How to Get ThereUS residents can ignore this first piece – go straight to “Race Location” below.
There are of course many airlines that fly transatlantic to the ‘States, principally from London & Manchester – British Airways, American, United etc., - and our personal favourite for an overall excellent ‘Economy Class’ experience – Virgin Atlantic.
NOTE / DISCLAIMER: We don’t work for Virgin and have no business connection with them, so we must stress that this is our subjective opinion.
Virgin offer comfy seating, regular snacks and meals and on most of their aircraft - excellent interactive, seat-back in-flight entertainment. Additionally they have a generous baggage allowances which effectively permits you to take both a suitcase and a bike bag FOC as part of that allowance despite their published restrictions on dimensions (best to let them know about the bike bag a few days in advance though).
Aim to fly direct into either Washington Dulles (IAD) or Baltimore (BWI). Both are about a 2 to 3 hour drive away from South Central Pennsylvania. New York is also an option – but it’s a 5 hour drive and you’d have to negotiate the urban conglomeration around the city before striking out onto the New Jersey Turnpike and beyond…
Expedia, Lastminute and Opodo are good places to go to book flights and of course all have concessionary rates for Car Rental too.
There do seem to be more flight options to Dulles, but it can be a real nightmare getting through Immigration and Customs – AKA Homeland Security (allow 2 hours to do that!) and the road system in and out of the Airport can be confusing for a first timer. Some of our American friends say that Baltimore is better in both respects, but we have no experience of BWI and accept that advice untested, as it were.
In that regard, PLEASE make sure you check this following site carefully before you make any transatlantic bookings:- http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm
It’s a long way to go to find that they turn you back to the UK because you don’t have the correct documentation or Visa…
Also note that Homeland Security insist that you provide them with an address that you will be staying at on your first night in the USA (this of course will be your hotel or B&B – see “Where to Stay” below).
Rather than map-read, our advice would be to hire a GPS / TomTom from the Car Rental agent, or bring your own with USA mapping loaded onto it. Thus all is ease and comfort. However there are other online resources to help you…
Race Location
The Iron Cross Weekend’s activities are all based around the YMCA Campsite at Camp Thompson, near Fuller Lake in the Michaux State Forest. As everyone reading this piece has access to the www, simply go to http://www.googlemaps.com/ and paste this data into the search box - Pine Grove Rd @40.041304, -77.270806
This is the exact location of car parking for the race, and Camp Thompson lies at the end of Ice House Road (only official vehicles are permitted along the latter – which is unmetalled and also the start point for the Iron Cross on Sunday morning).
Where to Stay
Harrisburg (1 hour from start), Gettysburg (1 hour), Carlisle and Shippensburg (both 30 mins) are all good options. However bear in mind the race start time and the fact that most Motels / Hotels in the USA don’t / won’t serve breakfast early enough for you to feed and be “on the road” in time. Thus closer is better.
Look here: - http://www.tripadvisor.com/ We’ve only ever had one dud from this site (in Gettysburg and if anyone wants to know what it was – email me privately, we’ll be happy to “share”!).
Generally speaking US Hotel / Motel ‘chains’ offer a good quality of clean comfortable accommodation, but remember that breakfast is not always included in the price. We’ve had good experiences with Quality Inns ( http://www.qualityinn.com/ ) but most other chains offer similar levels of service.
Also have a look at http://www.visitpa.com/ – there is lots of general tourism advice and access to private home B&Bs and Guesthouses bookings – and they even sponsor a Cycle Team!
Finally you can book a space in the bunkhouse accommodation at Camp Thompson itself. Very Cheap indeed - $20 for the weekend.
There are of course many airlines that fly transatlantic to the ‘States, principally from London & Manchester – British Airways, American, United etc., - and our personal favourite for an overall excellent ‘Economy Class’ experience – Virgin Atlantic.
NOTE / DISCLAIMER: We don’t work for Virgin and have no business connection with them, so we must stress that this is our subjective opinion.
