A major event to include Martinborough

Martinborough people are being urged to get out and enjoy the excitement of the New Zealand Women’s Cycling Tour which will include Martinborough on Thursday the 19th of this month. The Tour, which will include the world’s best women road cyclists competing for points to get their teams to the Olympics in Rio the Tour does three laps of the town.
This is the third event of the 2015 UCI Women’s Cycling Calendar following races in Argentina and Qatar.The women competing event will be seen on the podium in Rio next year subsequently Martinborough will be the focus of a great deal of international media attention.

Top international road cyclist, American Evelyn Stevens is set to take part in the race. Evelyn Stevens is a member of the highly acclaimed USA national team alongside experienced teammates Lauren Hall, Tayler Wiles, Megan Guarnier and Andrea Dvorak. She has amassed numerous titles including winning the world team’s time trial championships three times, capturing the US time trial title on two occasions, winning a total of 12 major international tours, including the women’s tour de France, Tour of The Netherlands, Tour of Germany and Italy’s Giro della Trentino among others.
An event of this significance will attract extensive television coverage in Europe and South America where cycling is bigger than anything. There will be a wide range of media following the tour which represents a great opportunity to promote the town and district. At the same time an occasion for both our town’s people to enjoy a major event right on their doorstep and also for businesses to get involved as well.

The 142 km race commences at Solway Masterton at 10 am and will race south via Gladstone reaching Martinborough by way of Ponatahi Road at approximately 11.15. The Martinborough circuit will be: left from Ponatahi Road into New York Street then right into Cambridge Road, around the square and left into Oxford Street, left into Regent Street, left into Todds Road and then left into Puruatanga Road. This traversed three times to then exit out past the golf course and back to Masterton.

Overseas cycle tours create huge local interest when their towns are included in the itinerary and here is a great opportunity for Martinborough to do the same and make this a fun event for the town. It will be around lunch time, how about picnics in the Square while we watch? Or a Roadside BBQ lunch on the circuit.
There are plenty of commercial opportunities too, products could include: a simple roadside bar and coffee machine with couches for the day. A caterer or a school could jump on a corner of land and organise a food stall and lounge. Different venues could be dressed up to support different nationality teams. This is a great opportunity to have a bit of fun with this event and sell some lunch packages or have a roadside bar, lounge, BBQ. Dress up and cheer these world class athletes as they zip past; THREE TIMES!

The a great place to watch will be the Square. Many are planning on a picnic lunch in the Square as they watch the race go by – three times. Why not join them and create a real French style fun atmosphere?
Being the third round of the world series this event will be getting world wide television coverage and, hence, publicity for Martinborough. Destination Wairarapa has done a great job in fostering the media publicity for the event. It is hoped to generate a lot of local and visitor spectator support for the race so that it will be in a good position to pitch for this event, which gets such world wide attention, again next year and thereafter.