2018 Amgen Bike Tour of CA Will Start (Men's Race) In Long Beach After 11 Year Absence; Amnesia File: In 2007, LB Staged Pre-Event Bike Ballyhoo; Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal Rode Tricycle In Relay Race '

LBReport.com

News / Amnesia File

2018 Amgen Bike Tour of CA Will Start (Men's Race) In Long Beach After 11 Year Absence; Amnesia File: In 2007, LB Staged Pre-Event Bike Ballyhoo; Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal Rode Tricycle In Relay Race

LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. Support independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.

(October 28, 2017) -- The men's portion of the 2018 Amgen Tour of CA (owned and presented by AEG) will begin in Long Beach on May 13, bringing the event back to LB for the first time in eleven years. (The women's overall start is on May 17 in Elk Grove.)

The 2018 men's start will be in Long Beach; the event website doesn't show the exact route, but from pre-event descriptions it will apparently start downtown near the waterfront...and there's no immediate information on whether riders will travel through any other LB neighborhoods before leaving town. It's free to watch from along the course, although event organizers also offer a for-pay package "to experience the race as a VIP from an all-inclusive hospitality tent or through once-in-a-lifetime opportunities."

[Scroll down for further.]

The event choose different routes and cities each year; this year's route travels from south to north over seven days for [Amgen Tour release text] "the 13th edition of America's premier cycling stage race May 13-19. Throughout seven stages over seven days, the world's best cyclists will contest 600+ miles of roadways, highways and coastlines from Long Beach to Sacramento. The 2018 edition will mark the third time in race history that the peloton will travel the Golden State from south to north."

Sponsor

The 2007 Amgen CA tour went from north to south, starting in Sausalito and ending in Long Beach...where LB city officials and downtown interests organized considerable pre-event bicycle ballyhoo (Amnesia File below.)

[LBREPORT.com 2007 archival coverage]
[Headline] Pine Ave. "Party With A Purpose" + East Village "Art In Motion Festival" Leading Up To Sunday Amgen Bike Tour Finish In Downtown LB
(Feb. 24, 2007) -- On Saturday afternoon (Feb. 24), final preparations were underway on downtown Pine Ave. for Saturday night's "Party With A Purpose" benefiting LB area charities...

...while a Saturday afternoon "Art in Motion Festival" featured Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal in a charity tricycle relay race. She's in the right lane and in the lead on Linden Ave. in the East Village.

The events are all part of the lead-up to what local business and city officials hope will be an attention-getting, crowd-drawing climax to the six-day, statewide Amgen Bicycle Tour which ends in downtown LB on Sunday, Feb. 25.
John Morris (Smooth's Sports Grille) wears his "game face" as zero-hour approaches. He serves as the LB Festival Committtee Chair...

A few blocks away in the East Village, Ryan Smolar oversaw the "Art in Motion Festival."

People gathered near a neighborhood stage to enjoy reggae rhythms.

The Art in Motion Festival was a bicycle themed event with multiple bicycle-oriented booths.

Sponsor

After the 2007 Amgen event, LBREPORT.com editorialized in part:

...Boosters will say LB is "getting in on the ground floor" on the cycling tour, comparable to the Grand Prix, but we see differences. It's relatively easy for a "staged" (multi-day) bike tour to shift its routes, and we're told other tours do. What's to stop this tour from ending in OC and SD next year?
...What LB taxpayers need now is realism, not vanity. How much additional revenue did LB taxpayers see from Feb. 24-25 [2007] pre-race and race-day hotel occupancy? How much additional parking revenue and sales tax did LB taxpayers receive?
We acknowledge that positive exposure for Long Beach is worth something, sometimes quite a lot...But that cuts both ways. In our view, the real test is what would happen if those cameras were rotated 180 degrees to face northward...
Until LB City Hall turns its attention to making those parts of this city as safe and desirable for residents as the shoreline is for tourists, LB needs to change its priorities and focus on people who actually live here...

Sponsor