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Bicyclists riding from Michigan to Rochester stop in Village of Bergen's Hickory Park

By Virginia Kropf

BERGEN – Thirty cyclists who are members of HeartCycle’s Touring Club stopped to visit with Bergen Mayor Anna Marie Barclay and village administrator Cortney Gale on Sept. 25 during a nearly two-week ride from Grand Rapids, Mich. to Rochester.

Barclay and Gale welcomed the cyclists in Hickory Park.

This is year four of the HeartCycle’s Coast to Coast, which was originally formed as a cardiac research project, but has long since become simply a nonprofit bicycling club.

The riders departed Sept. 8 from Michigan on their 660-mile ride. They proceded south through rural Indiana, spending the first night in Battle Creek. In Bowling Green, Ohio, they stopped for a day of rest, before continuing on to Lake Erie and Downtown Cleveland.

From there, they rode the next three days near the Lake Erie shoreland, then into Pennsylvania and New York. From Dunkirk, they headed toward Buffalo, mostly on bike paths, arriving at Niagara Falls, where they spent two nights.

The 57-mile ride to Batavia took them a day, where they spent the night before heading to Bergen and the Erie Canal, where they planned to finish their ride to Rochester along the canal.

(Photo: Bergen Mayor Anna Marie Barclay, center, and village administrator Cortney Gale welcomed the Heart Cycle Touring Club to the village's Hickory Park during their ride from Grand Rapids, Mich., to Rochester. Photo courtesy of Anna Marie Barclay.)

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