp! There will be two ride distances. The first distance is a 40-50 mile ride to New Paltz, followed by lunch at the Gilded Otter Brew Pub in Town. To participate in this leg of the journey, you have to coordinate a ride back with fellow club members or a significant other whom you may need to treat to lunch and a shopping spree on the way home. Feel free to communicate through the website/blog if you need to coordinate a ride back or if you may have extra seats in your own mini-van or bus.

The second ride distance and trip will be a New Paltz out and back which will be 90-100 miles for all interested. We will do our best to make it a true century even if it means an extra lap around Pine Cliff Lake on the way home. For this ride we will ride to New Paltz, get a quick burrito or snack, and turn the wheels back south again for the trip home.

While both rides do not cover too much vertical climbing, 50 or 100 miles is still 50 or 100 miles, no matter what the pace …as Larry Towner once said to me! With that being said, the pace will be in the 15 MPH range. If you have never gone more than 40 miles…this would not be the best ride to give it a try unless you have have four or five 20 mile+ rides in already this year. Also, because this will be a group ride where drafting and riding in a safe straight line is an important skill, make sure you have done 2 or 3 Friday night rides so you have practiced this skill so everyone can be safe. Friday night rides on Clinton Road are the best place to learn drafting techniques and also a great ride to become comfortable riding in a large group.

Finally, for all of you who are planning on doing the ride…PLEASE RSVP by June 10^th to info@teamtowncycle.com. We will be making reservations for lunch, so we need a decent head count. If being picked up in New Paltz, don't forget to include your ride in the RSVP if applicable! Also in your RSVP, make sure to indicate if you are doing the Half or the Full Century so we can plan accordingly. We will be asking the driving caravan to drive back the ride loop so if there are any machine (bike) or muscular (people) mechanicals, we can repair or pick up as necessary.

Any questions, please give us a shout! We've done this ride a few times, and it's great fun - we hope you can join us!

Wednesday Ride Reminders

Just the usual reminder for the Wednesday rides - mountain bike ride at Jungle Habitat at 5:30 p.m., and Ladies Road Ride meeting at Village Square Inn at 6 p.m. The weather is going to be spectacular, so get out there!

Weekend rides

A few weekend ride updates for you - we'll try to dodge the raindrops! Friday night, we'll do our usual Clinton Road ride. On Sat., we'll do an easy to moderate paced road ride around Greenwood Lake. Meet at Town Cycle at 9 a.m. - you can park in the church parking lot.

Sunday is the second Campmor H2H race at Tymor Park in Lagrangeville, NY - good luck to all our racers! For those of us who aren't racing, let's meet at noon at Town Cycle for a road ride. We'll go down Morsetown to Westbrook to Stonetown, and then around Greenwood Lake counterclockwise.

Check out details on our calendar - see you on the road!

Our First King of the Mountain is Crowned!

Chris Donahue dominated the first event in our King of the Mountain series! Although the ride was cut short (by unanimous decision), Chris rode away to victory on Warwick Turnpike and crushed everyone on the Mt. Peter climb - even beating one of our racers by a little more than a minute!

Steve Boshart and Gerald Hawkins battled for second on Warwick Turnpike but Gerald beat Steve by the width of a tire. Refusing to go down without a fight, Boshart came back on the Mount Peter climb to take a commanding second place.

Our only Mother on the ride, Angela Barrett, hung with the boys all day and showed everyone how to bomb down hills at 40 plus MPH - even dodging disaster when a car pulled out on our way down to Rt. 94 and opted to drive at about 10 MPH. With catlike reflexes she passed them as if they were standing still. Go Angela!

The lone team racer, BJ Kisch, had a good showing getting to the top of Warwick Tunpike in the lead. He chased Angela down on the descent, also dodging slow autos. Then Donohue crushed him on the Mount Peter climb. He gave it everything but timed his kick too late to gain any ground on the well-paced and consistent Donohue.

Thanks to everyone who came out. Our series totals look like this after the first event -

Women's

1. Angela Barrett 6 points

Men's Club Riders/Cat. 3/age 14 and under riders

1. Chris Donohue 6 points plus 2 premiums
2. Gerard Hawkins 3 points
3. Steve Boshart 3 points

Cat. 1 and 2/ age 15-18 riders

1. BJ Kisch 6 points


We'll make an announcement about our next competition soon - so stay tuned!

