PHILADELPHIA, (April 25, 2013) – Showing support for healthy eating and sustainable transportation, Whole Foods Market has fed the riders of the third edition of Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington.

“This is no small donation,” noted Tim Johnson, who personally sought out Whole Foods Market given his own preference for super markets when traveling and racing on the road. “Most charity rides can get away with a few boxes of bananas for a rest stop. But this is way, way over the normal charity ride in terms of mileage. We realized in year one that lots of food – and good – food would be needed for these riders.”

These riders have already ridden 110 and 130 miles during days one and two respectively. And the group moves well in excess of 22 mph on average. The intake is more than 6,000 calories per day.

Learning this first hand was Chris Ford, a Vice President at Whole Foods and cycling enthusiast. “I ride a lot. I’m super passionate about cycling,” noted Ford, who rode the second and perhaps most difficult stage of the ride from Hartford to New York City. “I had never ridden that far and the pace these guys move at is faster than I’ve ever gone. I’m just as passionate about good food and helping these guys our with healthy, organic food really means a lot to me and to our brand.”

Entering its third year this charity ride is considered the Mount Everest of charity bike rides. While several riders will join for a day or two, the long haul riders will ride nearly 540 miles in just five days. From Boston, the riders stop in Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before finishing in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 28. The long haul ride is by invitation only due to the swift speed and lengths of the stages.

For more information on Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington, visit www.RideOnWashington.org.

ABOUT TIM JOHNSON’S RIDE ON WASHINGTON: The third annual Ride on Washington is an invitational charity ride expected to raise $100,000 for People For Bikes (www.PeopleforBikes.org). The ride will depart Boston on April 24, Hartford on April 25, New York City on April 26, Philadelphia on April 27, and Baltimore on Sunday, April 28. All riders are required to raise funds to participate and take advantage of the support. The final 20 mile leg of the ride into Washington, however, is open for public participation and will proceed at a slow to moderate pace to accommodate riders of all abilities.

BOSTON (April 23, 2013) – The third edition of Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington will again depart from City Hall Plaza in Boston tomorrow with one course change. The hard core cyclists will deviate from their southerly route and instead re-trace the Boston Marathon route in reverse to show solidarity with the city, the runners, and the victims of last week’s terrorist attack.

“While I might race all over the world Boston is my home city and that event is a rite of spring,” said Tim Johnson, a six-time national champion and cyclo-cross superstar. “Those bombs damaged a lot more than a running race; they crippled our entire city.

The ride will gather at 8 a.m. at City Hall Plaza and depart at 8:30. The grand departure ceremony is sponsored by Boloco, which will be sampling breakfast burritos for the cyclists about the depart for the opening 110-mile stage.

These select riders pride themselves on courteous cycling that makes little impact on rush-hour traffic. Local cyclists are encouraged to join the entourage for the ride to Hopkinton, where these national and world-class cyclist increase the pace to reach Hartford by 4 p.m.

“Cyclists and runners are alike in that we compete on courses open to the public,” said Jeremy Powers, currently America’s top-ranked cyclo-cross racer who will also join this ride to raise funds to improve bike facilities and programs in America. “We bring our sports right to the people, which is fantastic. We felt it important to demonstrate to the world that events like these – in both spirit and execution – will not be stopped by these acts.”

Powers is part of an elite squad of cyclists hand-picked by Johnson, a six-time national champion and New England legend pedaling more than 500 miles in five days to raise funds and awareness for People for Bikes.

Entering its third year this charity ride is no small feat. While several riders will join for a day or two, the long haul riders will ride over 500 miles in just five days. From Boston, the riders stop in Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before finishing in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 28. The long haul ride is by invitation only due to the swift speed and lengths of the stages.

For more information on Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington, visit www.RideOnWashington.org.

ABOUT TIM JOHNSON’S RIDE ON WASHINGTON: The third annual Ride on Washington is an invitational charity ride expected to raise $100,000 for People For Bikes (www.PeopleforBikes.org). The ride will depart Boston on April 24, Hartford on April 25, New York City on April 26, Philadelphia on April 27, and Baltimore on Sunday, April 28. All riders are required to raise funds to participate and take advantage of the support. The final 20 mile leg of the ride into Washington, however, is open for public participation and will proceed at a slow to moderate pace to accommodate riders of all abilities.

