Tour de Leelanau

Sept. 7, 2005

With the whole world captivated by Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France, it seemed inevitable that the passion of bicycle racing would settle on the scenic hills of Northern Michigan, which has long been a cyclist’s paradise.
And on Saturday, Sept. 17, a handful of local riders will have a chance to test their mettle against some of the best in the
U.S. when the Tour de Leelanau thunders along an “S” shaped course through Leelanau County.
Spectator moments like in La France?
You bet.
“The race course is designed for people to see the racers pass by at one spot and then ride or drive to another to catch them going by again,” says organizer
Steve Brown.
Brown heads-up Iceman Productions which stages the annual 27-mile Iceman Cometh mountain bike race from Kalkaska to Traverse City. The Iceman has become a Midwest phenomenon, filling up its 2,000 rider capacity almost a year in advance of its staging each November.
Brown hopes that the first annual Tour de Leelanau will prove a similar hit,
noting that road racing has come back in a big way.
“Certainly with Lance Armstrong’s publicity and victories, road racing is definitely coming back,” he says. “Today at the bike stores, the majority of sales are geared to road bikes because all of the cyclists already own a mountain bike and they want to get back into road riding.”
He estimates that there are up to 1,000 road races each year in the U.S. at present, but those numbers could grow as the sport re-ignites.
The local race got its start last fall when Joe Bottenhorn and Bill Morrison of the Leelanau Chamber of Commerce approached Brown with the idea of a major cycling race in the county. Additional support came from the sponsoring Leelanau Sands Casino in Peshawbestown, which is where the race will end.
A race through the vineyards, forests, meadows, hills and scenic lakescapes of Leelanau County? Brown, the cycle race expert, was in.

RIDING ROOTS
Brown raced bicycles in Europe as an amateur from 1975-’80. “I lived in the slums of Ghent, Belgium during the summer of 1980 on my own as an expatriate with a lot of other riders from around the world,” he recalls. “I ended up living with some Australian riders. It certainly was an education on how to race bikes.”
Today, he still rides approximately 100 miles per week, often on Mission Peninsula where he and his family live – one of the premiere cycling destinations for the entire region.
But you won’t see Brown or many other local riders in the Tour de Leelanau, because it’s a by-invitation-only race offered to the best-of-the-best teams.
“Part of it is this is a race sanctioned by USA Cycling, so it’s different from the Iceman where anyone can participate,” Brown says. “We don’t want to impact traffic in Leelanau County any more than we have to, so that means we don’t want guys like me pedaling 10 minutes behind the race. We want only the highest-level athletes involved in order to keep the race together.”
That means that only pros or top amateurs with a U.S. Cycling Federation 1, 2 and 3-level license will make the cut. Some may be Olympic hopefuls or corporate-sponsored cycle teams, such as a high-ranking team from Grand Rapids racing for the Advantage Benefit Group.
The result will be 13 teams of eight men each riding a 77-mile course that kicks off from Leland at 10 a.m., and 10 teams of five women each riding a 53-mile course that leaves from Glen Arbor immediately after the men pass through.
This will also be a “rolling closure” race in which vehicles from the Leelanau County Sheriff, Tribal Police, Suttons Bay Police and Michigan State Police will box in the riders front and back for their traffic safety. There will also be some 90 road junctions to monitor for the protection of cyclists and motorists alike.
“My concept is to keep the race as simple as possible this year, so we can learn for the years ahead,” Brown says.

LOCAL HEROES
Northern Michigan has its share of top riders, most of whom are well-acquainted with the hills of Leelanau County. Currently, Bob McLain, owner of McLain Cycle in TC, is putting together local teams of men and women to test the outside competition.
Brown and some of the riders like to think of the local teams as the “Cutters,” after the hometown riders in the biking film, “Breaking Away.” In that film, some plucky local teens took on a snooty college team and some dastardly European riders in a bike race in Indiana.
The Cutters did pretty good in “Breaking Away,” and Brown thinks that local riders could give the Tour peloton a run for its money, especially considering their intimate knowledge of the course and the fact that Northern Michigan cyclists eat a lot of hills for breakfast. By contrast, a hot-shot rider from a flatland town like Ann Arbor may be in a bit of a surprise when it comes to climbing the mile-long, 400-foot ascents up and down the Leelanau County plateau.
Speaking of which, there will be races within the race, including a hill-climbing competition of five of Leelanau’s steepest grades and a sprint competition with five all-out drag races along the flats.
The race will streak through most every Leelanau County community at some point, so if you hope to catch a glimpse, simply take your seat at roadside the morning of Sept. 17.
Interested in riding? Simple, just start biking your brains out during your collegeyears, get a USCF license and get on a team a few years down the road. Or, check out the Iceman mountain bike race -- you can probably still get in the November, 2007 event, if you apply early.
Better yet, check out the Leelanau Harvest Tour which winds its way through the country the day after the race on
Sept. 18, at a much gentler pace. Check out www.traversetrails.com for info.