Have you heard of the L.A. Bike tour? How about the Bike New York - The great Five Boro Bike Tour? No? These are both short bike tours through major metropolitan areas (Los Angeles and downtown New York) held on totally closed courses. Closed Course? That means the streets are closed to automobile traffic and they belong to the cyclists. Sound like fun, riding 25 - 50 miles through a city with no cars and not having to deal with traffic lights? But then traveling all the way to New York or L.A. just for a short bike ride hardly seems worth it. Well if you've heard the rumors over the last year, I'm here to tell you that they're true. I spoke with the organizers of the S.L Marathon last week and they will be opening the course to cyclists prior to the running of the marathon. I'm told that registration should be available sometime within the next week at their site: http://www.pesm.active.com/exec/salt/index.cfm?publicationID=217 There are a few caveats however. 1) It will be a very early morning start. This is after all a running event and they have a scheduled start time for the marathon. So if you're not at the start on time for the bike ride, it's not going to happen for you. 2) Since it is early in the morning and the cyclists will be the first through the course, they will be escorted by a Police motorcade. Riders will be kept to a maximum speed of whatever the motorcade is doing. So there won't be any high speed pace lines cruising down the streets, just a nice easy bike tour (and this is a bad thing?) 3) Again, in order to guarantee a clear course for the runners, cyclists must maintain a minimum speed of somewhere around 14 mph. No word on what happens if you don't keep up, but I'm sure we'll find out. 4) Rather than the full 26 mile marathon course, cyclists will only do 25 and miss out on looping around Liberty park. So if this sounds like a fun way to spend this April 23rd, stay tuned for details and pass the word. I'll send out an announcement when registration opens up. Raleigh