BOSTON (April 16, 2013) – Former U.S. National Cyclo-cross Champion Jeremy Powers will re-join his former teammate Tim Johnson to raise funds and awareness for bicycle advocacy. America’s top-ranked cyclo-cross racer, Powers will complete the entire five-day Ride on Washington that leaves Boston on April 24.

Powers is part of an elite squad of cyclists hand-picked by Johnson, a six-time national champion and New England legend pedaling more than 500 miles in five days to raise funds and awareness for People for Bikes.

“Last year I rode the first two days of the event. While I got some great miles in my legs, I learned a lot about the important work being done by People for Bikes,” said Powers. “I really struggled to leave the ride last year. This is something I really wanted to do.”

“I look at this as a great way for Jeremy to solidify his New England roots. He and I share a rivalry on the race course that’s intense at times, but this week on the Ride on Washington will be all about sharing our love of the bike,” said Johnson, America’s first cycling superstar to truly champion the work of bicycle advocacy.

Entering its third year this charity ride is no small feat. While several riders will join for a day or two, the long haul riders will ride over 500 miles in just five days. From Boston, the riders stop in Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before finishing in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 28. The long haul ride is by invitation only due to the swift speed and lengths of the stages.

Powers and Johnson were teammates for several years racing for Cannondale/cyclocrossworld.com before Powers became the ride leader for Rapha/Focus. With that team he won the 2012 national title and tore through through the international calendar, scoring wins nationally including a double victory at Gloucester and Providence, affectionately known as America’s Holy Week. Powers scored the highest placing ever by an American at an elite men’s
World Cup and finished the season as the highest ranked American in the world.

A native of Connecticut, Powers lives in Easthampton, Mass. He competes professionally on the road for Team Jelly Belly.

For more information on Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington, visit www.RideOnWashington.org.

ABOUT TIM JOHNSON’S RIDE ON WASHINGTON: The third annual Ride on Washington is an invitational charity ride expected to raise $100,000 for People For Bikes
(www.PeopleforBikes.org). The ride will depart Boston on April 24, Hartford on April 25, New York City on April 26, Philadelphia on April 27, and Baltimore on Sunday, April 28. All riders are required to raise funds to participate and take advantage of the support. The final 20 mile leg of the ride into Washington, however, is open for public participation and will proceed at a slow to moderate pace to accommodate riders of all abilities.

Harpoon Brewery, 306 Northern Avenue, Boston, MA

RSVP: Facebook, evite

Join us Tuesday, April 23rd for Free Harpoon Beer and tasty Boloco nibbles and to help send off Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington as they set off the following day from Boston’s City Hall Plaza to ride to Washington DC with the goal to raise awareness and $100,000 for People For Bikes, a national non-profit that works to improve bicycling facilities, opportunities, and programs nationwide.

Entering its third year this ride is no small feat. While several riders will join for a day or two, the long haul riders will ride more than 500 miles in just five days. From Boston, the riders stop in Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before finishing in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 28.

Please join us for a fun evening of celebration and discussion at Harpoon Brewery in Boston, light fare will be provided and beer sampling complementary. $5 donation please.

ABOUT TIM JOHNSON’S RIDE ON WASHINGTON: The third annual Ride on Washington is an invitational charity ride expected to raise $100,000 for People For Bikes (www.PeopleforBikes.org). The ride will depart Boston on April 24, Hartford on April 25, New York City on April 26, Philadelphia on April 27, and Baltimore on Sunday, April 28. All riders are required to raise funds to participate and take advantage of the support. The final 20-mile leg of the ride into Washington, however, is open for public participation and will proceed at a slow to moderate pace to accommodate riders of all abilities.

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BOSTON, Mass. (April 15, 2013) – While a select group of cyclists will pedal all 500 miles of Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington to improve cycling in America, hundreds of supporting cyclists will gather nightly to meet the riders, raise funds, and learn about the bike advocacy in the Northeast corridor.

“What always amazes me is the people we meet during those receptions,” said Tim Johnson, founder of this five-day odyssey. “They teach me so much about what so many people are doing to make cycling in America better.”

Sponsoring the Ride on Washington and hosting the final reception in the nation’s capital will be the organizers of the 2015 UCI Road World Championships to be held Richmond, Va.

“The 2015 Road World Championships is much more than a bike race. One of our goals is to leverage the global spotlight that the World Championships creates to get people talking about bikes as part of the solution to a number of issues,” said Tim Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Richmond 2015. “The Tim Johnson Ride on Washington is a great way to bridge the racing and advocacy communities together in a way that can have an impact, and we’re excited to be a part of it.”

