Cyclists ready to hit the road for 40th annual Anchor House Ride for Runaways
Cyclists will head to the Shenandoah Valley this weekend and pedal back to Lawrence to raise money for a local charity that provides shelter to runaway, abused and neglected teens and young adults.
The 40th annual Anchor House Ride for Runaways will begin in Harrisonburg, Virginia, this Sunday, July 8.
Cyclists from Mercer County and beyond will pedal the 500 miles back to Lawrence over seven days. The cyclists come from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and several other states, including Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Arizona and California. The youngest cyclist participating in the ride is 18, and the oldest cyclist on the ride is 79.
On Thursday night, the 155 cyclists participating in the ride this coming week loaded their bikes on a truck bound for Virginia.
The cyclists and 38 support crew participants will gather at Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton for a send off celebration at 7:30 a.m. this Saturday, July 7. The event is open to the public and includes a light breakfast. Buses will depart for Virginia at 8:30 a.m. sharp.
Anchor House cyclists will make stops in Winchester, Va., Frederick, Md., Gettysburg, Pa., Lancaster, Pa., and Lansdale, Pa. before returning to the Garden State. On July 14, the cyclists will arrive at the Quaker Bridge Mall at 3 p.m.for a closing ceremony and learn how much money the ride has raised.
Cyclists collect donations from friends, family and colleagues to support Anchor House, the nonprofit based in Trenton that serves young people from Central New Jersey and beyond.
For more information about Anchor House or to make a donation to a cyclist participating in the Ride for Runaways, visit Anchorhouseride.org.
Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.
Stop the presses. Here comes the annual saturation coverage of an obscure event of little relevance to readers.
Many of the cyclists are from our coverage area, Anchor House serves our community, including teens and young adults from our coverage area, and many readers support this charity. A local reporter has been covering the ride for all 40 years, and we will continue to carry that torch as the media sponsor for the ride. Anchor House is quite well known in the community and the ride is considered one of the top charity bike rides in the country. As a reader, if you are not interested in a story, of course you don’t have to click and read it. We try to offer a variety of stories about our area. Not everything will be of interest to everyone.