Tag: bicycle

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Outdoors Inc. Hosts Grit & Grind Gravel Grinder

CREDIT: Facebook/Outdoors Inc.

I guess the cat’s out of the bag — or rather, the bike’s out of the shop. Outdoors Inc. showed up in a big way for the Best of Memphis awards. The local sporting goods store took awards for Best Local Athletic Goods Store and Best Bicycle Shop. No wonder, with great events like the Grit & Grind Gravel Grinder.

On Sunday, get revved up and ready to bike a pancake-flat course that will be fast and rideable. With a mix of asphalt, gravel, and dirt, be ready to get muddy if it rains. You should be in the clear though. By all accounts, the weather is supposed to be a cool 67 degrees with cloud cover.

Facebook/Outdoors Inc.

“I want to ride my bicycle — I want to ride my bike!”

While the course is currently being updated, Outdoors Inc. says, “The newly improved gravel is complete and looks good. It will be even better with a little time. The race course [this year] is 55 percent tarmac, 45 percent gravel.”

Laps are roughly 6.5 miles long. There will be no separate starts for male and female divisions; each lap category will start at the same time. A reminder: Helmets are required. Stay tuned for awards, which will be given to the top five male and female winners in each division (5 Lap, 4 Lap, 3 Lap).

After the race, celebrate at Grind City Brewing Company, 76 Waterworks, with entertainment by Chinese Connection Dub Embassy.

Grit & Grind Gravel Grinder, Big River Crossing, Channel 3 Drive, Sunday, Nov. 1, 9 a.m., $45-$65.

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Cool Thing: Cycle and Drink Beers for Good Cause

CREDIT: Revolutions

Revolutions

Cyclists participating in the spring Tour de Brewer

Revolutions Bicycle Co-op is hosting its fourth Memphis brewery bike tour Saturday, September 22nd beginning at noon.

The 15-mile Tour de Brewer is a leisurely 15-mile round trip ride with stops at four different local breweries.

The ride will begin at Memphis Made Brewing Co., then head over to Ghost River, High Cotton, Crosstown Brewing Co., and then back to Memphis Made.

Participants are required to bring their own bikes. However, Explore Bike Share will have a set number of bikes available on a first come, first served basis.

The cost of the tour is $15 per person. Participants can sign up ahead of time or on Saturday. All drinks have to be purchased separately. Twenty percent of all event sales made at Memphis Made will go toward Revolutions’ 4th Grade Bicycle Safety Program at Shelby County Schools. All other proceeds from the tour will be used to purchase two classroom sets of bicycles for the program.

The nine-week program will aim to teach students how to safely ride a bike on on the street, giving them a reliable transportation option to get to school. It’s set to launch soon at 15 elementary schools, costing approximately $8,000 per school, according to Shannon Little, public relations manager for Revolutions. The cost covers programming for nine sessions for each participating fourth grade class, as well as a classroom set of bicycles that students get to keep throughout the program.

Little says the program’s launch date is contingent on Revolutions having enough funds to begin with one school.

Sylvia Crum, executive director of Revolutions said the program is important because cycling is a “lifelong healthy practice.”

“The life cycle of a bicyclist starts with a 2 year-old who can get on a balance bike, a bike that doesn’t have pedals, to learn how to balance and glide down the sidewalk,” Crum said. “An older child has the freedom to move around the neighborhood. As children get older, they can use a bike as a transportation option to go to school.

“As a child ages up to high school and college, a bicycle is a way to get to class or an after-school job. Then you’re a grownup and commuting to work is no big deal. As someone gets older and has a family, putting children on a bike for transportation is no big deal. Then that cycle starts again when the children are 2 years old and can start on a balance bike.”

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News The Fly-By

Calves and Character

Zac Holford, a 23-year-old cyclist and local bicycle mechanic, often goes by the nickname “Zac Attack.” Starting in May, what Zac will attack is an 80-day, 4,200-mile bicycle ride to raise $15,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The ride, which will be called “Zac Attacks Cancer,” will take him through 12 states.

“I want to do something significant for as many people as I can and have fun doing it,” Holford says.

He will be riding a long-distance touring bicycle, traveling an average of 60 miles per day, and carrying only the bare necessities. Every six days, he’ll take a one-day rest stop.

Beginning in South Carolina, he’ll cycle through his hometown of Aiken, South Carolina, up the Mississippi River trail, through parts of the Appalachian, Smoky, and Rocky mountains, and through Yellowstone National Park and end in Astoria, Oregon. Along the way, he will give speeches at service clubs, pass out pamphlets, and spread the word about his cause.

With him, he’ll have two pairs of bike shorts, two bike jerseys, tools, a tent, a camping stove, one set of civilian clothes, a towel, and lots of soap. He’s allowing himself $10 a day for food and will depend on the hospitality of others for shelter.

