Wednesday. May 18, 2022
In this Issue:

Hello NJ NICA family –

As usual, the NJICL staff has been keeping a close eye on the weather, and with the prediction of temperatures in the 90’s this weekend, we’ve made the decision to move our race day schedule up one hour on both Saturday and Sunday. This means we’ll start racing at 9 a.m. each day. This is in an effort to beat the worst heat of the day and keep everyone as safe as possible.

Our Lewis Morris Mania Race Flier is fully updated with the latest schedule – please make sure you take a few minutes to review all of the adjusted times. All volunteer shifts have also been adjusted – for those of you who have already signed up, you’ll be receiving an email shortly.

As always, our goal with our events is for everyone to be safe and have fun!

Both Saturday and Sunday are going to be unseasonably warm, so we will be instituting mandatory hydration for all student athletes.

What does mandatory hydration mean? It means every racer MUST carry some method of hydration with them while on course. It can be a water bottle (in a water bottle cage on their bike) or a hydration pack – whichever they are most comfortable with. We will be checking as they go through staging, so please make sure your racer is prepared.

In addition, we will have a neutral water support water station on the course to provide additional opportunities to refill water to any racer who needs it, in addition to the normal feed zone.

Please don’t wait until race day to start hydrating! Your student athlete can not make up for lack of pre-race hydration on race day – they must start hydrating 48 hours beforehand. Have your student athlete start drinking extra water beginning Thursday or Friday before race day. Our Medical Coordinator Shawn Doucette recommends doubling your water intake the day before the race. He also recommends staying away from sugary drinks and sodas – water and unsweetened beverages are the best. A little Gatorade is ok, but stick to mostly water.

Each rider and all teams are expected to bring enough water to get them through the day, both during your pre-ride, and as you recover post-race. Please coordinate with your team and coaches to make sure that essential requirement is being filled!

Volunteering is a bit different this weekend – with two days of racing, we’ll need volunteers on both Saturday and Sunday! The good news is, with our racing day being shorter, we were able to shorten some of the shifts. We’re in need of course marshals, parking assistants, staging and scoring help as well as crossing guards, adventure volunteers and more! Please help us out by heading over to our Signup.com page and signing up for a shift today.

Parking at Lewis Morris

As at most of our venues, parking is a bit complicated at Lewis Morris. We will first fill the lot down near the infield at Sunrise Lake, and once that is filled, we will start parking at the overflow lots at the top of the hill. Please follow the direction of the parking staff and volunteers onsite. There will be a designated drop-off spot near the infield only for team tent drop-offs. Everyone else can do equipment drop-offs in the Sunrise Lake lot, and then park up in the overflow parking area as necessary.

Please remember – walk your bikes between the parking lot and the infield. Always stay in control as you are riding anywhere in the park. The Morris County Park Commission has been wonderfully supportive of us throughout the years, and we want to remain respectful of their facilities and the community who uses them.

Other important reminders

We’re doing Adventure a bit differently this weekend! We’re going to ride some of the Lewis Morris trails that aren’t included in the race course AFTER Saturday’s race and podiums! Meet us at the A. C. Daughtry tent at 1 p.m. and we’ll head out and check out some of the fun at Lewis Morris – and maybe at the end we’ll see who has been working on their bike limbo skills!

We still have some awesome new NJ NICA shirts, socks, hats and stickers available at the merch tent – bring your cash or credit card and get some NJ NICA gear you can wear to show off your #njshredz pride all year long!

Please support your local bicycle shop, which is the hub of our cycling community, and our amazing league and national sponsors, who make all of this possible!