Bike Events
Another full calendar of activities and programmes will be in place in 2016 allied to the Bike City Project that was successfully started in 2009 and has proven to be hugely successful thus far. The project sees Pietermaritzburg as the recognised Bike City for Africa and the large number of large national and international cycling events that have been staged over the last seven years in and around the city has seen Pietermaritzburg put on the international sports map.
2016 sees a slight shift in profile of the project in that Cycling South Africa, as one of the premier sports federations in the country that is regularly nominated as one of the sports federations of the year by the Department of Sport & Recreation, has grasped the transformation bull by the horns and in conjunction with the KZN Department of Sport & Recreation has put an events programme that still accommodates some of the major high end cycling events mixed in with a variety of development events and programmes that is set to change the way that cycling is run in the country and can be a blueprint for other federations in the country.
The full events schedule for 2016 is as follows:
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Pmb International MTB Festival 30 Apr 2016 to 2 May 2016
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UCI Para Cycling Road World Cup 6 May 2016 to 8 May 2016
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National Cycling Indaba 11 June 2016 to 12 June 2016
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SA Track Grand Prix 14 June 2016 to 16 June 2016
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KZN Youth Development Camp 4 July to 8 July 2016
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SA MTB Champs 18 July 2016 to19 July 2016
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SA Track Grand Prix 7 August 2016 to 9 August 2016
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SA BMX Champs October
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KZN Spring Series - 2 x UCI 1.2 Road Race - Woman Only 12 November 2016 to 13 November 2016
A breakdown of the major activities on the programme is as follows:
Pietermaritzburg Mountain Bike Festival
The second edition of the Pmb MTB Festival will be staged on the long weekend from the 30th April to 2nd May at the Cascades MTB Park in Pietermaritzburg and will see cross country, marathon and enduro competitions being staged together with schools and development events with the full event schedule being as follows:
Saturday 30th April 2016
UCI Junior World Series XCO
UCI Elite XCO HC
KZN Development Clinic
Sunday 1st May 2016
SA Marathon Championships Masters 30+
KZN Development Series Finals
Monday 2nd May 2016
Enduro Competition
KZN Schools XCO
The XCO (Olympic Cross Country) races will use the world standard courses already in place at Cascades and the SA Masters Marathon Championships, which will be staged as part of the Pmb MTB Festival for the next three years, will use large portions of the routes utilised in the 2014 UCI MTB Marathon World Championships and other national level events that have been staged at the venue.
UCI Para Cycling Road World Cup
Whereas in 2015 Pietermaritzburg played host to the final leg of the Para Cycling Road World Cup season, the first leg of the 2016 season will be staged in the city and the same routes and venues will be used for the 2016 edition. This event allows athletes to start their final preparations for the 2016 Para Olympic Games in Rio and will also be a final warm up for the organisers and CSA before the Para Cycling Road World Championships are staged here in 2017. As the only event outside of Europe in 2016, the event will carry double UCI World Cup points which will ensure the best athletes from around the world be in the city to compete.
All the races in 2016 will take place in and around Alexandra Park from the afternoon of Friday 6th May - Sunday 8th May with the full competition schedule being as follows:
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Fri 6th May - Team Relay
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Sat 7th May - Time Trial
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Sun 8th May - Road Races
KZN Youth Development Camp
This is an event that will see scholars from all 11 x regions of KZN converging on Pietermaritzburg to attend a cycling training camp where over a three day period they will be exposed to and given expert instruction in all the main cycling disciplines including track, BMX, mountain bike and road cycling. Not only will the children from these regions be attending these courses, but there will also be adult representatives from each region that will be included and given training on event organisation, sports administration and management, mechanics skills and other cycling related elements so as to be able to upskill these people so that they in turn can run events and programmes in each of the regions going forward.
KZN Spring Series
In an ongoing effort to create more opportunities for women in sport, Cycling South Africa in conjunction with the KZN Department of Sport and Recreation have launched the KZN Spring Series that will see two UCI 1.2 road races staged in 2016 and this being increased to three races from 2017 onwards. The races will be for women only and will see some of the top professional female riders from around the world competing against the top female athletes that SA and the neighbouring states have to offer.
