On Sunday, August 15th six (6) amateur radio operators from Centre and Clearfield Counties provided communications coverage for the Moshannon Valley YMCA Mountain Bike Race held in the Black Moshannon State Park in Eastern Centre County.  The park has a number of very challenging trails through heavily forested areas so the potential for crashes was significant.

Dick, K3BIE and John, N3SPW were the contacts and organizers for amateur radio. Other participants were:

• KB3QKR, Rich
• WB3EQW, Mike
• K3CWP, Carmine
• W3PRL, Paul

Dick, Rich, Mike, John, and Carmine staffed checkpoints at various locations on the race route and Paul provided a ‘base station’ operation in case telephone contact with emergency services was required. Fortunately, only one bicycle suffered a mechanical failure and no riders were injured.

On Monday, August 23, K3BIE, Dick sent the following thank you to amateur radio participants:

I want to thank all of you for your help with safety communications for the Black Moshannon YMCA Mountain Bike Race. All but Paul and I got to see some of the terrain they were racing over and know that the potential for injury or bike damage was certainly a distinct possibility. Thankfully we had no disasters but I know I feel that we were prepared to assist communications if there had been a need.
There is very poor cell coverage in most of the area of the park and we had good contact with a couple possible ways to get help to any one in need of assistance. I will try to get them to let us know a bit more in advance if they are having a race again next year. They sounded like they are planning to, but expect to have a different course which could make for a whole new set of problems finding good spots for access by vehicle.

Again thanks for your help.

73’s Dick Thompson K3BIE