The national cycling championships brought the crowds out onto the streets of Napier. Photo / Doug Laing
The likelihood that the national road cycling championships will be held elsewhere next summer is a door-opener for entrepreneurial types pondering what other event can be converted to good use in the streets of Napier, and, for that matter, Hastings.
The event has had three successful years in Napier, raising
it to a new level and creating some sort of impression that Napier, velodrome or no velodrome, might become the cycling capital of New Zealand.
It had established some of the appeal of the European cycle racing scene, Marine Parade and the inner city had appealed as a scene for some sort of criterium racing at least, and any sports buff, even those not aligned with cycling, as a sport, recreation or even as a mode of travel, could see the potential.
Simple fact is, however, that on one hand events which close city streets and impact on businesses on those street fronts, tend to have some limited life, unless they're providing a windfall to those very businesses, and on the other they tend to need something special to outlast the novelty.
Thus it is, as Cycling NZ chairman Tony Mitchell says, probably the right decision by the Napier City Council to let it go for a while, though in this case intending that the championships will return to the streets of Napier at another time.
