Make-A-Wish Tour, July 2011

If you're interested in riding, volunteering, or donating to the Make-A-Wish Foundation's one-day or three-day Wish-A-Mile Bicycle Tour, check out their flyer. The event takes place July 28-31, 2011—or July 31 for the one-day ride.

Great Lakes wheel building clinic (and discount!)

On Monday, February 21 at 6:00 p.m., Steve and Oscar from Great Lakes Cycling & Fitness will talk about the advantages of hand built wheels over factory wheels and what makes GLCF standout. Participants are encouraged to bring their existing wheels, which can be tested to show what specific strength and performance gains they can expect. For showing up, GLCF will offer everyone 20% off parts (for wheelset purchases). This discount on hand built wheels is a first at GLCF!

Check out more information about GLCF hand built wheels.

Yoga for Cyclists - Starts Feb. 7

If you're interested in a six-week yoga class designed for cyclists, Great Lakes Cycling & Fitness will be hosting one starting this Monday, February 7. Click the image for a larger version of the poster or visit the Great Lakes website for program details and registration.

New area race: Ragin' Raisin Dirt Classic [updated]

[Update 2/21/11: race has been postponed—check event website link below for details.]
If you're looking to get your road racing started (or dirt road racing, actually) early in the season, check out the new Ragin' Raisin Dirt Classic on April 16. More information in the press release (click image) or on the event website.

Development Program Meeting Summary

Last night at Great Lakes we had the introductory meeting to share some details about the new Development Program. Below is an impromptu video and a copy of the presentation slides to follow along with the video if you missed the meeting but are interested in seeing what happened.

We had a good group attend who shared an interest in improving their racing skills and working with other club members who are interested in doing the same. The Development Program is currently "version 1" so we expect to see it grow and improve over time. If you're interested in additional information or have questions, please contact Lucas Wall.

All Development Program activities will be on the club calendar and open to all club members.


The slides are presented below the video in case you'd like to follow along. The video shows the highlights of the meeting without some parts that are inaudible and some general discussion.

Summer Road Maintenance Projects

An excerpt from Ted Green...

New "improved" chip sealing for 2011. The Washtenaw County Road Commission (WCRC) has posted its chip sealing plans for 2011. The good news is that for the first time the chip sealed roads will also be "fog sealed" which applies a sealant over the chips to smooth out the road and should make for better bicycling. I don't know the details, but I think the fog seal is applied about 2-3 days after the road is chip sealed, about the same time the extra chips are vacuumed up.

The WCRC is considering the fog sealing an "experiment" because it obviously adds cost. It has been well received in other states. Assuming we bicyclists find it an improvement, we need to send our thanks and feedback to the Road Commission in hopes that this practice will continue.


The effort from bicyclists to support road improvements in Washtenaw County last summer couldn't have hurt the introduction of the more bicyclist-friendly chip seal method being tested in 2011.

To see a list of the 10 county roads to be chip sealed in Washtenaw County this year, see the AnnArbor.com article.

Announcing New AAVC Sponsor: Challenge Tires!

For the 2011 season the Ann Arbor Velo Club welcomes Challenge Tires as a new club sponsor. Challenge has has generously extended wholesale pricing to the club. AAVC is in good company with this sponsorship as U.S. based ProTour team Radioshack will also be riding Challenge Tires in 2011. Challenge has given AAVC access to a variety of high quality handmade tubular and open tubular (or clincher) tires and tubes for both road and cyclocross, so we encourage everyone to consider Challenge Tires for all of your training and race tire needs.

If you are interested in purchasing Challenge Tires the club will be placing a single order for the year on January 31st - this means you need to place your order NOW even if you don't need that new set of 'cross tires until the fall. We expect to take delivery of the tires in time for all of the early season races, so don't forget to get a set of tough Challenge Parigi-Roubaix tires for Cone-Azalia, Barry-Roubaix, and riding the dirt roads of Washtenaw!

The club order is being administered through a third-party website, Kitorder.com. Visit the AAVC Challenge tire order page to place your order. When you arrive at this website you can each create your own account and place the order using a credit card. The order will then be aggregated on January 31st and sent to Challenge. The expected timeframes are listed below:

• January 20th – 31st, 2011: This is our team ordering window, please have your order completed by January 31st, 2011. 
• February 1st, 2011: Team order is submitted to Challenge and Challenge forwards it to the factory.
• March 15th, 2011: This is the estimated ship date from the factory—it typically the order takes 4-5 weeks to manufacture.
• March 20th, 2011: This is the estimated date of arrival for the product after it has cleared customs. Once it has been received it will be shipped to teams immediately. Our product will arrive 3-5 days after it has been shipped via UPS Ground. 

Contact: If you have any questions about your order feel free to contact Dave Vannette at: dave dot vannette at gmail dot com.