Dauphin is set to be taken over by bikers this weekend as the Tour de Riding Mountain pedals its way closer. There are 3 events over both Saturday and Sunday, which serve as Manitoba's provincial championships and a Canada Summer Games qualifier.
Brent Burley is a member of 3P Cycling Club. He went over some of the specific races and events the Tour de Riding Mountain has.
"Saturday's event will be a road race, starting at Northgate Trails, heading north on Highway 10 through Riding Mountain park, there will be 2 options...there's 2 events on Sunday, in the morning there is an individual time trial, which is a race against the clock where riders are release in 1 minute intervals, to ride from Northgate Trails up the climb of Highway 10 into the park," said Burley.
For Saturday's road race, the Manitoba Provincial Road Championships & Gran Fondo, riders will either complete a 60 or 100 kilometer ride. Sunday morning's event, the Manitoba Provincial Time Trial Championships, will see riders race the clock and compete for the fastest time up the brutal climb of Highway 10.
Burley said Sunday afternoon's event will be the one most Dauphinites feel the impact of. They'll use a closed-off section of downtown to hold the Manitoba Provincial Criterium Championship, a street race with many laps. A map of the closures for the race is pictured below.
"Sunday afternoon with be a criterium race in downtown Dauphin, which will be the one that probably impacts people most for traffic...our headquarters for that race will be at Obsolete Brewing, and we'll use a couple block square going around a loop," said Burley.
It'll be a trial for sure, but not a time trial: a trial by fire. Though it's their 2nd Annual by technicality, they haven't yet hosted a race in Dauphin with these closures. Last year's race was cancelled because of weather and wildfire conditions.
"This is technically our second annual for this, but last year unfortunately it got cancelled due to the wildfire smoke made the conditions such that we couldn't ride it, so we don't have any exact history on how many [people] will show up, last year I think we had about 130 registered," said Burley.
With the scale of this event, being 3 separate Manitoba Provincial Championship races, and that it's going into Riding Mountain National Park and downtown Dauphin, there's been a lot of working together between all the parties involved. Burley said it's been a smooth ride so far, and he hopes that continues into the weekend.
"Deep in the winter we started applying for permits from Riding Mountain, they were great to work with, think it helped that we had sort of gone through this last year, and then working with the City of Dauphin, great group of people there, they're very helpful," said Burley.
The Tour de Riding Mountain is yet another great push to cement Dauphin as a premier biking destination.
