Pro Cycling Comes to Philadelphia, June 8th

by KYW's Lauren Lipton

On June 8th, bicyclists and visitors will flood the city for the Commerce Bank Philadelphia International Cycling Championship -- and your help is needed.

"The volunteers that we recruit range from being a smiling, friendly face at an entranceway to a certain portion of the race, to course marshals, to helping with the setup."

Stephanie Simon is with the Pro Cycling Tour:

"It's definitely important to have a big smile on your face and to be willing to work with large groups of people for the whole day."

Bikers come in from all over the world, so a little help is needed there, too:

"(If) you speak conversational French, German, Spanish..."

Even if you can't make it to the race on June 8th, there is something that everyone can do as they see the cyclists around town the week before:

"We encourage people to give them a honk, give them a yell, give them a wave."

(When she says to yell, make sure it's something nice.)

"This is the largest single-day race event in North America."

If you want to volunteer, go to www.procyclingtour.com/volunteers.htm Simon says you won't be sorry:

"While we're thankful for the volunteers, because we couldn't do it without them, one of the things I find interesting is that at the end of the day, very often the volunteers are coming back to us and thanking us for allowing them to be part of the event."

That's Positively Philadelphia!