2 weeks of cycling events in Tahoe part of Amgen tour
By Jessie Marchesseau
STATELINE — The South Shore’s marketing plan for the upcoming 2011 Amgen Tour of California is off and rolling.
At the Dec. 9 Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority board of directors meeting, Executive Director Carol Chaplin provided an update on event promotion in the coming months.
The tour is the largest cycling event in the United States and will kick off seven days and 800 miles of road bike riding at the South Shore’s California-Nevada border on May 15. The first stage will consist of 1 1/2 laps around the lake, ending at Northstar-at-Tahoe. The second stage will start at Squaw Valley and take the riders to Sacramento then farther into California during the next five days.
Chaplin announced the new website is up and running, as is the organization’s Tahoe Tour of California Facebook page. The LTVA, along with the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, has also revealed the new event logo featuring iconic Emerald Bay and the tagline “Start at the top.”
She also said the agencies are now working on the development of Tahoe’s 10-day Countdown to the event, which will start on May 5. The countdown will offer a variety of bike demos, expos, participation rides and other community events. While the LTVA and NLTRA will be hosting the tour-specific events, they are looking for partners to organize auxiliary events.
A new team member with experience working on the Amgen tour may also give their efforts a little boost. Joanne Shepherd, a business tourism management student from Southern Cross University in Australia, will be working on the Amgen event at LTVA for the next six months as an intern.
Shepherd worked on the tour four years ago in Long Beach and approached LTVA about doing her college internship with them so she could work on the event once again.
Though Shepherd has only been in Tahoe for less than a week, she says she is looking forward to the next six months. Chaplin says she likes the idea of having someone here who has worked on the tour before.
Chaplin, along with Sue Barton, deputy director, and Mike Frye, sales and events manager, attended an Amgen meeting in Los Angeles in November with representatives from the other 15 host cities. They discussed the rules, regulations and benefits that go along with hosting the event.
“One of the things we really want to do is promote that cycling is a part of our community, and it is,” Chaplin said.