Cam Tour

SANDY SPRING -- A strong summer thunderstorm swept through Montgomery County yesterday, dampening the Cycle Across Maryland Century Day, just one day before the tour will end.The squall reached Sherwood High School around 5 p.m. and drove participants, tour organizers and hospitality table people into the school with the heavy downpour.The storm also left several cyclists to battle both the elements and the longest day of cycling for the tour.Tour organizers scambled their "Sag Cars" to patrol the cycling route for stranded participants.

Thanks to a deluge of rain, Upper Marlboro was named Most Hospitable Town of Cycle Across Maryland 1990, the week-long bicycle tour in which some 950 riders traversed the state from north to south last month.The CAM Tour organization announced this week that riders who returned a post-ride questionnaire gave "the most enthusiastic endorsement" to Upper Marlboro in the annual hospitality competition. Governor Schaefer will present a special flag recognizing the honor in a future State House ceremony.

The Annapolis Jaycees have elected the following members for the 1991-1992 year:Patricia Baldwin, president; Dana Tropp, chapter management vice president; Mary Keating, community development vice president; Kelly Skubi, membership development vice president; Anne Davis,individual development vice president; Marc Haraway, state director;Colleen Baldwin, secretary; Chris Nicholas, treasurer; Robert Jett III, legal counsel; Mark Lechowicz, chairman of the...

On a bike tour, new friendships easily roll onto the fast track.It's a natural course of events when hundreds of people ride together, sweat together, eat together and camp together for days at a time, sharing the joys of the road while battling the common enemies of heat, rain, flat tires and sore muscles.And when boy meets girl, six days of pedaling down the highway can seem like well, let Tina Richardson explain it:"It was kind of like the equivalent of a month's dating in a week."You might call her an authority on bike tour bonding.

A bicycle is a deceptively simple thing, just two wheels with seat and pedals. But what a multitude of roles the marvelous machine can play!Bikes as exercise. Bikes as spectacle. Bikes as basic transportation. Bikes as vacationmobiles. The functions will all be on display in and around Baltimore in the coming days and weeks.For example, a pair of training rallies (today and on May 18) are planned for the third annual Cycle Across Maryland pedaling vacation coming up this summer.Next weekend will bring a superb spectator event, with top international racers -- including Tour de France winner Greg LeMond -- spinning through the state in the Tour Du Pont (the renamed 2-year-old race that used to be called the Tour du Trump; see accompanying article for details)

FLINTSTONE -- The start of the fourth annual First National Bank Cycle Across Maryland (CAM) could be called "A Voyage of the Damp."Steady downpours, drizzle with occasional drops and showers, plagued the 1,100 cyclists who began the 53.6-mile route about 8:30 yesterday morning. By the end of the first day's segment, only their wits remained dry.As Pat Bernstein, the tour's executive director, fired a cap pistol to start the race, cyclists were teased with the sun appearing faintly visible through clouds.

"You've probably never lived for a week on pork rinds and Coors Light, but you can do it!" That's the dietary advice I got from a seasoned multi-day cycling veteran just before I took off for last week's Cycle Across Maryland (CAM) Tour.Billed as "Shore to Shore in '94," it began in Leonardtown on the southern end of Maryland's western shore, went to Largo, Millersville, Centreville, Salisbury, Crisfield at the southern tip of the Eastern Shore, then finished in Berlin, just a few miles from Ocean City.

Jaki Jones never thought of herself as a cyclist.But in the last two months Jaki has been transformed from a non-pedaling pedestrian to a true-blue biker cycling 20-35 miles three times a week.All of this was made possible by the CAM Teen Challenge, a program organized by Cycle Across Maryland (CAM), which offers marginal students who are "at risk" of dropping out of high school the chance to participate in a week of cycling.Jaki, 18, a 1992 graduate of Southern High School, has been training for the CAM Tour since May. Yet Jaki doubted her cycling ability prior to the CAM-Tour, which kicked off Monday.

Some bicyclists, like James Perry of Columbia, pedaled at a leisurely pace yesterday along Carroll County's rolling roads, enjoying the bucolic countryside."

MIDDLETOWN -- Yesterday's 57-mile Cycle Across Maryland (CAM) segment from Hancock to Middletown could be summed up in one word: Endurance.The exhilaration after Tuesday's successful climbs over Polish Mountain, Town Hill and Sideling Hill was a marked contrast to yesterday's exhausted participants who were finding gear and pitching tents at Middletown High School.Heat, a longer route and a number of steep, short hills left the cyclists physically haggard.Despite the number of languid cyclists, Pat Bernstein, executive director of the event, said that of the 1,151 riders who registered, few have dropped out."