“I’ve been calling churches, charities, city halls, fire stations, and other places, asking, ‘Can I sleep on your lawn?'” Holford says. “If I can’t find places to sleep, I will have to do what we call ninja camping.”

Ninja camping, he explains, is sleeping in inconspicuous places when campsites or other sleeping arrangements are unavailable.

In preparation for the trip, Holford is doing a lot of cycling. He commutes via bike to work from Midtown to Cordova. He also trains an additional 200 miles per week with friends. Even though he’s been riding for years and is in good shape, he expects to encounter difficulties such as traffic, weather, and fatigue.

“I will be dealing with extreme hardship and difficult conditions, difficult mental and physical stresses,” he says. “I think that, relative to the trip, everything after will seem easier. I’ll be able to handle anything life throws at me.

“Hopefully, it will develop my character and my calves,” he says.

Holford is currently seeking sponsors. Information about sponsorships can be found by going to his leukemia-lymphoma website link at teamintraining.org and typing his name into the “find a participant” box.

People will be able to make contributions and track Holford’s progress from this site throughout his trip. He will later create links to blog posts and pictures to document his experiences.

“It will be fast enough to be thrilling but slow enough to take it all in,” Holford says.

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News The Fly-By

Please Stand By for Revolutions

There’s no such thing as a free ride, but at Revolutions Community Bike Shop, you can find an inexpensive one.

Since its inception in 2002, Revolutions has become a nexus for the local cycling community. Located inside First Congregational Church in Cooper-Young, it offers bike repairs, parts, and even the occasional bike tour of downtown Memphis. But it isn’t your ordinary bike shop — Revolutions also lets members have replacement bike parts for free.

“I was working at a local bicycle shop,” says co-op founder and executive director Anthony Siracusa. “Most of the kids that came in had no money for bicycle repair and ended up leaving before we could make their bikes safe and more user-friendly. Many would stop their bike by shoving their foot into the spokes. It inspired me to think that there must be some type of model designed to address this very problem: the fact that poor folks often rely on their bikes but often can’t afford retail bike shop rates.”

Siracusa developed an idea to provide people with affordable bicycles as well as the materials and training they would need to maintain them. He would keep costs down by building bikes exclusively out of parts donated by the community. People receiving the “recycled” machines could pay for them by working at the shop. From that vision, Revolutions was born.

For Siracusa, though, the shop is not only about bicycles. “We want to transform the relationship that individuals have with the bike shop and its community,” he says.

Memberships, which are open to the public, cost $40 and cover a basic bike frame as well as a year’s worth of replacement parts.

“What this means,” Siracusa says, “is that a member has access to the shop’s collective resources.” Members who don’t already own bikes can build a machine out of the shop’s parts library or can opt to have Revolutions mechanics put a bike together for them. After their cycle gets built, members learn maintenance skills from shop technicians and have access to spare parts should they need something.

“Memberships ensure that our shop is available to any and everyone who needs bicycle maintenance or bike parts,” Siracusa says. “In this way, we are creating an intentionally woven community of cyclists.”

Once a person’s membership expires, he or she has the option of renewing it for another year. Even if they don’t renew their membership, they can still keep their bike.

It might seem that Revolutions’ generosity would spell economic catastrophe — especially if people take advantage of the system. But throughout the shop’s operation, only two individuals have ever defaulted on payments.

“A central tenant of our program has been to provide bikes to both the working and non-working poor,” Siracusa explains. “We feel this service is central to what the bike shop is called to do.”

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Tour de Delta

CREDIT: Byron Moore/dreamstime.com

With warm days and cool nights, September is the perfect time to ride your bike around the neighborhood — take a test spin, stretch those leg muscles, and feel the breeze on your skin after months of intense heat. This weekend, however, during the FedEx Rock-n-Roll MS Bike Tour, 750 Mid-South cyclists are taking it to the extreme, traveling from Graceland to the Gold Strike Casino Resort and back. Think of it as the Tour de Delta — 150 miles, on two wheels, with only a bike helmet for protection.

“You’re actually only on Highway 61 for a short portion. The riders will hit a lot of back roads,” explains tour coordinator Miranda Harper, who says that local law enforcement, support vehicles, and a volunteer crew of BMW motorcyclists will serve as extra eyes and ears for the cyclists. “It’s not a race,” Harper adds. “Our fastest riders do it in four hours, but most people take six to eight.” After a night of blackjack, they’ll climb back on the saddle for the return trip, where Elvis and a meal of Corky’s BBQ await.

It sounds like fun, but it’s also for a worthy cause. Last year, the tour raised more that $400,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and this year, says Harper, she hopes to hit a cool half-million. $65 plus a $200 minimum pledge will get you a spot on the starting line. To ride or volunteer visit Bikes Plus or go to www.NationalMSSociety.org/TNS. You can also register at Graceland the day of the event, between 6:30 and 7 a.m.

FedEx Rock-n-Roll MS Bike Tour, September 16th and 17th, www.NationalMSSociety.org/TNS