London does this, and it's a big, big event. Bike riders are totally non-partisan, and they don't care where or who, they just like to ride. These rides draw many out of town riders, and they probably stay one or two nights if they come from far away.
It could be on a Friday evening, or saturday, early or late. The fall of the year is a perfect time, as it shouldn't be so hot and humid.
We could have the "Varsity Club 150k", or the "Redhound 150k", or the NIBROC 150k" or "Corbin Tourism 150k" or whatever (thats a little over a hundred miles isn't it, is that too long.) We could even ask the Relay for Life if they would be interested. This would be the main event, the last one of the day. You can also have rookie or newby races, shorter in distance of course, to give new or older or other riders that aren't long distance riders a chance to participate. Have a womens only race, a under 12 race, a big wheel race, tricycle race, whatever you want. Not as long, just to get people in. The riding lawnmower races in W'burg are a big hit too. Add them to the weekend.
Even have a skate board drag race as a pre event. The boarders would love that. It would enable us to show off our skateboard park as well.
All the local colleges have bike teams I think, they would probably love to participate. Maybe he could even get a NCAA sanctioned event here if we did it up right.
Event routes, in order to promote street side fans, here are two of my suggestions.
The starting point could be either the Chamber offices, or Nibroc park, which ever is the best and easiest logistically wise.
1. Use the route from the Gordon st. short street to the one way split semi-circle by Harris Wheel Alignment. Traffic would be blocked to one lane from the split to 7th, then traffic would be routed through Depot st to 7th. Traffic would be routed from gordon, down poplar, to 7th,then up main to the split. At this point, cones would be used to make vehicle traffic one lane where needed, and the other lane for bikes. This route gives you a small hill on the course, up and down, and two sharp turns, left on gordon, then left on kentucky. Main and kentucky would be totally open for all out sprinting and passing.
2. Make kentucky a two way street temporarly. Use main and depot for the route. The route is from 7th to gordon. Start at the chamber building, up to gordon, to thrn left, then left on main, down to 7th, the left on depot. This would be a very safe route as there would be no vehicle traffic.
The shorter, specialized event races sould encompass only one block or so, or maybe make the route split on main st. only.
These are just suggestions of course.
We'd have to try to get the Tourism and/or Chamber of Commerce in on it to help promote it and help fund it. We could ask some local area bike shops for help and sponsorship, but I'm afraid the first one would probably have to be the Chamber/Tourism's baby. And, the city would play a major part in traffic control and such.
I'm sure there's something I'm leaving out, so put your comments on and let me know what you think. Please be gentle if you don't like it.
I like the idea, so I'll take a chance and sign my name.
It's a great idea. The Tour de London was a great success last month. You might want to consider adding a handcycling class to the race for disabled athletes. London had a wheelchair class in their race, and had several people attend from across the state. Greg Queen from Lily would be an excellent resource to help plan that class, because he helped plan the London race. Disabled athletes are just the same as regular athletes, they don't care where or who, they just want to race, and will travel to find a race that has a wheelchair class. That would bring an extra draw to our town.
I know I would help sponsor this event. And I will sign my name also!!!
So, is this worthy of presenting to the Tourism Committee to ask for their help and sponsorship? The wheelchair event is an excellent idea. I hadn't thought of that.
The more I think of this, the more I like it.
I have no idea of a cost of putting on this type of thing. I've been to London's, and it is huge, and will get bigger every year. There is no reason both towns can't have something like this.
One thing I know is you'll need lots of volunteer help. I see that with NIBROC. Traffic control, event organization, start/finish, sign up tables, and a whole lot more.
Corporate sponsors are very important, and it would worry me they're already maxed out on donations and sponsorship.
I think this could be a huge event. It would sure make me start riding the bike I bought and haven't ridden much.
Another thought, we could also approach Sharea Myers and incorporate the Downtown Project in with this event, since it would be downtown. I'm not sure how much she could help for now, but after she's certified next year, it may be a great event for her project to get on board with.
