History and Archives of Canada's Oldest One Day Cycling Classic

The first Gastown Grand Prix (now the Tour de Gastown) was the brainchild of the late Roger Sumner, a Vancouver dentist and bike racer. The first Gastown race took place in the summer of 1973 in front of a crowd of about 5,000 spectators. The crowds instantly took to the fast-pace excitement of criterium racing. The race grew steadily over 20 years, drawing crowds of 30,000 to 40,000 fans to the streets of Gastown in the late 80's and early 90's. Organized by Barry Lycett and Simon Holwill of Motion Sports, the race was part of the Canadian Tire national cycling series and received national TV coverage. The series did not continue after 1993, when the major sponsor withdrew from supporting the event, leaving a large hole in the local and national cycling calendars.

In the early years, the competitors were mainly local. The first Gastown race in 1973 saw a five man break lap the field twice. Max Grace (reigning national road champion for three years) and 'wild' Bill Wild broke away on the final lap, and after trading heavy blows on the back straight, Wild outsprinted Grace for the finish. Wild later returned in 1976 to win his second Gastown title. It was that year that a new Canadian cycling talent came on the scene, Ron Hayman. Ron later went on to win three consecutive Gastown's from 1981-83, still a record today. Ron is now retired from racing and is a personal cycling coach who recently managed the Canadian National Team at the Tour of Langkawi in Malaysia. When asked what Gastown means to the riders he replied, "It's always been considered a prestige event, especially for the west coast and California riders. It gave us the chance to show our skills in front of friends and family."

In 1980, a local junior rider won, illustrating that "performance" in the hard training ground of Gastown is very often a sign of greater things to come. The rider was Alex Stieda, already Canadian junior track champion for two years but destined to win dozens of other races in Canada, US, and Europe, including a second Gastown victory in 1984, two Tours of Texas, Coors Classic stages, Paris-Rouen, and biggest of all, the first North American to wear the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

The 80's saw the powerful 7-Eleven squad place many winners on the podium. Delta BC's Brian Walton was the last in 1988 with an impressive solo victory over teammate Scott McKinley. Walton would go onto win an Olympic silver medal for Canada in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games and is a founding organizer of the Tour de Delta, part of the BC Super Cycling Week, along with the Tour de White Rock.

The 1990's saw youth triumph at Gastown with brilliant performances from young American cyclists, one of which would later become the most well-known cyclist in the world. In 1991, Lance Armstrong displayed his superior strength on the cobbles of Water Street as he outdistanced himself from Matt Eaton on the backstretch to coast to solo victory. Eight years later and after his battle with cancer, Armstrong won an unprecedented seven consecutive Tour de France titles in 1999-2005. During this time, Armstrong was coached by 1985 Gastown winner Chris Carmichael. Roberto Gaggioli, a long-time professional cyclist on the North American criterium circuit, won the last running of Gastown in 1993. The event returned to the streets after 8 years in 2002 when Saturn's Mark McCormack and Kim Davidge won the race in front of 24,000 people. Ina Teutenberg and Gord Fraser won the 2003 race.

Archives

We hope you enjoy these photos, articles and race programs that chronical the history of Canada's greatest one-day bicycle race. If you have any photos, clippings or memorabilia you'd like to add to this collection, we'd like to hear from you.

The Tour de Gastown thanks the following persons and companies for their contributions to this collection and for their permission to display its contents: The Province, The Vancouver Sun, The Westender, The Vancouver Courier, The Georgia Straight, Vancouver Public Library, Momentum Magazine, Barry Lycett, Kent Kallberg, Dave Mendenhall, John Thomson, Greg Descantes, Roger Sumner, Chris Sumner and Lorne "Ace" Atkinson.