TOP BICYCLE RACE TO DETOUR AROUND ROANOKE VALLEY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 5, 1993                   TAG: 9302050053
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
TOP BICYCLE RACE TO DETOUR AROUND ROANOKE VALLEY
The Tour Du Pont, America's premier bicycling race, will bypass Roanoke this year, although it will run through Lynchburg, Hot Springs and Blacksburg.
The Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau and city economic development officials tried to persuade race officials to route the event through the valley.
But the proposal was not accepted. The bureau and city officials plan to make another bid next year.
"It was a kind of a mutual decision with [race officials] that we could consider something again next year," said Martha Mackey, executive director of the convention and visitors bureau.
The 1,100-mile race will begin in Wilmington, Del., on May 6 and end on May 16 in the North Carolina triad of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem.
The race is run in stages of 100 to 125 miles a day. It is televised to 200 million households in 88 countries.
Mackey said Thursday that the valley would have been required to provide free motel rooms and meals for 150 bikers and an entourage of 700 people.
"As far as economic development is concerned, it would have been quite a bit of outgo and not a lot of income," she said.
But it still would have benefited the valley, she said. Mackey said other festival and tourist activities could be scheduled as part of an overnight stop for the race.
Phillip Sparks, an economic development specialist for the city, had hoped that Roanoke would be on the route.
"We wanted to get our feet wet this year, so to speak," Sparks said. "We had hoped that next year a stage of the race could begin and end in the city" after a tour through the countryside; that way the city would get more exposure, Sparks said.
Sparks said the valley's chances of getting a stop on the tour would be boosted if it could find a corporate sponsor to help pay for the motel rooms and other expenses.
The cyclists will stop at Richmond on the night of May 11. The next day, they will race to Lynchburg and stay overnight on May 12. On May 13, the cyclists will travel to The Homestead resort at Hot Springs, where they will stay overnight.
On the morning of May 14, the bikers and the entourage will travel by automobile to Blacksburg, where the race will resume. The bikers will race that day to Beech Mountain, N.C.
If Roanoke's proposal had been accepted, a change in the route and schedule would have been required. The distance between Richmond and Roanoke is too far for the cyclists to travel in one day, according to Jimmy Birrell, technical director of the race. "Something would have had to change if we had stopped there."
The Tour Du Pont is the American version of the Tour de France, the top cycling event in Europe. It attracts the best cyclists.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB