By Bob Blalock
Imagine a race course filled with high speeds and sharp turns galore, with competitors sometimes inches apart as they jockey for position. While it might sound like the Talladega Superspeedway, it’s actually the streets of Birmingham’s Pepper Place for the second annual Birmingham Hammerfest Fueled by BOLT24 this Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 14-15.
The free event will feature 20 USA CRITS D1 professional cycling teams from across the country that will race through the Pepper Place District on Saturday. Merriam-Webster defines a criterium as “a bicycle race of a specified number of laps on a closed course over public roads closed to normal traffic.”
Hammerfest Event Director Carrie Coleman has a more colorful description:
“They’re kind of the NASCAR of cycling,” she said. “They go extremely fast, especially the pros. They’ll go north of 30 miles an hour and they’ll put on a show.”
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