Latest News

Photo by Bert Mukkulainen

Enjoy a slideshow highlighting images from the 2020 LWA Photo Tour de Valley.  The contest photos were all taken on bike rides by Lehigh Wheelmen members in the Lehigh Valley during the first half of 2020.  I think that you'll agree that the results were spectacular.  Congratulations to our winners, our honorable mentions and all who submitted photos.  What a wonderful way to highlight our club, our photographer-members and our beautiful valley.   

At the most recent LWA meeting, Joan Hanscom, Executive Director of the Valley Preferred Cycling Center, presented the following information about the velodrome's plans for the remainder of the summer:  Velodrome Update

LWA Members,

As of July 1, 2020, Face Coverings (masks) are Now Required when outdoors in PA.  This is by Order of the Secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Over the PA yellow to green phase, we have heard the comments from many Ride Leaders and Riders, "it is entirely too hard to maintain the six feet distance when cycling."  With this in mind, and with the new order from PA, please wear a mask or have one handy, if you are unable to consistently maintain a distance of six feet from individuals who are not members of your household.

Please be safe, wearing a mask not only protects you, wearing a mask protects those members riding in the Group Ride.  (Again, please try to maintain social distancing at 6 feet,or more when possible; otherwise wear a Mask)

Below is the link if you wish to read the entire PA order, otherwise see Page 3, Section 2 A.

Hello LWA Members, 

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather. With the beautiful weather, means more rides.  With that being said, Governor Tom Wolf has announced that PA is moving to the “Green Phase” on Friday, June 26th. With this announcement, LWA Board has met and agreed to increase our Group Ride limit from six riders to ten riders.  

With the change of the group ride limit to ten, LWA is still waving the “caution flag” and asks members to continue to follow the guidelines below.  I remind you, COVID-19 hasn't disappeared.  Please follow the guides for both You and for Your Riding Friends' safety!  

The following guidelines for LWA group rides are in effect June 26, 2020. When a ride is posted on Meetup, please be familiar with the following ride guidelines, which Ride Leaders are asked to include on Meetup posts:

LWA GREEN PHASE Group Ride Guidelines.
 * All riders must be free of any COVID related symptoms for the past 14 days.  If you are feeling sick, please do not ride, stay at home!
  * No more than 10 riders per group. Day-of ride walk-ons will not be permitted - you must RSVP through MeetUp to reserve your spot. 
 * Social Distancing is required. Masks/face coverings must be carried with you at all times and used when within 6 feet of other riders.  (e.g., in the parking lot, at rest stops, if stopped to help with repairs.)
 * Side by side riding must remain 6 feet apart, if it is safe to do so. 
 * Riders should stay 20 feet or more behind the rider in front (about 4 bike lengths). We realize this may be hard to do, but please do your best. No pacelines!
 * If you must sneeze, cough, blow your nose, etc., safely reposition yourself to ensure that no one is in your slipstream.
 * Rides are to be posted with staggered start times. 
 * No two rides should leave from the same location, at the same time using the same route. 
 * No Monday Night Group Rides.
 * No Grill n Chills until further notice. 

With these guides in place, we hope to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to our members.  It's all about common sense and safety! Please practice common courtesy toward your fellow riders. Thank you for your patience while we continue to work our way through these unusual circumstances.  We will continue to monitor the situation and will make further changes as needed.

1989 Tour de France duel

You probably know that the 2020 Tour has been rescheduled to start on August 29th.  Hopefully, that will go off as planned, but I am anticipating a real void in July with no Tour to watch.  So I've decided to revisit the 1989 race, the one that featured a great duel between Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon.  

Hello LWA Members, 

Today is the day! That's right, in PA we move from "Red - Stay at Home" to "Yellow - Caution" phase.  With this change, there are some changes to our ride experience in the Yellow phase.  Caution is the word, and I remind you, COVID-19 hasn't disappeared.  Under yellow, use the precautions as listed below.  At the end of the day, we want members to stay safe.  Please follow the guides for both You and for Your Riding Friends' safety!  

