Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 14, 1993 TAG: 9305140035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: HOT SPRINGS LENGTH: Medium
That's what the Tour DuPont may sound like when it passes Roanoke this morning. On the map of America's great and growing cycling event, the Star City is little more than a speed bump.
The nation's premier bike race will go through the Roanoke Valley on four wheels, getting from Thursday's finish at The Homestead - the riders' favorite stop, for obvious reasons of luxury - to today's stage 9 start in Blacksburg.
The fifth annual Tour DuPont seems to be everywhere in Virginia. It went from Lynchburg through Bedford, Botetourt, Alleghany and Bath counties on Thursday. However, it isn't in the state's largest city west of Richmond and south of the Washington metroplex.
While the state's tourism office is one of the Tour's major corporate sponsors, the sports consciousness of one of the commonwealth's major cities obviously is still on training wheels.
On Wednesday they were laughing at Roanoke in Lynchburg, which found a way to get a Tour stage finish-start that Roanoke lamely inquired about. On Thursday, Hot Springers were smiling because they had something Roanoke doesn't. The crowing will continue in Blacksburg today.
"We can't get this event because we don't try," moaned Roanoke City councilman Delvis "Mac" McCadden, who watched the crowded and controversial end of a 113-mile mountainous trip Thursday that took nearly five hours. "We're too conservative."
May is a busy convention month in Roanoke. Hotel space is at a premium, said Martha Mackey, director of the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Roanoke couldn't displace renting groups when it had a chance to bid for the 1993 Tour DuPont. Lynchburg had space available, and the businesses there made it work by renting rooms and donating them back to the chamber of commerce.
"Lynchburg wanted this and went after it and found a way to do it," McCadden said.
Roanoke should do the same. Luring the Tour is a very realistic goal because of its proximity, but while the Star City talks about considering a bid three years down the road, Lynchburg has signed a two-year contract with a one-year option.
Yes, a Tour stop must commit about 400 hotel rooms and three meals daily for 500 people - free - to get on the map. Yes, it's worth it. Richmond and Lynchburg figure a $2 million economic impact from the Tour's trip through town.
Maybe Roanoke has the Virginia State Golf Ball Washer Manufacturers convention in town, but does that group get you into a special on CBS or a half-hour on ESPN? Does it get the Star City on the tube in the more than 70 countries that see the Tour? That's more than see the Super Bowl.
Last year, the Tour received coverage in 908 newspapers in the United States and more than 200 foreign papers. More than 100 magazines reported on the Tour. It's not just those numbers that should jump out at Roanoke.
The Tour also interests the audience advertisers want. Demographic surveys taken by Tour organizing Medalist Sports of Richmond show that of the Tour's TV viewers, 48 percent were in the 25-44 age bracket. Of the on-site and TV spectators, 57 percent earned more than $30,000 annually.
Until the power brokers in Roanoke begin to understand that you have to evaluate the value of attainable, major sports events with sense as well as dollars, then the Star City will remain out on the bypass.
A person whose greatest feat on a bike was riding the entire 7 miles of the Atlantic City Boardwalk - and back - as a teen-ager 25 years ago isn't an expert on cycling. However, he can easily spot a great sports event when he sees one.
The Homestead can't buy the kind of exposure it received Thursday. The Tour is an event of pedaling and peddling. In a hamlet like this, it means a convergence of Main Street and Madison Avenue.
And - surprise - it's free to spectators.
After those 113 grueling miles, the finish was remindful of the cavalry charge at the start of the Kentucky Derby. And long before the VDOT warning truck rode through with the "Bicycle Race Follows" sign on the roof, portable generators weren't needed to produce the electricity on the street.
Roanoke, you don't know what you're missing.
This Tour DuPont is a bikers' convention anybody should want.
by CNB