I've already gotten one call about this, concerning the distance. I just threw that 150k out there as a reference, but a friend that rides said that is a bit long for a bike race or ride. Now that I think of it, they're right.
But, that's why I wanted comments and opinions. So, we'll change it to meet the standards of cycling as needed.
I've received many more comments about this idea, and it's very encouraging. I think it would be a great event for corbin and the downtown.
Of course, it all depends on the city government getting involved, as well as the Tourism Commission and even other committees. I haven't gotten to the cost part of this yet, still looking for feedback on if it's worth persuing as an event, and if we could get enough people to paticipate.
One person did ask me about the date of the event, and I was thinking next fall or late summer. It would take that long to get things organized and advertised.
Anyway, thats where this is, and when I hear anymore details I'll pass them on. Also, I would love to hear some feedback from this board, good or bad, just to know your thoughts on this suggestion.
Great idea Jim. It would be great for downtown - start and finish in the heart of Main Street - and have bike vendors, sporting goods stores, accessory lines, athletic gear, sports drinks and and other vendor participation. Maybe end the night with a movie in the park. Again, great idea.
I would like to see this also. I visited friends in Ohio a couple years ago and their town had a similar event that was really successful, we had a great time, even though we were not riding.
As a corbin area cyclist, I would strong support this. I might be able to help, I went to corbin high school and now am a junior at UK where I am vice president of the cycling team and race almost year round. I worked at the bike shop in london and raced the tour de london, and I can tell you that the rides/races/events held by the london bike shop are experts in organizing these events. Unfortunately, I dont think theres enough support for a race here. You don't see a lot of cyclists in corbin; I think most people consider them a nuisance because they slow down traffic. From the 4 years i've been riding around in corbin, I've received much more negative comments than positive. It's often worth the drive to london to ride with that group of people.
A smaller starting point might be an alleycat style race. These races are usually informally announced via posters around town, and don't require a lot of organization. You just get whoever wants to race to meet somewhere at a time and place. Then, you distribute maps of the city marked with several checkpoints. Basically, everyone has to go to each checkpoint and get a card signed, or do a task like change a tire as quickly as possible. After all the checkpoints have been reached, you just go finish at the start. I've done a couple of these in lexington, and theyre pretty competitve and fun. It's basically a competition to see who knows the city best and can complete the course the fastest. If you are still clueless, go to youtube and search "alleycat race."
The only negative thing I can think of is that there is a lot of disobeying traffic laws by the participants. If your racing beside someone, your going to run a red light or stop sign to get ahead, if possible. But really, around here you wouldn't get pulled over, and registering for the race usually consists of signing a form saying you are responsible if you get hurt.
If there was enough interest, I would organize this kind of race myself.
Somerset is also holding their first race next season:
"local sanctioned races/Cumberland Cycles Promoted Races I am extremely pleased to announce that Mr. Brad Herrman, our club and team president has successfully negotiated with 2wheelsports to bring one of the six 2008 Kentucky/Indiana Spring Series Races to the Somerset area! We have not yet decided on a course, but we have the date. March 22, 2008. This Spring Series events are highly contested, and will bring national bracket racers and teams to our area. The six week event is a fairly significant national points series. Even though we would eventually like to bring a more festive event to the Somerset Area, a hard core "spring classic" type event is just perfect for us in our first year as a race host. There will be several hundred racers here, and very little "hub-ub". This is a serious event and mainly the hard-core points hunters will be racing.
We need volunteers for this race. Please contact us in the next several weeks to let us know is you can help marshal the race."
Also, just a point of interest, the UK team is in the midwest conference, so most of our races are north, and almost every race last spring was between 30-35 degrees. I dont know if UK could hold a race so far south, but i'll check. I dont think we are in the same conference as Union college, or if they even have a road team, and I am sure cumberland college has no bike teams, so theres no luck there.
Some great feedback on this, I really appreciate it. I've talked with a few others, and they threw some things up as well, so it would take some time to start on this type of project.
I really think this is worth persuing, even if it starts small, and works it way up over the years.
Union College has a cycling team, but I don't know if it's just off road, or a combo team. They have a mens and womens team.
