Bike Event @ ASU Stadium

Pictured above is ASU employee and Montgomery Bicycle Club board member Walter Davis, who helped organize the event.

University Co-Hosts 'The Glassner Autumn Bicycle Challenge' at ASU Stadium on Oct. 23 

By: Kenneth Mullinax/ASU.

 There will be bicycles galore at the ASU Stadium on the morning of Oct. 23, as the University serves as both the starting-point and final destination of the Alabama State University/Montgomery Bicycle Club's (MBC) Glassner Autumn Bicycle Challenge (Challenge). The Challenge is in honor of the late Dr. Jim Glassner, an acclaimed local bicyclist, who died of injuries sustained in a bike/car wreck in 2001. 

The co-hosted event kicks-off at 7:15 a.m. and encompasses several bike riding routes that are mixed in difficulty and traverse throughout the Montgomery community from a beginner five-mile ride, all the way to the expert 126-mile riding route, explains Walter Davis, an MBC board member and ASU's veteran media technician at the Levi Watkins Learning Center.   

"We have a bike ride for everyone to participate in on Saturday (Oct. 23) regardless of their level of expertise, and all of those who participate will receive a 'Glassner Autumn Bicycle Challenge medal, t-shirt, water bottle, and a sense of well-being knowing that they honored the memory of one heck-of-a-good man and are supporting the agenda of making bicycling more safe and accessible for the residents of the greater Montgomery area," said Davis. 

Davis also said that students from ASU’s Physical Therapy (PT) program are volunteering to help participants with any leg problems they may have due their exertions. The PT students will be stationed at various rest and hydration stops along the bike routes. Police officers will also be on hand to ensure the participants’ safety. 

PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN ASU & MBC - MORE THAN A BIKE RIDE 

Robert Traphan, a local computer guru who serves as the president of the MBC, explains that he is extremely proud of the partnership that he and ASU's President, Dr. Quinton T. Ross, Jr., have forged to make this memorial Challenge happen at the University. 

"Partnering with ASU is exciting for all of us with the Montgomery Bicycle Club because in meeting with Dr. Ross about the Glassner Challenge, I was subjected to his gracious hospitality and intuitive nature which has allowed our two entities to work for the common cause of bike safety and education," Traphan said. "A lot of the credit for making the Challenge happen goes to ASU and Dr. Ross. Our hat is off to him for keeping the ASU campus safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. In accepting our proposal for the event to start from the ASU Stadium, Ross said he would agree to a co-hosting of this bike event, only if ASU's COVID-19 safety protocols were in place and strictly observed by our club members and all participants, to which we agreed." 

Traphan hinted that the MBC is looking to establish another partnership with ASU that goes beyond the Glassner bike event. He expects more details of that initiative would come at a later date.

To learn more about the Glassner Autumn Challenge and the Montgomery Bicycle Club, please visit www.mgmbikeclub.org 

News media contact: Kenneth Mullinax, 334-229-4104.