The final reception will also showcase another Boston cycling mainstay at Boloco. The Boston-based burrito restaurants have been popular amongst cyclists in Beantown, feeding thousands of cyclists who participate in the city’s Bike Friday celebrations. Boloco recently opened restaurants in Washington DC and will host the final day’s riders reception.

Indeed one of Tim Johnson’s motive for creating the ride was to do just that: build a bridge between the advocates and racers to improve cycling for all.

Starting in Boston on Tuesday, April 23, the receptions will be held nightly along the route. All but one of the six receptions are open to the public.

The receptions schedule is below:

• Tuesday,  April 23, 8 p.m.
  The Harpoon Brewery, 306 Northern Avenue, Boston, MA
• Wednesday, April 24, 7 p.m.
  The Bicycle Studio, 89 Arch Street, Hartford, CT
• Thursday, April 25, 7 p.m.
  Private reception, New York, NY
• Friday, April 26, 7 p.m.
  The Manayunk Brewery, 4120 Main Street, Philadelphia, PA
• Saturday, April 27, 7 p.m.
  Rocket to Venus, 3360 Chestnut Ave., Baltimore, MD
• Sunday, April 28, 3 p.m.
  Boloco, 1028 19th St. NW, Washington, DC

About Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington: The third annual Ride on Washington is an invitational charity ride expected to raise $100,000 for People for Bikes (PeopleforBikes.org). The ride will depart Boston on April 24, Hartford April 25, New York City on April 26, Philadelphia on April 27, and Baltimore on April 28. All riders are required to raise funds to participate and enjoy the support. The final day’s ride, however, is open for public participation with free entry.

About Richmond 2015: Richmond 2015 is the independent organizing committee of the 2015 UCI Road World Championships. Richmond, Va is the first U.S. city to host this global event since 1986, when it was held in Colorado Springs, Colorado. For more information visit Richmond2015.com.

BOSTON (April 5, 2013) – On Wednesday, April 24, cyclists will embark on the third annual Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington to raise funds and awareness for People For Bikes, a national non-profit that works to improve bicycling facilities, opportunities and programs nationwide.

“We call this the ride that makes every bike ride better,” said Tim Johnson, a superstar cyclist famous for fostering the popularity of cyclo-cross in America.  “Every time you see a bike path, or a bike lane or a bike program, chances are People For Bikes helped local advocates make that happen.”

Entering its third year this charity ride is no small feat. While several riders will join for a day or two, the long haul riders will ride more than 500 miles in just five days. From Boston, the riders stop in Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before finishing in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 28. The long haul ride is by invitation only due to the swift speed and lengths of the stages.

“This is the Mount Everest of charity rides,” commented Richard Fries, a long time cycling commentator who helped co-found the event with Johnson.  “Last year we had three world champions on the ride. We cruised at around 28 mph for extended periods and the distances are tough. Two of the five stages are 140-miles long.”

This ride does more than just raise funds. This ride also raises the standards of rider conduct.

“We stop at every red light and don’t swarm intersections. We never ride wider than two abreast. We ride tight to the right in a compact formation the entire time,” said Johnson, a six-time national champion who understands how poorly led bike rides can been an irritant to other road users. “During the entire ride last year, which went right through the Northeast Corridor, we had only one guy honk his horn in anger at us…. And he was driving the other direction. This year, we aim for zero angry honks.”

For more information on Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington, visit www.RideOnWashington.org.

ABOUT TIM JOHNSON’S RIDE ON WASHINGTON:  The third annual Ride on Washington is an invitational charity ride expected to raise $100,000 for People For Bikes. (www.PeopleforBikes.org). The ride will depart Boston on April 24, Hartford on April 25, New York City on April 26, Philadelphia on April 27, and Baltimore on Sunday, April 28. All riders are required to raise funds to participate and take advantage of the support. The final 20-mile leg of the ride into Washington, however, is open for public participation and will proceed at a slow to moderate pace to accommodate riders of all abilities.

Day 1 TJROW

Credits:
Photographer – Jamie Kripke (www.jamiekripke.com)
Editor – Buck Ross (www.buckross.com)

There’s something about riding 130 miles in a day, 4 days in a row, that makes a group of 20 people with absolutely nothing in common, aside from a deep-seeded love of bikes, suddenly become the best of friends. Additionally, there’s something about it that makes that new group of best buddies decide that a bathrobe party at two in the morning is not only a good idea, it has to happen.

