It was back in 2009 when ‘crit’ racing first came to the Cobblestone District. Since that time The Cobblestone Criterium (bike racing) has grown in numbers, attracting hoards of racers and fans to downtown Buffalo. In fact, the series has grown so much that it is moving to another part of the city in order to accommodate the growth. Fortunately, the move will not only be great for racers and fans, it will also be a big boost for the city. You see, the Cobblestone District was a great place for the race series to gain traction, but ultimately another district would reap the rewards (and awards) – I’m speaking of The Larkin District.
Since Larkinville has been growing steadily on its own, the decision was made to relocate the Twilight Series in order to capitalize on the huge growth spurt (by both parties). After all, as much as The Cobblestone District is able to host the series, there is more to racing than just an accessible course. Larkinville will allow for more course dynamics, and it will also give racers and fans amenities that are needed in order for the series to get to the next level. “The Buffalo Cobblestone Criterium Twilight Series finished its fourth season of bicycle racing in downtown,” race director Frank Grillo told me. “We had racers coming in from as far away as Binghamton, Syracuse as well as Southern Ontario and Pennsylvania. Spectators came out in numbers to support the 11 race series and enjoyed quality bike racing. The Buffalo Bicycling Club is proud to announce the move of its Cobblestone district Criterium to Larkinville. We are very pleased to be working with the Larkin Development Group to bring big time bicycle racing to Buffalo on Thursday evenings. This move will enable us to grow the event into a sanctioned race series. this will bring in more and better racers from all over the north east USA as well as Canada.”
Start and finish will be in Larkin Square… does it get any better than that? Also, there are a lot of tech advancements that the racers and fans are relying on these days. “The criterium racing is scored using a new RFID mat & chip timing system that the BBC club purchased last year,” said club member Jonathan M. Rosen. “During the 2012 summer races, we worked with the software developer in Toronto to add features for real-time lap results posted to the web. Spectators were able to watch the lap results change and update on every lap using their smartphones, making it easy to track racers.”
Learn more about the technology.
*A criterium, or crit, is a bike race held on a short course (usually less than 1 mile), often run on closed-off city center streets.