Race Director Craig Tuttle and Team President Rich Pearson announced today the courses for the Bennington Time Trial and Dave Babcook Road Race, two of the three events for the Omaha Cycling Weekend to be held July 16th and 17th, 2011. (The third event is the Papilion Twilight Criterium on the evening of the 16th). The web page http://www.omahacyclingweekend.com/ is under development and will have full details soon.
The Bennington Time Trial will be held Saturday morning, July 16th and will be based at Bennington High School one mile west of Bennington, which is only a few miles NW of Omaha. The 15.7 miles course is completely different from last year and will take riders along a series of gentle and not so gentle rollers, plus a few relatively flat sections. Most racers will use their full range of gears. All corners and both turnarounds are at the top of the hill or on an upgrade. See the map and elevations here.
The Dave Babcook Road Race will be held Sunday morning July 17th and will also be based at Bennington HS. The race will starts with a 2.7 neutral roll out, to just past Highway 31/204th street. After another mile racers will turn left to start a 6.6 mile loop, including the dip down into the valley and up the one big hill. That hill has grades up to 10% and will take about 6 minutes to climb. This is the same loop that has been successfully used for several years, except last year when the lower section was flooded. After several times around the loop racers will head back across 204th street to Bennington HS. The last section after the loop has 6 rolling hills which should provide an interesting finish. The finish is at the top of the hill just west of Bennington HS. Organizers have obtained permission to use restrooms etc at the high school and there will be plenty of parking. See the map and elevations here
More details will be coming soon.