I would appreciate any advice, experience, and help in this matter.
I'd love to talk about it, but I understand your privacy.
I think this would be good for the whole town, and for the region as well.
my email address is levip7@gmail.com. I'm not an expert on this issue but I might be able to help. The person to talk to would probably be the leader of union college's team. You might also ask the organizers of the london race and upcoming somerset race for some advice. I'm sure it will require determining various routes from 25-75 miles, promoting the race, setting up systems for registration, and getting volunteers. The main problem to face setting up a race in corbin is the lack of cycling community-- London and Somerset have had active clubs for some time now.
An update on this event so far. I've had several calls and contacts about it, all very positive, and not one negative as of yet. Several people has said they'll either participate or help volunteer to help run the show should it go forward and become a reality.
I've gotten some good advice on planning the event, and they type of event to push for. One of the best pieces of advice is to start small for the first one, and work it up to a larger one in the future. Good advice for a rookie I think.
The wheels could fall off tomorrow, but so far, I'll keep looking into it. And, if anyone has any advice or comments, please let me know.
One thing is expense of course, how much it'll cost to put it on, and the other is support from the city and tourism and such as that. I have no idea how that will go, but have received some very positive feedback from several people in those areas.
I'll keep you posted, and keep checking on things.
Also, in the event this thing takes off and we an pull it off, I've set up an email accout just for it;
cyclecorbin@hotmail.com
Should anyone have any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, or anything, good, bad or otherwise, feel free to email me at the above address and let me know. All help and information is appreciated. And, i will not reveal anyones info on anything they may have to tell me.
Also, again, feel free to comment on this site too.
One question that did come up, was when I wanted to do this. As of now, I would think august, sept, or october would be a good time. Nothing in stone, just tossing that out there.
I thought I'd go ahead and register and add to this post that I began a few months ago.
I've been asked by several folks if I had checked on this event any further. I have talked to a few people that ride and has raced in various types of these events, and they say it's a great idea, but would require someone that is very familiar with setting up this type of event, and getting all the necessary things in order before you jump in head first, especially for a true rookie like me.
I'm looking into it further, but not as agressively as I guess I should, but I'll keep going. It may not happen this year, at least at the level I had hoped it would, but maybe we can start on a smaller scale.
Someone mentioned starting a cycling club in corbin, and I think that's a good idea. As long as they have an over 40 and overweight and slow division I'm for it. Again, if there's anyone out there that knows how to form a club, step up, and I'll help as well.
Levi sent me some very good suggestions, ideas and information, and that helped too.
I'll start riding downtown again in a few more weeks, when the weather is a little nicer. Yes, I'm a fair weather rider, but, I'm just a rookie. Last fall, after I started riding more often, there were sevearl people riding downtown. Of course you have to watch traffic, but, there's places to ride that aren't as bad.
I ride up main, right on Gordon, down Depot, right on 7th, and then back up main. It's 8/10 of a mile on that route. It's not bad. It's surprising how even the smallest inclines make a difference. I also ride down poplar, up 4th (or is it 5th), back down 5th (or 4th) st, then over to 3rd, up 3rd, over to 7th, and down to poplar, up Ky. st. to the one way split, down main up to 7th, and down poplar and start all over again. For me, most traffic avoids me, thank goodness.
If you've got any ideas, suggestions, or want to ride, just let me know here, and we'll get to it, when the weather is better.
Somebody told me Corbin used to have a good Criterium race, which would be an easy event to plan since it would involve roping off only a few streets for a short period of time. They are usually more spectator friendly, too. If you don't know what a criterium is, it is a race around a short course (approx. 1 mile) with several turns where competitors do laps for 30min-1hour then race 3 more laps, and the winner is first across finish line. If you get lapped you lose. If anyone wants to watch one, come to the tour de london this year.
This could be a fine program for our community. Some Corbin students compete in cycling in some college programs. It is gaining in popularity. With the price of oil going sky high we we will soon have ride our bikes. It is great conditioning.
There are some great posts with ideas about these opportunities.
