Cycling: Devoy sets sights on Bay backing

Dame Susan Devoy helped secure approval for the multimillion-dollar cycling centre of excellence near Cambridge and has now set her sights on selling the venture in Bay of Plenty.

The joint Waikato-Bay of Plenty bid to build the $28.5 million cycling centre and indoor velodrome next to St Peter's School this week cleared its biggest hurdle when Environment Waikato agreed to kick in $6 million for the project, despite widespread opposition.

The regional council's backing prompted Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc) to confirm Waikato-Bay of Plenty Home of Cycling as the successful tenderer, although significant corporate and community funding was still needed, Devoy said.

The other short-listed regions, Auckland and Palmerston North, now drop out of the race.

Home of Cycling trustee Devoy said with top-class rowing based in Cambridge and Karapiro and the Home of Cycling at St Peter's, there was potential for a national centre of excellence. Canoeing NZ and triathlon are also considering using facilities in the area.

It has been estimated up to 60,000 people would use the facility, providing a catalyst for expansion of the sport at all levels - road, track and mountain biking as well as recreational cycling.

"I don't even have a particular interest in cycling but see this as a fantastic facility, with Cambridge set to become the nearest thing we've got to an institute of sport," Devoy said.

Environment Bay of Plenty has not yet thrown its weight behind the project, instead including the HOC on its annual plan. The estimated $500,000-a-year running costs would be covered by track rental, commercial tenants and naming right funding.

"The key thing for me now is to engender some support here because all the focus so far has been on Waikato," Devoy said.

"Most people here don't know about it and the perception is it's solely a Waikato project, which I can understand.

"We seem to always be the poor cousin in anything in relation to Waikato and it's hard to convince people here of the merits of something 80km away, but there's heaps of people in the region with a cycling interest. For the first time in a long time we've got the opportunity to be part of something that's the best in the world."

Rotorua's mountainbiking fraternity was behind the project, with obvious spinoffs for that city, and Devoy hoped the TECT All Terrain Park would in the future play a role in the wider project.

"A lot of the negativity in the Waikato was around the tight timeframe ... it looked like we were jumping the queue [in asking for Waikato regional council backing]. The reality was there weren't a lot of options.

"All people see is a velodrome, a first-class facility costing a ****load of money sitting on a private school site and the message around that can be quite negative," said Devoy.

"I was sceptical myself at the beginning, thinking it wasn't a great time to be building a fancy cycling track, but it's much more than that."