Wow…. thank you for sharing this. I’ve been out of the cycling scene for a while, but for those who haven’t witnessed it, a bike race is actually quite a lot of fun to see. The laps on the downtown mall should be excellent. It makes me wish I were still racing in order to do it.

Posted by Duane Gran on 28 January 2007 @ 7am

I miss the Tour DuPont coming through Fredericksburg back in the day. This might be worth a trip to go check out.

Posted by Jason on 28 January 2007 @ 9am

I also remember the Tour DuPont. One of my first stories on WVTF back in 1995 was about the Tour’s finish on the Roanoke City Market. Lance Armstrong won that trial.
The day before, I was in Blacksburg, standing on the roof of Backstreets as the riders came by. I was disappointed when the Tour Dupont fizzled out. Anyone know what happened?

I agree with Duane - the finish on the DownTown Mall will be exciting.

Posted by Sean Tubbs on 28 January 2007 @ 12pm

I’m very much looking forward to race this year. I’ve followed it - as the Tour of Shenandoah as it was previously known - the past couple years online and have often thought about heading over to the valley to see a stage or two but never actually made it. This year I’ve already scheduled time off work so I can catch the stage where they tackle both the Montebello climb as well as Reed’s Gap (the Tour de Trump/Tour duPont hit these slopes too). Having ridden both of those climbs, it’ll be great to watch folks racing up them at speeds I could only dream of. I also plan to be downtown to catch the final circuits of the last stage; should be very fun to watch! This race is actually gaining some notoriaty as a race for young up & coming racers. It’ll be interesting to see if it can continue to grow in the coming years as sponsorship (i.e. funding) can be very fickle (which is what helped lead to the end of the TdP).

Posted by mallfellow on 28 January 2007 @ 1pm