Weekend Ride Time Change

Beginning next weekend, both the Saturday Geezer rides and the Arizona Bicycle Club Sunday breakfast ride from Grenada Park (20th Street and Maryland) change to their winter schedule and will start at 7:30 a.m. However, the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday rides will remain at 6:30 a.m. for the time being.

A group of riders has successfully restarted the regular Geezer ride from the Camelback Inn of Saturday morning. This should enable the Extreme Geezers, who meet at the traffic circle at Invergordon and Northern, to resume their more moderate pace. What follows are some words on that subject by our esteemed leader, Jerry Bell. – Jack Quinn

REMINDER: Both rides [Geezers and Extreme Geezers] start at 7:30 effective next Saturday.

I’m guessing that the Extreme Geezer group will be backing off to a more moderate Fall/Winter pace of 17 – 21mph out bound. The Camelback Geezer group will no doubt continue to ride at a faster pace. Perhaps they can catch the extremes on the climb up Via Linda.

If the 17-21 mph pace is too slow for some, I recommend rejoining the Geezers at Camelback.

jb

Combining Geezer and Extreme Geezer Rides?

The following message is from Jerry Bell:

Jack,
Please send out an invitation for the Camelback Geezers to meet and start with us at the traffic circle. Maybe we can renew the group as whole or meet together and roll out in two packs. Kb

The traffic circle in question is the one at Northern and Invergordon in Paradise Valley. Of course, the original intention of the Extreme Geezers group was to have a slower, more-relaxed ride without dropping people, but lately, most of the Geezers have moved over to the Extreme Geezers ride, and the pace has picked up. The result has been that many of the original Extreme Geezers get dropped from what was originally their ride. I don’t know how to maintain a separate, less-competitive ride for those who want it, but maybe some of you have some ideas. Click on the word COMMENTS below this blog entry to leave your suggestions and read those of others. Despite what the COMMENT page implies, you do not have to create a Google identity to leave your comment.

New Channel for Bicycle Racing

There is a new television channel, Universal Sports, a part of NBC I believe, that specializes in Olympic sports including bicycle racing. As far as I know, the channel does not yet have an outlet in Phoenix, but you can view videos and live coverage on the Website, http://www.universalsports.com/. You don’t have to register to view videos while the site is in beta. I tried to watch a live broadcast of the Tour of Germany recently, and it never came on. However, I did watch one of the archived videos of a Tour of Germany stage. If you don’t mind watching video in a small box on your computer screen, there seem to be video archives on the site of all recent and current important bicycle races.

For those who speak Spanish and have subscribed to a Spanish-language package from a cable or satellite provider, TV Española Internacional (TVEI) is broadcasting some stages of the Vuelta a España. One of the sportscasters is former pro racer Pedro Delgado. Versus is scheduled to broadcast one of their superficial condensations of the Vuelta on October 11th and the Tour of Missouri on September 28th.

By the way, I saw an interview with Astana Team honcho Johann Bruyneel, who speaks excellent Spanish. He said he wouldn’t dream of letting Lance Armstrong ride with any team but Astana, especially since Armstrong wants to ride without being paid. 