Tour de Trump

For a good part of my adult life, I have enjoyed bicycling, sometimes very avid, but typically casual. It was Greg Lemond who initially sparked my interest. Although my best cycling days are now in the rear-view mirror, I’ve been fortunate to have many friendships cultivated on two-wheels, and have experienced a number of special cycling adventures. Future posts will sketch out a few cycling exploits.

The reason for today’s cycling-related post is a Monday Morning Coffee Club conversation. Club members are not big sports fans, but I did mention one of the two sporting events that I do watch, namely the Tour de France. To be clear, watching bicycle racing on TV is like watching paint dry, particularly the flat stages. Watching from home, you can stretch, read a book, get a beverage, and not lose your space.

But when attending a bike race in person, fans will typically wait on a roadside for hours to view a mass of cyclists passing by in a blur. Literally. This I know because I twice traveled to see the Tour de France.

I reason I bring this up, is that our conversation sparked the memory of the day the Tour de Trump cycled through Ashland. You read that correctly. Tour de Trump. Trump did not create the event, but he sponsored an American multi-day stage race in 1989 and 1990. This was at a time when American cycling was attempting to get established and compete with European cycling.

The initial 1989 route started in Albany, NY, traveled through 5 states before ending in Atlantic City.

It was the 1990 Tour de Trump that came through Ashland, with the peloton cycling down Pond Street on its way to the Boston. I lived on Tri Street at the time, and the family walked down to Pond Street, stood for what seemed like several hours, to es the blur of the peloton passing by.

After the 1990 race, Trump pulled out of sponsorship due to financial issues with his casino and the subsequent bankruptcies. No big surprise there. The DuPont Company took over sponsorship and continued the race through 1995.

I think Trump is an insurrectionist, a menace and a serious danger to democracy. But this is not a Trump diatribe. I’ll save that for another post. Trump has always been about his brand, and he definitely had no interest in cycling. But at the time, in a strange and warped way, Trump’s support of this race advanced the growth of US cycling and contributed to our ability to compete on the world stage.