Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 17, 1994 TAG: 9408170079
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: GREENSBORO, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Dennis, you may recall - as he will never forget - was the first rider to go over the valley's mountain time trial of the sixth Tour in May. Boy, did he go over.
The Australian cyclist sailed head over heels into an orchard on Mount Chestnut. He got several days in a hospital, and the Tour organizers, Medalist Sports of Richmond, got $22,000 in medical bills.
You might say Dennis made a different kind of economic impact on the Roanoke Valley than the nation's premier cycling event usually delivers.
He just wasn't quite sure what he was getting into on the 22.9-mile roller-coaster ride. The same can be said for Cycle Roanoke Valley Inc., the non-profit board that organized the Star City stage.
The first year for Cycle Roanoke Valley certainly was non-profit. What was aesthetically a very successful Monday time trial left the committee $14,000 short of its $65,000 budget.
The corporation asked its municipalities to pitch in - a race it still is finishing - then decided it wanted to stay on the Tour map.
Which brought Cycle Roanoke Valley to this kudzu capital of the South on Tuesday, when the seventh Tour DuPont route was unveiled for 1995. Roanoke again gets a time trial, on May 1 - same distance, same day of the week, same diabolical direction over two mountains.
The difference is that not only does Cycle Roanoke Valley really know what it is selling this time, so do those it will be trying to sell. This is about more than trying to peddle pedal-pushers.
Just as a community can't afford to buy the kind of exposure it gets from an international event such as the Tour - Medalist estimates the air time the Roanoke Valley got from ESPN and CBS at about $900,000 - seeing is believing.
Yes, a time trial, with riders leaving at one-minute intervals, isn't as spectacular to spectators as watching the peloton pedal past. However, several times Tuesday, it was reiterated how crucial the Roanoke Valley's role was in this year's Tour.
Michael Plant, Medalist's president, said the Roanoke route ``has earned a reputation around the world.'' Cycle Roanoke Valley will be selling that in its own back yard, along with Roanoke City Market-milling crowds at the finish line and spectators lined along the route through Salem and Roanoke County.
Brian Duncan, assistant director of economic development for Roanoke County and Cycle Roanoke Valley's vice president, said the organization will pay a maximum rights fee of $7,500 to Medalist for 1995.
It may be lower. That's a small price to pay for an event that more than 40 cities wanted next year, a 1,050-mile, 12-day ride that will run a week earlier than this year and pedals into South Carolina for the first time.
Cycle Roanoke Valley's budget will be a figure slightly north of $100,000. That's because the organization must accommodate two more teams of riders than in 1994, pay the first-time rights fee - which is more reasonable than most - and try to turn a profit because it aggressively wants more of the Tour in 1996.
``We have a better understanding of what it takes to put on a stage of the Tour now,'' Duncan said. ``We're going to be increasing the levels of sponsorship, and we're going to try and touch more people.''
Cycle Roanoke Valley plans to sell $5 raffle tickets for a trip abroad - it's not the Tour de France - and Laban Johnson, Roanoke City's Special Events Coordinator and a committee member, said he already senses a different mind-set about the Tour.
``People are excited about it because they know what it is now,'' Johnson said. ``They're not asking what it's about like they were last year. They want to be involved because they know.''
Cycle Roanoke Valley wants more of the Tour in '96, a start or a finish to go with a time trial the day before or after. Roanoke's stage follows the grueling Lynchburg-to-Blacksburg leg in '95. There's no secret the Star City wants one of those pieces - and Lynchburg's contract is up next year.
Cycle Roanoke Valley doesn't see just a bike race. It sees a Tour luring tourism. On next year's map, Greenville, S.C., gets what Hagerstown, Md., used to have. Wytheville's loss of a start is Galax's gain.
Plant said ``there was little question'' Medalist would keep Roanoke on the map once the only non-governmental organization it works with was sure it wanted to recycle Roanoke Valley.
``We've found before that the first year someone has the Tour, it's common that they just don't fully understand what they can do with it,'' Plant said.
Cycle Roanoke Valley knows what it has. What this racing team needs is more people along for the ride.
Write to Jack Bogaczyk at the Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010-2491.
by CNB