Entering its 11th year, the two-day River Gorge Omnium road cycling competition will be held Aug. 25-26, offering $20,000 in prize money to the best riders in various categories.
“This event started like a lot of bike races – pretty small, pretty grassroots,” says Sean McCombs, director of road racing for Scenic City Velo. “But through the work of Scenic City Velo and some of our sponsors, we’ve grown it incrementally year to year. The word has spread that this is one of the best-run events and the best courses in the Southeast, and that attracts more and more riders every year.”
The River Gorge Omnium features three different disciplines of cycling – time trial, criterium and road race – over two days with riders racing to accumulate points in each stage.
Also on August 25th, racers will come to downtown Chattanooga for a series of criterium races on a closed circuit through the city streets around Miller Plaza.Points awarded for each of the three events determine winners in one of nine categories based on age, gender and skill level.
The first event will be the time trial, held the morning of Aug. 25, with riders racing the clock on a course atop Raccoon Mountain at the TVA pump storage facility.