Hey everyone –

I wanted to let you know about a cool, new fundraiser that CARTI is putting on this year. It’s a bike ride – for both serious and recreational riders. It’s called the Tour de Rock, and is scheduled for Saturday, June 19, from the Burns Park Soccer Complex. It will include an 18-mile family fun ride for recreational riders and a USCF-sanctioned criterium for the serious rider.

The fun ride will stretch 18 miles in length along the River Trail, Riverfront Drive and other parts of North Little Rock, but no one will be required to ride the full 18 miles. The course will be marked by checkpoints at which riders can turn around to shorten the course. Special courses suitable for kids also will be available.

All proceeds will directly benefit CARTI patients. Cost is $20 per rider in advance and $25 the day of the event. Registration opens at 7 a.m. The fun ride starts at 8am and the criterium starts at 9am . You can learn all about it – and even register on-line -- by visiting www.tourderock.org or by calling Lori Jones Bramlett at 501-296-3413. In addition to the riding, we’ll have the live music of Runaway Planet and lots of free food, games and activities for the family. So even if you don’t ride, come support the cancer patients of Arkansas and have a good time in the process.

Attention:

There will be a trail maintenance in the evening at ALLSOPP on June 17th from 5 pm till dark. We will be repairing the trail behind the pavilion that is always wet and muddy. We will also walk the trails and cut back the overgrown vegetation. The City is providing us some gravel and we've reserved some equipment to make the job easier. We need strong men and women! Of course shovels, picks, wheelbarrows, and other trail building tools are needed with those volunteers if they have them.

Mark your calenders there will more on this at on a closer date.

Agenda for Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas Meeting - 7 p.m., Wednesday, June 2 - Oyster Bar, 3003 W. Markham:

Three Items that should be of interest to all:
(1) Bike Trail in the Heights - BACA member Gene Levy will talk about the effort he is leading to develop a bicycle trail through the Heights area in Little Rock. The proposed trail will have some unique features. As explained in an e-mail from Gene: "Note that this is a special trail which combines pedestrian and bike traffic on the same sidewalk; I have seen these combo-trails in Melbourne, Australia and they do work." Should be very interesting. Gene will talk for about 15 minutes (includes slides).

(2) Deconstruction of Bike to Work Day - General discussion of last Friday's Bike to Work Day - debriefing & analysis; suggestions for improvement; consideration of whether the event is worth the expenditure of time & resources, etc. Please come to the meeting & participate in the discussion even if you did not participate in BTW Day.

(3) Advocacy Projects for BACA - If you have any ideas for specific advocacy projects that BACA could undertake or proposals for future programs, please come to the meeting & share them. At this point, we will not be concerned with present feasibility, so bring your dreams as well as suggestions for projects that fall in the category of the more immediate & practical. At the meeting we will solicit & briefly discuss the suggestions & proposals. The suggestions & proposal will then be referred to the BACA Board for action.

Hope to see you on the 2nd.
Ken

Friends --
On May 19, two bikes were stolen from my home in the Hillcrest area of
Little Rock:

* JAVELIN LOBO ROAD BIKE (blue frame, Speedplay pedals, Shimano Ultegra wheels, Shimano Ultegra components, carbon fork, Cateye cordless computer)
* CANNONDALE F900 MOUNTAIN BIKE (S/N 4674030FMEAGXL0818E, red/black/orange frame, Magura disc brakes, Shimano XT components, yellow/black tires)Please contact me should you happen to come across either. And please forward this message to anyone else who might be able to help recover the bikes. Thanks for your help.

Walter May
200 West Capitol Avenue, #2300
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201
501-212-1342 (office)
501-661-1319 (home)
wmay@wlj.com

At 12:15 p.m. this Wednesday, May 19, Mayor Jim Dailey & the Little Rock Parks & Recreation Department will hold a ground-breaking ceremony for the downtown Little Rock section of the River Trail. The ground-breaking will be held in the area immediately behind the River Market pavilion at 400 President Clinton Avenue (between the pavilion & the Riverfront Amphitheater). This will signal the beginning of a new phase of River Trail construction. Come attired in your yellow BACA shirt if you have one (of course, not required for attendance).

BACA Board member & River Trail Medical Mile leader Dr. Rob Lambert & I will be among five speakers at the ground-breaking (EACH SPEAKER IS LIMITED TO 5 MINUTES EACH). The event is part of the Governor’s Council on Fitness annual "Out For Lunch" event which runs from 11:30 to 1:00 p.m.

Hope to see you there.

Ken Gould

If anyone has CARP pics for the "Pic of the Day" rotation...mail me and we'll figure out how to grab the pics. Pics of events or workdays would be grand!

Don't forget - Bike To Work this coming Friday

Ozark Extreme Adventure Sports Seminar
When: May 26th at 7pm
Where: The Flying Saucer, located at the River Market District in Little Rock, Arkansas

Have ever wondered about Adventure Racing or endurance Sports? Are you a veteran racer wanting to learn more? Come to our Adventure Sports Seminar and learn how experienced racers prepare for their races. Hear from great speakers about: endurance race nutrition, adventure sports gear, and the directors of Arkansas' greatest adventure races. Mix and mingle with all types of racers. This event is sure to be an entertaining and learning experience for all types of racers and is even a great opportunity for those seeking teammates to meet other racers.

Tickets are $15 for early tickets and $20 for the night of the event.

Space is limited so get your tickets early.

For more information on the seminar and tickets go to www.ozarkextreme.com....or go here.

We hope to see you there.

Brandon
Ozark Extreme Adventure Racing

Drew Armstrong works for the Boy Scouts of America. This summer he will be running a camp near Hardy, AR. One of the programs that he will be implementing is mountain biking. He is in need of an instructor. He prefers someone that has the summers free and doesn't mind working for 6 weeks. They need to have knowledge of the subject and like working with kids. If you know of any such person, please forward my information to them or theirs to Drew (Redrock438@cs.com). The camp begins on 6-6 and ends on 7-17. Thanks for your help.

Tomorrow (May 11) at 10:30 a.m. we will hold a press conference at the River Market pavilion (400 President Clinton Ave.) to announce the May 21st National Bike to Work Day Ride. You are invited to attend. If you do attend & have a yellow BACA shirt, please wear it for the TV cameras.

Thanks.
Ken

This one from the Tech department....copped from Slashdot..

Yury Gitman is not the average cyclist from Brooklyn. His goal is to bring more easily accessible free wireless hotspots to the masses. To do this, he has created what he calls the Magicbike......a bicycle equipped with a laptop, power supply and antenna. Gitman's bike has allowed people in NYC to browse the internet freely in local parks and gardens. 'I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream'."

Now the cool thing about this is doing live internet coverage of races, events, etc. Aw Yeah!

Stole this off the ABC forums....thx Geo1 for the post. Tony Boiardi is cycling across the USA, from Santa Monica, CA to Washington, DC to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. 30 Days • 100 Miles A Day! Check the site here:

http://www.tonysbikefight.com/index.html

and he's in Morrilton, AR tonight in the RV support vehicle somewhere's, which means he'll be cruising thru Central Arkansas tomorrow and into east Arkansas over the next day. If your interested in riding along, his driver's phone is 415-317-7667. OR email them at TonysBikeFight@aol.com

Gary