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Memorial Day Bike Races Canceled

Quad Cities Bicycle Club

The latest casualties of the pandemic are the bicycle races held in southeast Iowa each year during the Memorial Day weekend. 

John Harrington, from the Quad Cities Bicycle Club, says the governing body for racing in the US has canceled all races through the beginning of May. And local organizers believe later events will soon be called off too. 

They all depend on sponsors.

"Without sponsors giving us cash to run the race, the race would not happen. And so now is not a great time going to small businesses and ask them for sponsorship."
Harrington says the club spends thousands of dollars each year to put on the Kwik Star Criterium in the Village of East Davenport. 

"It's an event the club has put on for many years. It's not a money-maker -  it's maybe make a little one year lose some the next, so it's really a break even type thing. But it's a club tradition."

The only previous cancellations for the Quad Cities races date back to two years in the early 70's, although he hasn't been able to find out why they were canceled. 

Canceled races during Memorial Day weekend this year, May 22-25, now include the Friday Night Fever Criterium and Snake Alley Criterium in Burlington Friday and Saturday, the Melon City Criterium in Muscatine on Sunday, and the Kwik Star Criterium in Davenport on Monday.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.