That’s what Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington was about (I don’t mean bathrobes!): Bringing unlikely people together to talk about what really matters in bike advocacy. For some of us, that means finding safe routes to school so kids can ride bikes. For others, it means more bike paths in inner city areas. For still others among us, it’s about promoting cycling for women and improving the lives of women racers. Whatever the cause, the overarching goal is to make people more aware of bikes. That’s why Tim and Bikes Belong host the ride, and that’s why the 20 of us put up with each other for 538 miles, from Boston to Washington, DC. Because we all believe that bikes are important for so, so many reasons. Chances are if you’re reading this, you think that too, whether you’re a racer or a commuter or simply a bike advocate.

The ride opened my eyes to a lot of things. For one, I learned that I am capable of holding 400 watts on a downhill, then sprinting up the next climb. I also learned that after 500 miles in 4 days, my heart rate refuses to hit anything over 150, no matter how hard I try. I learned just how important chamois cream really is. I learned that there is no modestly among cyclists, especially when it comes to public urination. Maybe that part wasn’t a highlight of the trip for me, but it definitely showcased how cycling is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO, a bike mechanic, young, old, male, female: when you gotta go, and there are only fields around, guess what? You’re peeing in the field next to whoever happens to be with you. The only weird part about that was how not weird it was.

My capabilities as a cyclist were put to the test each day, when we had miles to go before we slept, and even when we did get to sleep, it was rarely for more than 4 hours at a time. Of course, this isn’t to say it was a hardship. Between nice hotel rooms every night, a neutral support car during the ride, celebrity chefs (well, celebrities to us athletes, anyway) and authors of The Feed Zone Cookbook cooking for us and providing in-ride nutrition in the form of rice cakes and their drink mix, Skratch, I’ve become incredibly spoiled. In fact, when I go out on a ride later today, I’m pretty sure if I do flat, I’ll wait around assuming that the SRAM follow car will be pulling up any minute.

But when you’re one of three women on the trip, and you’re also the only non-pro woman, surrounded by amazing athletes like six-time National Champion Tim Johnson, guess what? It’s hard, no matter how much support there is. Especially when time is of the essence and no one wants to be the first to admit that the pace is getting to them.

The first day, a mere 113 miles in the rain from Boston to Hartford, my heartrate soared as I pumped my SRAMRed-equipped bike up the hills. Maybe switching to a compact crank would have been a good move, because some hills, I was literally standing on the pedals, giving new meaning to the phrase “smashing” hills. It hurt. And it was exhausting.

At breakfast the next morning, I overheard two of the stronger guys talking, complaining that the first day had been entirely too easy. “My heartrate never went above 155,” the one said. I thought I was going to cry, since my heartrate the day before had been averaging around 160 the entire time, redlining for a good chunk of the climbing. It made me nervous. With four days of riding to go, was I going to be tough enough to hack it?

Turns out, you’re exactly as tough as you think you are. A few miles into the Hartford to NYC stretch, I suddenly decided that my attitude sucked. I was worried about staying on a wheel, stressing myself out, bringing my heartrate higher than it needed to be. “You got this,” I reminded myself. “You’re kind of a badass.”

The crazy thing about riding so much in such a short time is that your brain pretty much goes through the stages of grief. There’s denial: “My legs don’t hurt. This saddle isn’t killing me. I’m not hungry.” There’s bargaining: “Legs, just let me get up this hill and I swear I’ll eat a whole sleeve of Shot Bloks.” There’s anger: “Goddammit, when is this hill going to end?” There’s depression: “I’m never going to make it to the end of this ride.” And then, there’s acceptance: “I got this.” And then you hang on to that wheel in front of you for dear life, you watch the miles tick away, you see the city line in the distance, and you know that you made it.

It’s an awesome feeling.

I know for some people on the ride, doing 538 miles in 5 days wasn’t that big of a deal. And I’ve done endurance, I’ve done 30 hour training weeks before. But to do so much in so short a time, to prove such an important point and send such a cool message… now that’s just awesome. I’ve never ridden with so many committed, talented people, and I sincerely hope to do so again in the future. It reminded me that the bike community is unlike any other, where as long as you love the ride, you can be friends.

We are the lucky ones. When I think about how few people could take time out of their lives and do that ride, and how few people could actually handle finishing that ride, I realize just how lucky I am.