Mayor plans bid for major cycling race

Mayor Dwight Jones is putting Richmond in the running to host a major bicycle race in 2015.

Jones is expected to make the announcement Tuesday at a news conference at the Greater Richmond Convention Center at 10:30 a.m., and he will be joined by Steve Johnson, the chief executive of USA Cycling.

According to cyclingnews.com, Richmond is putting in a bid to host the 2015 World Cycling Championships, an event that has not been in the United States since 1986:

The world’s most important one-day race, the UCI road world championships, was last held in the US in 1986 when Colorado Springs held the race, leading to the obvious speculation, supported by the soon-to-be published website richmond2015.com, that the announcement will be a bid for the 2015 worlds.

Richmond hosted the U.S. Cycling Open in 2007. But the UCI Road World Championships is one of the top three events of the sport and would draw a large international crowd to the city.

The 2010 Road World Championships was in Australia, and organizers said that more than 293,000 people attended the event over five days, with 156,000 spectators watching the main race.