Organizers said this week that the recent Bluegrass Century Ride hosted by Bicycle Owensboro was a big success. The event — formerly called Bourbon and Bluegrass Century — is a bicycle ride that offers three different routes for participants, with the most notable being the 100-mile route.
The ride catered to cyclists of all ages and ability levels and featured a wide array of refreshments, snacks, and goodies for all participants. Previous organizers canceled the event in 2020 due to the pandemic; Bicycle Owensboro is thankful for the previously established groundwork.
“We picked it up and changed the name, planning the entire event in 3.5 months,” said Keith Johnson, one of the event’s organizers. “They gave us an amazing blueprint.”
The event boasted 160 participants, with more than 100 of them completing the century route. Light showers slightly delayed the start time to later than 8 a.m., with the final riders crossing the finish line around 5:30 p.m.
Nearly one-third of participants were from Owensboro. All proceeds from the event went to Young Life of Owensboro, a nonprofit that focuses on building mentoring relationships with middle and high school students.
“We’re still tallying money, but we should be able to send a nice check to Young Life,” Johnson said. “We plan on marketing it more next year. We heard from many folks who said they enjoyed it, and all of our sponsors said they were still on board. We hope to have a date shortly.”
The event featured “sag stops” along the routes where riders could pose for photo ops on old couches and replenish with drinks and snacks.
“The Bicycle Owensboro Committee wanted to host a top-notch cycling event and have the capacity to raise funds for our nonprofit benefactor, Young Life of Owensboro,” Johnson said. “Thanks to generous community partners and the many volunteers, we feel like we were able to accomplish both of these. We look forward to this being an annual event.”
