Velocity Group Cycling

Alright, I don’t normally get too excited about a photo of a bike…

But, I thoroughly enjoy this photo:

Smoking photo!

It was shot by Austin Trautman at the Ladies Night event at Bicycle Haus last March.

Check out all of the photos from the event here.

This is sure to make for an exciting day of racing and spectating…

Upon a recent browsing of the far depths of the World Wide Web, I came across a great video of Tucson’s own Curtis Gunn… aka Gunner.

The video if from last February’s Tour of California time trial. Care to view it? Click here.

Don’t care to view it? Click here.

Dearest Brethren of the Saddle,

Let’s face it, it’s getting tougher and tougher to promote a road race these days. All you have to do is look at our Arizona racing calendar and it’s slowly revealing itself. The restrictions are piling up and it’s making the necessary permits too tough and costly to obtain. As you read this, there’s a battle going on in the east valley over the use of the Bush Highway. We’ve all ridden and enjoyed that stretch of road by Saguaro Lake and if action isn’t taken soon we’ll never race on it again…

See: Usery Pass Time Trial, Usery Pass Road Race, Arizona Xtreme Desert Tri and Saguaro Lake Tri to name a few.

Below is a letter from Sterling Baer, president of the Red Mountain Brumby’s cycling group. You think your club/team is big? This guy’s running an empire of cyclists out in Mesa. The letter is long, but well worth the read…

Unless you only want to see criterium’s in our cycling future.

———-

Many of you may or may not be a resident of Maricopa County, but a cycling citizens petition campaign has been launched to literally “Save the Tour de Phoenix” and we need every cyclists support. We have a wonderful tradition of the Tour de Phoenix in the greater Phoenix area that followed in the footsteps of the Tour de Tucson. For 17 years the route has safely traversed a beautiful section of road called Old Bush Highway that runs through Maricopa County and Tonto National Forrest.

Last year ALL events were prohibited use of this section of road due to “new regulations” imposed by the Maricopa Co Transportation Dept. This affected a planned Mesa Marathon, Triathalons, Usery TT, RAGNAR Relay, the Tour de Phoenix to name a few. All were denied permits. Representing the 425+ group of Cyclists in my Red Mountain Brumbys gang, I led an effort to rescind the prohibition of permits and fortunately PBAA ceased efforts to cancel the Tour after 17 years without a single traffic incident along that stretch of road. While the permit was granted, new restrictions were imposed requiring one lane of this two lane road be closed and adding signifant more costs.

These costs forced PBAA to reconsider cancelling the event again and refunding all cyclists their money because these cost increases put them in a first time ever negative position. Cancelling it altogether would cost them a great deal of money as well yet putting on the event regardless of losing money would also not allow them to provide ANY funds to their committed Charities. We all want and support safe events, but raising Traffic control costs up to 700% is simply not acceptable.

We are asking all Cyclists to send a message to Maricopa County Dept of Transportation to lift these new restrictions and agree to a compromise. We want our community to create an atmosphere such that we can grow the Tour de Phoenix to the level of prominence and community/local goverment cooperation that exists with the Tour de Tucson. We hope that you can help us communicate this to our officials.

Our Mesa Mayor Scott Smith has been a terrific support of this effort to “Save the Tour” and so has County Supervisor Don Stapley. If you could please send a note and ask all that you know to do the same, we would greatly appreciate it. During these economic times we do not need additional costs levied at taxpayer expenses when they are not necessary.

Please direct your emails to Don Stapley and copy the following:

Don Stapley <dstapley@mail.maricopa.gov>
Mayor Scott Smith <mayor.smith@mesaaz.gov>
Nikki Amberg <nikki.amberg@mesaaz.gov>
John Counts, MCDOT <JohnCounts@mail.maricopa.gov>
Nicolaas Swart MCDOT <nicolaasswart@mail.maricopa.gov>
John Hauskins MCDOT <johnhauskins@mail.maricopa.gov>
James Candland MCDOT <candlandj@mail.maricopa.gov>
Sterling Baer <sabaer@us.ibm.com>

Thank you!

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Thanks for reading.

Have you sent your email yet?

Just a friendly reminder for all the lady readers out there…

This Wednesday is ladies night at Bicycle Haus hosted by Specialized Designs for Women.

Just a friendly reminder for all the men readers out there…

Please leave yourself and your one liner’s at home.

It breaks pinky fingers.

As modeled by my pal Corey Steinbrecher.

San Tan Criterium Senior Men 2, 3 – Jeremy Bounds from Clayton Peck on Vimeo.

Missed the race? Want to watch a bit of the Pro 1,2,3 race and see what happened? Go ahead and click play.

San Tan Criterium Senior Men Pro 1, 2 – Stevie Cullinan from Clayton Peck on Vimeo.

Thank you for stopping by www.velocitygroupcycling.com! This site is dedicated to everything that is Arizona cycling. No Lance, No Le Tour, No Ronde’s, No NRC. Just our local cycling community and everything pertaining to it.

We’ll do our best to post and help promote anything going on in our local community. If you have a camp, new race, team ride, or event that needs widespread promotion, just let us know! We’ll also be following Arizona’s licensed professional racers as they tear up streets across America (or the World for that matter…) Continue Reading