Press Release
Cycling forward
May 8, 2006
PIEDMONT - Sherman Pitts was pumped about his time in Sunday's Cheaha Challenge cycling race. He covered the 102-mile course from Piedmont to Mount Cheaha and back in 6 hours and 44 minutes, down sharply from 8:09 last year. The Bynum native and chief financial officer for Birmingham-based Red Diamond Coffee & Tea was just as pumped about his company's first year as sponsor for the Noble Street Festival restaurant tour, which has grown up around the annual Sunny King Criterium races.
"I hope this is an annual event for us," Pitts said as he relaxed under a tent, about 30 yards from a Red Diamond truck trailer. "That's what I'm planning, and maybe we need to get a little more involved in the 'century' (Cheaha Challenge, a 100-plus-mile race). .. It's just a great event."
Pitts' review of his company's first year of sponsorship punctuated a weekend of growth for Anniston's annual cycling bonanza, which encompassed Saturday's criterium races and Sunday's century race.
The Cheaha Challenge saw 450 riders pre-register, up from a typical preregistration of about 250. A field of 589 launched from Piedmont Civic Center on Sunday morning despite forecasts of rain and a thunderstorm that passed over Mount Cheaha, prompting a 20-minute start delay.
A record 125 riders started Saturday night's men's pro criterium in downtown Anniston, drawn by the race's inclusion on USA Cycling's National Racing Calendar and the new USA Crtierium series.
Inclusion on the NRC made the men's pro race a points race for USA Cycling, and the USA Criterium series has its own points system. Saturday's men's pro race was the finale for the six-race USA Crit series' first year.
The race drew London-based cycling.tv global marketing director Steve Masters, whose Web site will provide race coverage. The site also plans to air a 30-minute, locally produced eco-tourism video highlighting the area's cycling-friendly features like Mount Cheaha.
Earlier this year, Anniston's annual cycling weekend also debuted on Gov. Riley's top 10 list of Alabama tourism events.
Argentine rider Juan Jose Haedo, riding for Toyota-United Pro Cycling, won the Sunny King Criterium men's pro race for the second consecutive year. Colavita sprinter Tina Mayolo-Pic, from Dahlonega, Ga., won the women's pro race.
New Zealand's Gordon McCauley, a professional rider for Monex, was the overall Cheaha Challenge winner. Mountain-bike pro Tarrah Macbeth, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., and riders for Chattanooga-based Vantaggio-Specialized, was the top female finisher.
McCauley and Macbeth, both first-time riders in the Cheaha Challenge, represent what principal organizer Mike Poe had hoped would play out over the weekend.
McCauley's team came to Northeast Alabama to race in the criterium, but the century race marked a training opportunity for upcoming stage and road races.
"We figure, as long as we're here, why not do it," he said.
Macbeth, whose husband knows Anniston native Lucy Vandervoort from Vanderbilt University, came via word of mouth. Macbeth stayed with the Vandervoorts, one of 32 families who housed 112 riders over the weekend.
Poe had hoped the criterium's upgrade in status and Anniston's hospitality would help to draw more professional riders for both days of racing.
"We definitely saw growth this year, and the downtown races were just at a different level," said Poe, a financial consultant for A.G. Edwards. "Being on the USA Crit series and the NRC is what really did that.
"I think, also, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in the cycling/racing world, because a lot of these more established races don't maybe show quite the hospitality like a race like ours does, as far as the host housing and the meals and reserved parking and treating the pros like they're professional athletes as opposed to just somebody coming in to race.
"We feel like that, because our community treats them so well, they want to come back here."
Organizers have planned meetings this week to discuss this year's cycling weekend and how to improve on it. They also await feedback from patron interviews conducted by Jacksonville State University students. The feedback will give organizers a better idea of economic impact, Poe said.
"The goal was to get a thousand surveys completed," he said. "There were three students who walked around the festival asking simple questions about zip codes, did you stay at a hotel last night, how many people traveled with you. We hope to be able to have some numbers on that."
Organizers already have positive feedback from key USA Crit and Red Diamond figures.
Gene Dixon, who organized the USA Crit series, said Saturday's men's pro race was the best of the six races, including his own. The Athens, Ga., resident heads up the 27-year-old Athens Twilight Criterium, the first race on the USA Crit series.
"The series went great, and this is the best race by far of all of them," he said. "There was a lot more action, a lot more stuff happening."
He wants to expand the series, but said he sees the Sunny King Criterium as a fixture on the schedule.
"We hope to do this with the 10 existing races across the country and make it a national series," Dixon said. "This is a good start for us.
"We'll keep this series as a southeastern series, so this will always happen this way, but our national series will be this type of racing across the country."
Red Diamond's sponsorship included supplying fork-and-knife sets, tea and water for Noble Street's restaurant tour Saturday. The company served tea and water products at Sunday's Cheaha Challenge.
Pitts lauded the event's local organization.
"There are so many volunteers," he said. "It's such a great event because it's well-organized. With all of the growth this year, the fact that it was as well organized as it was is just simply amazing."
Bikers racing in the Cheaha Challenge, smile Sunday after early morning showers stopped.