Virgin offer comfy seating, regular snacks and meals and on most of their aircraft - excellent interactive, seat-back in-flight entertainment. Additionally they have a generous baggage allowances which effectively permits you to take both a suitcase and a bike bag FOC as part of that allowance despite their published restrictions on dimensions (best to let them know about the bike bag a few days in advance though).
Aim to fly direct into either Washington Dulles (IAD) or Baltimore (BWI). Both are about a 2 to 3 hour drive away from South Central Pennsylvania. New York is also an option – but it’s a 5 hour drive and you’d have to negotiate the urban conglomeration around the city before striking out onto the New Jersey Turnpike and beyond…
Expedia, Lastminute and Opodo are good places to go to book flights and of course all have concessionary rates for Car Rental too.
There do seem to be more flight options to Dulles, but it can be a real nightmare getting through Immigration and Customs – AKA Homeland Security (allow 2 hours to do that!) and the road system in and out of the Airport can be confusing for a first timer. Some of our American friends say that Baltimore is better in both respects, but we have no experience of BWI and accept that advice untested, as it were.
In that regard, PLEASE make sure you check this following site carefully before you make any transatlantic bookings:- http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm
It’s a long way to go to find that they turn you back to the UK because you don’t have the correct documentation or Visa…
Also note that Homeland Security insist that you provide them with an address that you will be staying at on your first night in the USA (this of course will be your hotel or B&B – see “Where to Stay” below).
Rather than map-read, our advice would be to hire a GPS / TomTom from the Car Rental agent, or bring your own with USA mapping loaded onto it. Thus all is ease and comfort. However there are other online resources to help you…
Race Location
The Iron Cross Weekend’s activities are all based around the YMCA Campsite at Camp Thompson, near Fuller Lake in the Michaux State Forest. As everyone reading this piece has access to the www, simply go to http://www.googlemaps.com/ and paste this data into the search box - Pine Grove Rd @40.041304, -77.270806
This is the exact location of car parking for the race, and Camp Thompson lies at the end of Ice House Road (only official vehicles are permitted along the latter – which is unmetalled and also the start point for the Iron Cross on Sunday morning).
Where to Stay
Harrisburg (1 hour from start), Gettysburg (1 hour), Carlisle and Shippensburg (both 30 mins) are all good options. However bear in mind the race start time and the fact that most Motels / Hotels in the USA don’t / won’t serve breakfast early enough for you to feed and be “on the road” in time. Thus closer is better.
Look here: - http://www.tripadvisor.com/ We’ve only ever had one dud from this site (in Gettysburg and if anyone wants to know what it was – email me privately, we’ll be happy to “share”!).
Generally speaking US Hotel / Motel ‘chains’ offer a good quality of clean comfortable accommodation, but remember that breakfast is not always included in the price. We’ve had good experiences with Quality Inns ( http://www.qualityinn.com/ ) but most other chains offer similar levels of service.
Also have a look at http://www.visitpa.com/ – there is lots of general tourism advice and access to private home B&Bs and Guesthouses bookings – and they even sponsor a Cycle Team!
Finally you can book a space in the bunkhouse accommodation at Camp Thompson itself. Very Cheap indeed - $20 for the weekend.
Log cabins, fresh air, clean showers & latrines, fantastic atmosphere all weekend and only 30 seconds from the start! Bring your own sleeping bag and catering and bear in mind that there’s no heating in the bunkhouses (a raging log fire in the central admin building though). It can get very cold at night in PA during October.
Places can be booked by going to the race registration page here:-
http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=6654
If anyone wants any further advice / insights into Iron Cross logistics for race entrants, please feel free to email me privately at Lemansgtman@ntlworld.com . See you all next month.
Places can be booked by going to the race registration page here:-
http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=6654
If anyone wants any further advice / insights into Iron Cross logistics for race entrants, please feel free to email me privately at Lemansgtman@ntlworld.com . See you all next month.
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