Wednesday Ride Reminders

Now that it has finally stopped raining, we expect to see more of you out at our rides! Wednesday we'll be on our mountain bikes at the Jungle at 5:30 - and bring your bug spray! All levels of riders are welcome! We're also having our regular womens' road ride on Clinton Road, leaving at 6:00 p.m. Check out the calendar for details, and come out and ride, ride, ride!

Weekend Rides - Come be a King of the Mountain!

Hopefully no one is getting moldy with all the rain we've been having - sheesh! Here's an update for our weekend rides.

Friday night - our usual Clinton Road ride. See the calendar for details.

Saturday - several of our Junior members will be participating at the Kids/Middle School/High School Race at Kittatinny State Park in Andover, New Jersey. It is the second in the series (our April race was the first), so bring your kids and come out for a good race! Brian and Team Bulldog always put on a good event, so check out the details at www.teambulldog.com and cheer our juniors on! Our Team Town Cycle ride will start from the main Kittatinny parking lot (not the one at the airfield) at 11:00 a.m. The ride will be about two hours long. For those that don't know this park, it's really great. It has a lot of smooth flowing single track and double track and is pretty fast. Really fun stuff and a good change from the rocks and root of the West Milford Area.

Sunday will be our first Team Town Cycle King of the Mountain Ride! We know, we know - maybe some of you wouldn't consider this a fun ride. We promise, it will be! The more you climb, the better you'll get at it! In between peaks, we'll gather the group back together and proceed at a group pace until the next climb.

We like to call this one the Three Peaks Ride. Please be ready to leave Town Cycle at 8 a.m. (and please be considerate of the church attendees when you park!). The ride will be about 3 hours long and cover approximately 40 miles. From the shop, we will go up Warwick Turnpike (Peak 1), down into Warwick, up Route 94, over Mount Peter (Peak 2), into Greenwood Lake, and up Sterling Forest(Peak 3). From there, we will go past IBM to Sloatsburg Road, to Margaret King, Greenwood Lake Turnpike, and back to the shop.

At the top of each climb, we'll award points ( and maybe some prizes!) for the first 3 riders in each category. At years' end, we'll award a polka dot jersey (and the right to do some big bragging!) to the top winner in each category! We're still solidifying our categories - there will be 3 or 4, for everyone from Cat 1 racers and Juniors to Clydesdales and weekend warriors. Town Cycle has graciously offered to supply us with some prizes for our King of the Mountain events, so come on out and see if you've got the right stuff to be a King of the Mountain - or Queen of the Climb!

And most important of all - remember to wish all of the mothers in your life a Happy Mother's Day on Sunday!

Wednesday Mountain Bike Ride - Ringwood

Howdy y'all! Due to the fact that it has been days since we've seen the sun, we're going to change the location of our Wednesday ride to Ringwood State Park. If it's too soggy to ride the trails, at least we have the fire roads to ride! Let's meet at the snowmobile parking lot, and we'll be ready to roll by 5:30 p.m. Here's hoping that it dries out a bit!

Weekend rides

Well, the weather isn't all that promising for the weekend, but we'll see what we can do to get out and ride - a little rain never hurt anyone, right?

Friday - barring thunder and lightening, we'll do our usual Friday night road ride on Clinton Road. Check the calendar for details.

Saturday - provided it isn't raining, or didn't rain too hard on Friday night, we will try to pre-ride the race course at Waywayanda State Park in preparation for Sunday's first Campmor H2H race of the season. Meet at the boat launch parking lot by 9 a.m. If it's too wet, we won't ride - the course encompasses many new trails, and the surfaces will be too fragile. Also, don't forget that we will also be working w/JORBA at Jungle Habitat doing more trail building. We'll meet in the parking lot at 8:45 a.m., ready to roll by 9 a.m.

Sunday - Tom Gallagher will lead an epic "Clydesdale" mountain bike ride from his home for all of our non-racing members. Be ready to ride at 10:00 a.m. Tom's address is 30 Gould Road, Newfoundland (Gould runs between Macopin and Union Valley Roads). Bring a little cash with you in case you happen to run across any "refreshment" stands along the way! If you need more info, you can call Tom at (973)255-9921.

Best of luck to all of our Team Town Cycle racers who will be riding in the first Campmor H2H race at Waywayanda on Sunday - go show 'em how it's done!