John Sowell will not be presiding over the next Township Council meeting here Aug. 10 - but he is being excused for a good cause.
Sowell, 44, anticipates being most of the way home from his anticipated July 17 start from Oceanside, California. He and concurrent bicyclist Joe Batista, 62, of Cranford, will be seven days west of finishing their nearly 3,000-mile cross-country trek in Newark.
"We'll be flying out in anticipation of starting in Oceanside," sad Sowell to "Local Talk" after the July 12 council meeting. "We anticipate traveling 90 to 120 miles a day, depending on weather and terrain. It'll be a straight trip through 10 states."
Sowell and Batista have considerable practice in bicycling long distances. The former Newark official in charge of city park cleanups, for example, has been a long-time member of the Major Taylor Cycling Club - New York/New Jersey Chapter.
The Major Taylor club takes regular cross-state trips on selected weekends. "Local Talk" found Sowell, State Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer (D-Newark) and some 40 other club members biking their way west from Newark Penn Station along Springfield Avenue into the Irvington border at about 8:45 a.m. July 3.
"The club members were excited about my trip," said Sowell. "There's a lot of cycling history here and in Newark."
The Irvington-Newark area, indeed, was an international cycling hotbed from the 1880s into the 1930s. Competitors used to line up at the Irvington-Maplewood border for the annual Irvington-Millburn Decoration Day (now Memorial Day) Race on Springfield and Millburn avenues 1880-1910.
The Vailsburg Velodrome (1890-30), at where the new Speedway School now stands, attracted the likes of champion riders Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor and East Orange's own Frank Kramer plus future auto racing stars Barney Oldfield and Ralph De Palma. Local interest in competitive road and speedway bicycling continued long enough to see the 1940 start of the current nationally-regarded Tour of Somerville.
Major Taylor (1878-1932) was World One-Mile World Champion 1899-1901. Taylor was second to 1890-1901 World Bantamweight Champion boxer George Dixon as the first African North American sportsman champion of international repute.
"I've been riding for 24 years," said Sowell. "I used to be a taekwondo champion until I got injured during a tournament. I was looking around for another sport and came across cycling."
Sowell, however, is riding more for a cause than for an adventure.
"I'm raising funds for the United Way," said Sowell, a 12-year council member. "We're starting a program on men's health."
Sowell's riding partner Batista, a retired GM assembly plant worker, is raising funds for Sister Pat's Kids Camp for children afflicted with cancer or blood disorders.
"I came across Joe on one of my trips months ago," said Sowell. "His wife (Rosalie) will be following us in a van. The van will carry spare parts and supplies."
Sowell will be using an aerodynamic carbon fiber framed 2010 Cervelo S2. Cervelo, founded in 1996 by two European engineers, was the frame of choice for the Tour de France and Summer Olympiad at Beijing winning riders in 2008. A two-rider Garmin-Cervelo factory team is currently competing in this year's Tour de France.
Sowell had placed his and Batista's trek between ending one job and starting the next later this summer.
"I left the City of Newark," said Sowell. "I'll be working with CitiLog, of Newark. We'll be building a saw mill in that city. That saw mill will be powered by burning wood chips."
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