At the end of September more than 500 cyclists from around New Zealand are expected to travel to South Canterbury for the National School Road Cycling Championships.
The three-day event will feature a road race and team time trial based out of Fairview Hall and a points race at Levels International Motor Raceway.
Organising committee member Wayne Morris said the championship was shaping up to be the largest held in South Canterbury.
"We’ve already had a lot of North Island schools talking to us about certain things, so purely number-wise we’re expecting it to be the largest.
"The age group champs we had in Saint Andrews last year had about 400 and the elites in February was obviously smaller because you are only catering for your elite riders and under-19 riders.
"The weekend after is the Yunca tour in Invercargill, which is a big age group tour. It’s one of the prestige ones in New Zealand, so a lot of the schools will come to Timaru and carry on to there."
The National School Road Cycling Championships will feature competitors ranging from under 13 to under 20.
The 13 and 14-year age group will do one 20km lap of the Fairview Hall course and all but the under-20 men will do 40km, and they will do 60km.
Mr Morris said the Fairview course would be a good challenge for the riders.
"It’s part of what we use for the elites but in the reverse direction. We’ll be going down Briggs Zig-Zag instead of where the elites would come up it.
"It would be a bit much for the age group going up it but it will still be an interesting and challenging 20km lap course for them."
He said it was nice for South Canterbury to now be frequently getting these large-scale events.
"Cycling NZ are obviously quite happy we can run events of that nature, so we are getting up there.
"I think a lot places are struggling to run events because of the manpower aspect to them.
"All we are providing is the course, the venue and the marshalling side of things.
"Once the racing starts it’s all under Cycling NZ but we’re just in the background running things."
Mr Morris said a good number of South Canterbury cyclists would be competing.
"I’m not sure if we’ll have Noah [Hollamby] because he’s just come back from Europe and whether he is still in school or not but he could be eligible.
"In the girls we’ve got Olivia Greenaway for the under-17 and Kyra Marett in the under-20 will be strong and the course will suit her.
"We’ve got Connor Toomey and Jesse Johnston in the under-17 boys and they’ll be our two top riders locally."
He said he was thankful to all the landowners around Fairview who had offered their paddocks for both parking and help setting up.
The action will start on September 29 and conclude on October 1.