The following guidelines for LWA group rides are in effect June 5, 2020. When a ride is posted on Meetup, please be familiar with the following ride guidelines, which Ride Leaders are asked to include on Meetup posts:

LWA YELLOW PHASE Group Ride Guidelines.

USA Cycling posted the following two pdf's below, please take a few minutes and read over the Group Riding Recommendations and Team/Club Guidelines. Along with USA Cycling recommendations,  we also will be following the guidelines set by each county.  Our rides often range from Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton and Montgomery counties. 

LWA Board of Directors will be using these considerations and will post an update by June 5th - when PA will change from red to yellow phase.

Group RIding Recommendations - 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/craft-prod-assets/documents/COVID-19-Event-Resources/Cycling-Group-Ride-COVID-19-Recommendations-21May20.pdf

Although USA Cycling will be lifting the ban on Group Cycling on May 31st, we need to remember, Lehigh Valley and surrounding cycling counties are still in the red phase, which is under a Stay at Home Order through June 4th. Counties in the red phase are expected to move to yellow by June 5 at 12:01 a.m.

With this update, the LWA NO RIDE POLICY is still in effect through June 4th.  Currently the LWA Board of Directors are dillegently working on developing a "Back to Group Riding Plan" - please watch for updates which will be posted on Meetup and on the LWA Website prior to June 5th. We also plan to hold a Virtual Ride Leaders meeting prior to June 5th.  Please watch Meet-Up for details. 

Until then, please stay safe and ride solo.  

Roberta Kates

LWA President

Hello Cyclists

Our LWA Club Route Library has 182 GPS routes that are availabe to all LWA members who have joined the LWA-Ride With GPS club account.  If you are an LWA member and want to be in the LWA-RWGPS Club Account,  directions on how to join are under the For Members Only / Documents section of the web site.  Scroll down to the Rides section and click on Ride With GPS Club Account. Access to the GPS Club Account is a member benefit that I hope you will find useful.

During this time of enforced solo riding without the benefit of organized rides with the LWA you may be getting a bit tired of riding just the routes you are familiar with but have no other options because you just don’t know where else to go.   The LWA can help you with that!  Several years ago the club established a club account with Ride With GPS.  As an LWA club member you can join the LWA Ride With GPS Club Account. --->   How to join

The RWGPS club account provides the LWA with a way to store and make available to all our members RWGPS routes through our club Route Library.  There are hundreds of GPS routes currently in the library.  The following article explains the benefits to you as a LWA member, and how to take advantage of them.   ---->    Read about it

I hope you find this useful.  More importantly, I hope we will all be able to get back to groups rides safely in the not too distant future.  In the meantime, be safe and enjoy staying fit and getting out on your bicycle.

Paul Smith

Bill Derby

With deep regrets, I need to update the LWA membership on one of our longstanding LWA members – Bill Derby.  As many of you know, Bill has been in a memory care facility for several years.  We just heard from Jane Derby, that Bill has lost a lot of weight and is no longer eating.  He’s at the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease and is on hospice care in Florida.

Bill and Jane were active members of the LWA.  Jane served as the LWA Treasurer for many years.  Bill was an outstanding ride leader and good friend to many of us.  We always looked forward to joining his rides.  Many of his cycling adventures took us over South Mountain and down in to the Oley Valley.  Bill is one of the few LWA members who received the “LWA LIFETIME EMERITUS MEMBERSHIP Award” in 2016 at our Holiday Party.  It was a great moment when he was surrounded by many of our LWA Biker Chicks for a group picture. 

Please keep Jane in your thoughts and prayers as she deals with the loss of a true partner and long term cycling buddy.

Dave

The weather may not be cooperating, but there are true signs of spring in the Lehigh Valley:

Hello LWA Members,