Friday....the 13th!

Here we go again, Friday the 13th. So far I have escaped all the other 13ths on Friday without injury, and I am hopeful I will arrive to my travel destination unscathed once more. Off to chilly and wet Banner Elk, NC.


Pictures of the Week!
This weekend and next week offer up a lot of Picture of the Week submissions, so please email them to us at NashvilleCyclist.com! Go to the main site NashvilleCyclist.com to read my easy requests to ensure a smooth process. I hope and expect to get racing shots from Raccoon Mountain and the Tour de Georgia, and I'd love to get some charity ride photos from the Tour de Boro. Don't be bashful folks. Snap those photos and share with thousands of others who regularly check in at NashvilleCyclist.com. Yeah, that's right, I said thousands!

I want to plant a seed early for an event coming up in mid-May. It's the 2007 Ride of Silence in Nashville. We did this last year and had a great turnout considering the last minute preparations. With a little more advance prep work we can turn this into a well publicized event that turns attention to cycling in a positive way. The Ride of Silence is a ride to honor those who have been killed or injured while riding on public road ways. This ride is close to my head and heart as someone who has been severely injured by a vehicle. Go ahead and mark your calendars for Wednesday, May 16, 2007. Details will be forthcoming.


Collegiate races in Nashville
Next weekend on April 21-22 there will be collegiate bike races taking place in Leipers Fork and at LP Field. On Saturday there's a morning road race and afternoon team time-trial in Leipers Fork, and on Sunday we'll have a criterium at the Titans stadium. Collegiate riders from all over the South will be there since it's the conference championships of the Southeastern Collegiate Cycling Conference. Teams from all the SEC schools will be there including Auburn, Georgia and Florida as well as FSU, Clemson, Furman, Georgia Tech and Lees-McRae to name a few.

The races are being hosted by Cumberland University and Vanderbilt University. It's not often cycling fans in this area get to see a team time-trial. The TTT is a very common event in collegiate cycling and is one of the premier races at collegiate road nationals. We encourage you to come out and watch, but if anyone would like to VOLUNTEER we would love to have your help! Corner marshalls and wheel truck help would be greatly appreciated by Cumberland and Vanderbilt. Anyone wishing to help can email NashvilleCyclist.com and someone will contact you for details.

Here's the race schedule for the SECCC Championships:

Saturday, April 21- Road Race Championship
9:00 AM Men A 4 Laps 75 Miles
9:10 AM Men B 3 Laps 57 Miles
9:15 AM Women A 3 Laps 57 Miles
9:20 AM Men C 2 Laps 39 Miles
9:25 AM Women B 2 Laps 39 Miles


Saturday, April 21 - Team Time-Trial
3:00 PM start with two minute intervals between teams.


Sunday, April 22 - Criterium Championship
8:30 AM Men C 35 minutes + 3 laps
9:15 AM Women B 40 minutes + 3 laps
10:10 AM Men B 45 minutes + 3 laps
11:10 AM Woman A 55 minutes + 3 laps
12:15 PM Men A 65 minutes + 3 laps

Come out and watch!


NashvilleCyclist.com Criterium Series
Yesterday I mentioned summer criterium race dates, so today I might as well throw those dates out there for consumption. Understand this could change slightly, but these are the dates I have secured with the Titans stadium. I still have some other hurdles to leap, but the Titans hurdle is the biggest and most important one.

All races will take place on Wednesday evenings, and the first one will start on June 13! This is a later start than usual, but it's better to get going after Edgar Soto. We can't start the first week of June because of the annual CMT Music Fest, aka Fan Fair for us locals. Right now the plans are for 9 total races; three in each month of June/July/August.

Here are the dates:
June 13, 20 & 27
July 11, 18 & 25
August 8, 15 & 22

Don't forget, you will be racing for points, money, and most importantly the coveted championship belt! After thinking more about this it's evident that whoever wins the overall series essentially is the Nashville City Criterium Champion. One can say they are the best, but one must race to prove it.


New Nashville bike shop?
Word has it there's a new bike shop in East Nashville about to open up. From what I understand it will be in the area around Bongo Java. I know just a few more details at this time, but when more concrete details are available I will inform you all.


More tidbits.....
The annual Athens Twilight and Roswell criteriums are just around the corner. I highly recommend registering soon or risk getting shut out due to full fields. You have to love fast racing and large fields to attempt these races. The highlight of the weekend is watching the professionals light up the streets of downtown Athens, GA with insane speeds and massive attacks on Saturday night. If you've never been to this racing spectacle then you owe it to yourself to check out this 25,000 people cycling party.

The Greenways bridge across the Cumberland River is coming along nicely. I suspect by the end of summer/early fall we'll be able to ride from Two Rivers Greenway to Shelby Bottoms Greenway in a matter of minutes. This will be one of Nashville's most exciting Greenway connectors when complete.