2024 Results – All the Things

Somehow Crush the Commonwealth ’24 seemed bigger than life. There was a lot going on the roads of Pennsylvania over the course of three days in late April. A favorable forecast with the promise of easterly winds coaxed out a field of no fewer than 30 starters to the Liberty Bell Friday morning. (Of course most riders did suffer through several hours of cold, miserable rain in the middle of the ride, but after all, it wouldn’t be CtC without some sort of smackdown from the weather gods…)

The lead story has to be the extraordinary performance of Owen M. and Jeff W. who, riding together, set a new westbound and overall course record of TWENTY HOURS AND SIXTEEN MINUTES!!! That’s right folks. Totally legit, no typo. 20h16m. I find it difficult to come up with superlatives to describe their ride. Just incredible.

The other notable story of the weekend was the unfortunate luck of the Philly rando crew: While riding together and making good progress Friday afternoon one of their gang hit a rock, blew a tire and crashed heavily on the descent into Chambersburg taking a second rider down with them. Both riders abandoned and one required an ambulance ride and a brief stay in the hospital in Maryland. The rest of their group DNF’d later after having been delayed at length to help their pals, and generally suffering from low morale as a result of their ordeal. I’m happy to report that all of them got home safely thanks to some awesome teamwork on their part and everyone is on the mend. No doubt they will be back to crush it again next time.

By my count we have twenty-one official finishers and four riders listed as “unofficial.” Mike and Jason opted to detour around the crushed limestone of the GAP and ride into PGH on the road. ACP and Jim rode the Crush the Commonwealth RUSA permanent, starting at near enough the same time as the “official” ride.

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T1	Owen Musser	        20h16m
T1	Jeff Watts	        20h16m
3	Jeff Koontz	        22h52m
4	Brian Crispell	        27h55m
5	Patrick Conneely        29h50m
6	Calvin Hogate	        30h29m
T7	Dan Connelly	        33h14m
T7	Uli Muench	        33h14m
T7	Drew Rolli	        33h14m
10	Justin Brubaker	        34h00m
11	Chad Umble	        34h40m
T12	Dan Nguyen	        35h55m
T12	Pete van Emmerick       35h55m
T12	Matt Wasserman	        35h55m
15	John Reicherter	        39h10m
16	Umberto Sanchez	        39h40m
17	Ron Anderson	        40h00m
18	Ryan Stanis	        40h55m
19	Steve Caramenico        55h30m
20	Jonah Ankrom	        59h52m
21	Nicholas Pilz	        65h07m
DNF	Graham Godbey	        Chambersburg
DNF	Ello Shertzer	        Chambersburg
DNF	David Coccagna	        Breezewood
DNF	Annie Gibson	        Breezewood
DNF	Chris Kline	        Breezewood
		
	"UNOFFICIAL"	
		
	Michael Chalfont        38h45m detoured GAP Trail
	Jason Vail	        38h45m detoured GAP Trail
	Audax Club Philadelphia	37h00m RUSA perm
	Jim Vreeland	        41h47m RUSA perm

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So, that's a wrap for this year. Please let me know if there are any errors or omissions. Thanks to all you crazy folks who keep showing up every spring to keep this party alive.

-RA