Posted: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:00 am
Democrat-Herald
Downtown Albany would be the scene of a series of bicycle races the Sunday before Memorial Day if plans come together and the city council agrees.
Jim Lawrence, a member of the city's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, said Mayor Doug Killin brought up the idea several months before his death, and a committee has been working on it since.
Lawrence and Robert Hughes, a physician and bike racer, were scheduled to present the proposal to the council during a work session starting at 4 this afternoon at City Hall.
Council approval is needed because the organizers would need to have streets blocked off and perhaps some patching done ahead of time.
The races would take place May 25 in the format of a criterium, in which racers do laps on a short circuit on downtown streets.
The start and finish would be on Washington Street at Second or Third Avenue.
Activities would start around 9 or 10 in the morning and run through mid-afternoon.
The Downtown Association and Albany Visitors Association are on board with the idea, according to Lawrence.
The event would be sanctioned by the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association. Lawrence said that except for one mountain bike race, no other races are scheduled in Oregon that weekend, so the event could attract plenty of road racers from around the state.
Unlike road races, which typically cover many miles of countryside, criteriums are typically more interesting to spectators because the racers do laps on a short circuit in town.
No organized bike races have been held in Albany for more than a generation. Lebanon organized at least one criterium in the 1980s.