SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Promoter Calls Off Benefit Bicycle Race

Carol Curwood didn’t like the odds.

Mayor Gary L. Hausdorfer told her last week she could “roll the dice” and wait until March 6 for possible City Council approval of her March 11 charity bicycle race. Curwood declined, so the sixth annual Jack Latham Ride Against Cancer is off.

“Five days before the event would have been too late to cancel if I didn’t get an approval. I decided it was best to get out right away.”

Curwood, 28, a Capistrano Beach resident who owns South County Cyclery in San Juan Capistrano, began the ride in memory of her father, who died of cancer. For the last two years she has promoted the race with the American Cancer Society. The charity has received about $22,000 in proceeds.

This year, she expected to lure about 400 participants and raise about $25,000. The event was to have been held for the first time in conjunction with the city’s Heritage Festival.

But council members and the Rev. Doren Tregarthen of St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church were not convinced that a bicycle race on San Juan Capistrano’s streets that morning could be run safely.

Tregarthen told the council that he will be holding services at 8 and 10 a.m., Sunday School sessions and a meeting of the Episcopal Service Alliance at his church that morning on La Novia Avenue, which is where the race had been tentatively rerouted.

So Curwood decided to cancel before the T-shirts and trophies had been ordered and food vendors signed on. It is too late to cancel cable TV ads announcing the race.