Rosarito to Ensenada Ride Canceled

One of the most popular bicycle events in the west, the Fall Rosarito Ensenada Fun Bicycle Ride, has been canceled.

The 50-mile ride between the Baja California towns was scheduled for Sept. 24 and regularly draws about 8,000 cyclists, mostly from Southern California.

Dave Dickson, president of San Diego-based Bicycling West, which runs the ride and one on the same route during the spring, said it was canceled because of safety concerns.

Traffic control in the last two rides--in April and last September--wasn’t strict enough, Dickson said. “There were cars and trucks mixed in with the bicycles as well as coming against the bicycles,” he said. “It’s very dangerous.”

Dickson said he couldn’t get permits and assurances from the Mexican federal highway patrol that there would be a change soon enough to put on the race.

He hopes to return with two rides in 2000, tentatively scheduled for April 8 and Sept. 30.

STRONG RACE

Team Secure Horizons, the four-person team of 60-plus bicyclists, finished the Race Across America in 9 days 7 hours 56 minutes, riding into Savannah, Ga., Saturday night.

It was the first time a coed four-person team older than 60 attempted the race. Team members were Long Beach’s Jewett Pattee, 75, Huntington Beach’s Jim Davis, 67, Redondo Beach’s Carmelita Sellers, 65, and Spring Valley’s Mary Brown, 69.

They averaged 315 miles per day and 13.1 mph over the 2,938-mile course.

A team from Colorado won the team race in 6 days 2 hours 58 minutes. Pittsburgh’s Danny Chew won the solo race, finishing in 8 days 7 hours 34 minutes. He finished 1 hour 17 minutes ahead of Austria’s Wolfgang Fasching, who finished second for the second consecutive year.

In other Race Across America news, the course will be changed for the 2000. Instead of a start in Irvine and a finish in Savannah, which has been case since 1990, the race will start in Portland, Ore., and end in Panama City, Fla., and cover about 2,950 miles.

SWIM TIME

UC Irvine’s new pool is the site of the Southern Pacific Masters Assn. Long Course Meters Championships Friday through Sunday.

The meet, for age-group swimmers 19 and older and hosted by the UCI AquaZots Masters club, starts Friday at 4:30 p.m. with the 1,500 meters. Competition begins at 9 a.m. on the weekend.

Among the entrants are 88-year-old Madeleine Miller of Mission Viejo, 86-year-old Woody Bowersock of Laguna Woods and 86-year-old Walter Pfeiffer of Mission Viejo.

Also expected to swim at the meet is Parry O’Brien, the first man to break 60 feet in the shot put with a mark of 60 feet 5 1/4 inches, two days after Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile.