A strong pro women’s field and dozens of local junior and masters racers highlight the return of the Cascade Cycling Classic Downtown Criterium, set for Saturday from noon to 9 p.m. on the streets of downtown Bend.

Bend’s most beloved bike race for nearly four decades from 1980 to 2017, the downtown criterium is returning after a seven-year hiatus. The one-day event is expected to draw 200 or more road cyclists from throughout the West to test their technical skills and endurance on the .7-mile course.

The popular race was resurrected by the Horner Cycling Foundation, founded a year ago by Bend’s Chris Horner, who is one of the most accomplished U.S. road cyclists ever.

The mission of the new nonprofit is to “create a junior road cycling team that is inclusive, accessible to all socioeconomic statuses with the focus on skill development, team building and fostering a life-long love of cycling.”

“This is kind of the debut for our Horner Cycling junior team,” said Molly Cogswell-Kelley, race director and Horner Cycling Foundation director. “They’ve been training with us once a week with Chris and other coaches and have been doing the weekly crits in July. They’ve been kind of training for this moment to race downtown.”

The junior team members range in age from 9 to 13, and the junior category kicks off the racing at noon. The downtown criterium also serves as the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association (OBRA) Junior Criterium Championships.

“We have some juniors coming from the Byrds team in Boise (Idaho),” Cogswell-Kelly said. “Those guys have an amazing development team. Those guys are good and we have a lot of those kids coming.”

Junior and masters categories will race throughout the afternoon. The pro women are scheduled to race from 6:25 to 7:15 p.m., followed by the pro men from 7:25 to 8:40 p.m.

In a criterium, riders will race as many laps as they can in the amount of time determined by their category. The downtown criterium begins and ends on Northwest Wall Street. Racers will ride clockwise heading north on Northwest Wall and taking a right onto Northwest Oregon Avenue and then a right onto Northwest Bond Street, a left on Northwest Minnesota Avenue, a right on Northwest Lava Road to Northwest Franklin Street and then back to Wall Street. The lap is approximately .7 of a mile and the streets will be closed to vehicular traffic starting at 9 a.m.

“It will be the old, turny course, what spectators loved,” Cogswell-Kelley said.

A competitive pro women’s field

The pro women’s field includes Katja Verkerk, the Canadian gravel racing national champion from Victoria, British Columbia.

“There’s a lot of really strong women that are going to be coming,” Cogswell-Kelley said. “They’re experienced and fast. That’s going to be fun.”

Pro women from Bend include Megan Horner, Beth Ann Orton and Hannah Thomas. Pro men from Bend include Austin Arguello and Jacob Olander. The prize purse for pro men and women is $9,000 each.

According to Cogswell-Kelley, a total of about 140 riders across all categories had registered by Wednesday, but the goal is to register 225 to 250 racers.

Air-quality concerns

As smoke from wildfires continues to move in and out of Bend, race organizers are keeping a close eye on air quality. For OBRA, an air quality index of 150 is the guideline for potential cancellation of a race, but there is some leeway.

“We just won’t make that call until day of,” Cogswell-Kelley said. “We may just make it shorter. It also depends on what the racers want to do. If it was 165, and everyone felt OK about it, we might just shorten the races.”

According to aqicn.org, the air quality is forecasted to be in the moderate range (50 to 100) on Saturday in Bend.

Other activities

The Bend Classic Mile run, hosted by FootZone, will take place along the criterium course at 5:45 p.m., followed by the Kiddie Bike Sprint.

A public beer garden will be located between the Silverado and Patagonia stores on Wall Street during the races.

A race with a long history

The downtown criterium was a perennial favorite among local cycling fans, drawing thousands of spectators, but has not been staged since 2017. Part of that is due to the demise of the Cascade Cycling Classic stage race, which ran from 1980 to 2019 on five days in July in Central Oregon. The criterium was just one day of the five of professional road racing, but it was by far the most popular.

The Cascade Cycling Classic, produced by Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation, was North America’s longest consecutively running cycling stage race until its hiatus in 2018. It returned in 2019 as a stage race with a criterium in southwest Bend, but has not been held since for a variety of reasons, including lack of sponsorship, the difficulty of closing roads in Bend during the summer, the pandemic, and the increased popularity of gravel racing.

Cogswell-Kelley said she is still in need of volunteer course marshals for Saturday’s races.

For more information, visit cascadecyclingclassic.com or hornercyclingfoundation.com, or email molly@hornerlawllp.com.