By MIKE TERRELL
It's been a while -- 20 years -- since competitive cycling last graced the streets of Traverse City, but that's about to change when the inaugural Cherry Roubaix Bike Race takes to city streets Saturday.
The Tour de Michigan race made a stop in Traverse City in the late 1980s and since that time area mountain bike races -- beginning with NORBA and still going strong with the Iceman -- and more recently the Tour de Leelanau road race have continued to grow in popularity. But there was only the one attempt at establishing a criterium-style race, and Bob McLain hopes to change that.
"We had been hearing for a few years among the cycling community that they wanted to try and bring back a race to downtown Traverse City," said the owner of McLain Cycling & Fitness. "We have everything else connected with cycling, a great mountain bike race and road race, but nothing like the famous Paris-to-Roubaix race in France that takes place on city cobblestone streets.
"Criterium-style racing, which takes place on a closed-circuit city street course, is popular all over Europe. We hope to bring that same enthusiasm to downtown Traverse City with this inaugural event. The growth potential for this race in this environment is great. Everybody, from city council, the DDA, Convention and Visitors Bureau, and city police, have been really positive about the event and very cooperative," added the longtime cycling enthusiast.
McLain had to go around and get the signatures of all 99 people that owned property along the route stating that it was all right with them to shut down the street from 3-8 p.m. on Saturday.
"Not a single person objected, and most were looking forward to observing the event. It is exciting to watch with cyclists hurtling along city streets at speeds of 25 and 30 miles-per-hour."
The start/finish line will be in front of the Firefly and Haggerty Headquarters, and the race takes place in Traverse City's Old Town district. The course heads south on Cass Street quickly turning west on Lake Avenue, which becomes 7th Street after crossing Union. It turns north on Pine Street, back east on 6th Street to Union Street, than heads north crossing the river to the first alley that connects with Cass. From there it will be a sprint back across the river to the finish line. The course is approximately seven-tenths-of-a-mile in length.
"This is a great spectator sport. There are good vantage points all along the city streets, which will all be closed to traffic, for watching the race," McLain enthused. "You'll be able to see much of the race from the park along the river."
Events kick off at 3:30 p.m. with a couple of children's races. The USAC Masters Men race takes place at 4 p.m. followed by men and women's citizen's categories and the pro men and women, which are the last two events. The pro women's race starts about 6 p.m., and the men's race starts at 6:40 p.m.
"Once the race starts with the kid's events there will be a new wave of riders going off about every half-hour, give or take five minutes. Its non-stop action," added McLain.
A portion of the course, just like the famous French race, will actually cross a small section of cobblestone on 6th Street. Each lap, at least at the pro level, will take approximately one minute and 20 seconds to complete. They race for a specified number of minutes; anywhere from around a half-hour up to a full hour for the pro men. At the end of the timed segment they have one more lap to go for final positioning.
For the inaugural event they are expecting about 100 riders, and, at press time already had over 70 participants signed up.
"We are very encouraged with the response to this first event. It has been great, and we really expect it to just become bigger and better in subsequent years. This certainly helps to establish Traverse City's claim as the cycling capitol of the Midwest," McLain said emphatically.
Participants are competing not only for the bragging rights of the inaugural event, but for a $3,000 purse and merchandise that will be split among the top finishers. For more information or a last minute registration you can visit cherry-roubaix.com.
