Ever gone back to a park that served as a cyclocross venue a week or so afterwards, to see if you can remember the course? If you have, then you’ll know as well as I do that more often than not, though the course marking might be down, the damage left from the tires leaves an impression you can still follow around.
As a racer, who lives near cyclocross venues, I like the fact that I can revisit a course I raced and re-ride it. But, as you can imagine, not everyone sees this the same way I do, like other park users, or the city parks department… On the one hand, I’m sure park officials are pleased to see the parks getting put to good use. I mean, why have parks if no one uses them? But, on the other hand, having to spend city park budget money to re-seed, or sod sections of the park each year due to the furious churning of knobby CX wheels, might not sit as well.
Here in Edmonton, we’ve got it pretty good. Our local bike advocates cooperate with the city parks department, and we’ve come up with a system where we are constantly changing the courses, and moving the locations of the races altogether, to ensurewe the grass has all the time it needs to recover, all on its own. So far this has worked out pretty well for us, but in Toronto, the battle for cyclocross race park locations has heated up.
“My hands were tied,” says Mr. Martuzalski, a former member of the Polish national cycling team. He says he was turned down for permits at five or six other parks, with supervisors telling him he would have to run his off-road race along paved bike trails if he held it in more central parks such as Riverdale, Cedarvale, Christie Pits and Winston Churchill.
Here is the article from the Globe and Mail.
What do you think? Should public spaces, like city parks be off-limits to sports like cyclocross, or is there a better solution?
Have thought about this in light of approaching our city for a race.
My plan was to commit to decommission the course when we are finished, including doing all turf work necessary.
The problem isn’t necessarily the course wear and tear but also risk of permanent trails forming if you don’t properly decommission. Especially here where things grow back very slowly.
Sounds like moving the courses around is a good plan too.
@ Anthony – yes, keeping the course to (1) usage is pretty key. Here in Edmonton, a Tuesday Nighter will see anywhere from 50 to 110 racers show up, and because this is a weekly event, we bounce back and forth between (2) locations, and change up the course each time to ensure we’re not leaving any permanent trails behind. We also keep the Tuesday Nighter season pretty short, (8) races I think, so only (4) in each locale. Seems to be working :-)
Hi Anthony. I organize a couple of cx races in Calgary and have photographic evidence of the effects of a ‘cross race on turf. 2 years ago we held a very muddy and snowing race at the U of C and I was really concerned about the backlash from the event. To cover my bases I took a bunch of photo’s of the damage the week following the event and then I went back in the early Spring to take photo’s from the same spots … the damage is non-existant. After contacting the grounds department at the U of C to discuss any concerns they had I was surprised to hear that they had no issues what so ever. If you want some photo’s to add to your request for a venue please get in touch with me at ed.landbydesign at shaw.ca Cheers, Ed
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the info!