Local Weekly Riding Information

This an email sent from The Ride about riding opportunities in the Conway, AR and Arkansas for the week of 3-21.

Monday-5:30PM, The Ride. Morrilton Out and Back. Pace will be moderate as an intended fun ride/recovery ride from a weekend of good riding. We will be leaving the shop via Donaghey to Tyler to Hogan.

Thursday-5:30PM, The Ride. Bigelow lollipop, pace very fast. We will be leaving the shop via Donaghey to Tyler. This is not a no-drop ride, please know the route and have your own supplies with you (extra tube and such). Everyone can ride as hard as they like. Bring a friend with you to grow the ride and make sure you always have company.

The Ranch Ride Training Program
...begins this Sunday. Meet at Conway Regional Health and Fitness Center at 2:00PM for some very valuable pre-ride education time regarding riding in groups and in traffic followed by a question and answer session. Then we will have time to change clothes and will ride at 3:00PM. The ride will be Lolly Bottoms. See www.theranchride.com for more details. There will also be a group trianing ride on Thursday night at CRHFC at 6PM.

Tour de Cure
Join CAB as they are building a Tour de Cure team to ride in the upcoming Little Rock tour. They aim to average around the mid teens. This will be a great ride. The Ride will be matching donations raised up to $1500 for the CAB team. For more details email Peter Mehl at peterm@uca.edu

Tour de Toad
The Tour de Toad is on and scheduled for Sunday, May 1st, 8:00AM at the Conway High School West campus. This year's tour is looking to be a great one and the order has been placed for good weather. Come out and support this great local classic and support the Faulkner Literacy Council right from your bicycle seat. Click here to register now.

The Slobberknocker
Saturday, April 30 · 8:00am - 11:00am. You'll want to put this new gravel grinder at Lake Sylvia on your schedule of events. This will be a great one to do the day before the Tour de Toad. Click CARVE to register for this new favorite.

Click for a complete listing of cycling events in Arakansas

The Ride Hours
Sunday 12-4
Mon-Fri 10-6

Headphone Ban in Arkansas?

UPDATE: 1/25 - The bill's sponsor has dropped this bill. Apparently he received a lot of emails against this legislation. Yesterday this story was run on all the local networks and even this morning saw this law mentioned on Fox and Friends (National). It's amazing how news gets around today.

On Friday, I saw a post on a message board about a bill that had been brought up in the Arkansas State Legislature. The bill is SB80. The bill would ban the use of headphones while engaging in a sport activity whether you are on the road and/or sidewalk. The bill can be found at this link.

Now do I think this bill will pass? I wouldn't think so, but it is always good to bring things to people's attention. Especially a bill like this. I can just imagine someone that is starting to get in shape decides to go for a walk and then gets a ticket because he/she was wearing headphones while walking on the sidewalk. To think, Arkansas is one of the most obese states in the nation and now you want to take away headphones while engaging in a sport activity.

Is using headphones dangerous? It can be if you are listening to really loud music. You may not hear a car coming up from behind you, but would you hear it anyways if you didn't have headphones on while running on the sidewalk? Now if you are running in the road, you should be running against traffic anyways that way you can see traffic coming at you. If you are running with traffic and with headphones, you are not being very safe.

Since we all know headphones are so dangerous, here are a couple of things that Arkansas still allows. You can still use you cell phone while driving. While you can't text, you can still have it up to your ear and chat away. Also, in Arkansas, if you are driving a motorcycle, you don't have to wear a helmet. So, I guess lets take away headphones.

Rant over. Let me know your opinion.

Arkansas for Triathlon Training

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2009/10/news/best-places-to-live-test-2_5598/21

I know this an older article mentioning how Little Rock just missed one of the best places to train, but I still have to say that I really enjoy Arkansas for training and living. I do know that it doesn't have the diversity of a large city such as DFW, NYC, or any other big city, but it's much easier to get away from the city in no time at all. Another advantage is the low cost of living in Arkansas compared to some larger cities. The summers are hot, but I don't really mind the heat. We generally have a mild winter. The average high in Jan. and Feb typically hover in the low to mid 40's on average, but have many days above 50.

I live in Conway, AR and I can leave my house and be out on open roads in about 5 minutes. Once I cross the Arkansas river bridge and go about 10 miles there really isn't much traffic at all west of Conway. You can go North of Conway for more hills. Arkansas even offers the advantage of completely flat if that is what you are looking for. I can drive down to LR and then ride out SE of Little Rock on roads that are pancake flat.

In Conway, the running is your suburb running. Running through neighborhoods, sidewalks, and streets. There is a running/walking trail that goes through part of town, but it's somewhere I go just to run. In LR, the best option that you have is the River Trail that circles from LR around to I-430 bridge and then back to NLR. It is a great trail to run. There will soon be a bridge that connects it to 2 rivers park which will give you more running and biking options. As far as trail running, you can always head out to Pinnacle (outside of LR) that offers some nice running.

As far as open water swimming, the best place I have found so far is Lake Beaverfork in Conway. It is a great option in Conway. In mornings, it is not very crowded and you can get a nice swim in. There are plenty of great lakes in Arkansas to choose from, but I don't know how well they do for open water swimming.

Now for the final part, racing, Arkansas offers great choices for triathlons. DLT events (dltevents.com) runs many races around Arkansas with road and off road triathlons offered. There is also a couple races put on in NW Arkansas (2.5 hrs) put on by other directors, Texarkana(3hrs), and Forest City (2 hrs). Of course, if you are interested in Ironman series races, there are (5) 70.3 races within a 8 hr drive on less. There is also one Ironman within an 8 hr drive in Houston and an Iron distance race (Redman) in Oklahoma City. There are always races in other cities that are an easy 3 to 5 hrs away from LR.