It’s unusual for cars to stop on Kelly Drive, especially for a group of cyclists. Usually, they speed up and curse. But if a pack of bikers in red jerseys is flying down the road long the Schuylkill, some cars might slow down to ask one question: “Is one of you Elliot?”
No, Philadelphia has not suddenly embraced the “Share the Road” program. These motorists are looking for Elliot McAllister, a cycling coach and entrepreneur who has become the face of Philadelphia cycling through a kicky tourism campaign for VisitPA.com.
McAllister, 30, was picked almost by accident to star in one of a series of commercials for VisitPA.com, a website McAllister calls “Google for Pennsylvania,” which sent six groups through the state of Pennsylvania and asked them to write about their experiences online. McAllister’s commercial is by far the most recognizable. You know the one – a tan, attractive, fit young man peddles his bike through the woods of Pennsylvania and then rents a canoe. It’s obvious that he’s not an actor, but that’s part of the charm, which is key to why the campaign has worked so far; the Web site has seen a 225 percent jump in traffic since the series of commercials first aired this spring.
Why McAllister? Coincidence, to start. “They found me,” he says. Before writing about biking through Pennsylvania at VisitPA.com, McAllister rode his bike through Alaska as part of the 2005 Alaska Ultra competition, a 1,100-mike trek across the northernmost state. He wrote about the experience on a blog, which is what he did this summer at VisitPA.com – without, of course, the subzero temperatures.
McAllister started cycling when his dad bought him a candy apple red bike at a yard sale. “My parents always encouraged me to go outside,” says McAllister, an overall outdoor enthusiast who also enjoys hiking, kayaking, sailing and even gardening. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in mechanical engineering, McAllister came to Philadelphia to work for Christini, which was developing new biking technologies. When the stock market sank in 2001, so did Christini, and McAllister went to GlaxoSmithKline to work in robotics. “Small corporate didn’t work out, and big corporate had too many politics involved,” McAllister says, so he left Glaxo after six months, pulled an Office Space and became a roofer.
That was in 2002. Now McAllister, while also working as a cycling coach and riding as part Team Human Zoom Ardmore, runs his own roofing company, McAllister Construction. Both jobs keep him happy and keep him outside. The VisitPA.com commercial hasn’t made him all that famous yet. “My landlord called me when it came on,” he says. “My friends think they should make that into a ring tone,” McAllister says of a chirp he makes in the commercial when he rents a kayak. “It’s not a bad idea.”
