May is National Bike Month and Santa Barbara’s Echelon Cycling Club is commemorating the event with a downtown criterium on Saturday, May 22.
The Santa Barbara Downtown Spring Criterium is expected to draw high-level riders from all over Southern California. They’ll be racing around Alameda and Alice Keck Parks around the clock from 8 a.m. to around 4:30 p.m.
This is the first downtown bike race since in the Semana Nautica Criterium back in 2004.
There will be 10 races on the schedule, including a fun race for the public. Each race will have a time limit and a set number of entries. The public race is limited to 50 riders and will run 15 minutes.
The competitive races will go between 35 minutes for the women’s category 4 to 75 minutes for men’s pro 1, 2, 3 event.
All the races will start at the intersection of Santa Barbara and Micheltorena streets. The riders will make left turns at East Sola, Garden, Arrellaga and back onto Santa Barbara Street to the finish line at Micheltorena. One lap around the two city parks is a mostly flat 0.62 miles or 1 kilometer.
Riders will be vying for cash prizes and merchandise.
Riders can register for races at socalreg.com Several of the races are worth points on the SoCal Cup Series.
For more information, email race director Armando Requejo of Echelon at [email protected].
The criterium is sponsored by Traffic Solutions of the County of Santa Barbara.
Here is a list of the races scheduled for the Santa Barbara Downtown Criterium:
Category, start time, length of race
Men’s Category 4/5 8 a.m. 40 min
Masters 55+ / 60+ 8:50 40 min
Masters 45+ Cat 1-4 9:40 45 min
Men’s Cat. 3 10:35 55 min
Women WCC Cat 4 11:40 35 min
CycleMAYnia public race 12:25 p.m 15 min
Masters 30+ 3/4 12:50 40 min
Masters 35+ Cat 1-4 1:40 50 min
Women 1,2,3 2:40 50 min
Pro 1,2,3 3:40 75 min
