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More than 600 bicyclists are expected to come to Oriental in mid-April for Cycle NC’s Spring Weekend Ride. In 2004, Oriental was the final destination for another Cycle NC event, the week-long “Mountains to the Coast” ride. The success of that event led Cycle North Carolina to pick Oriental for the weekend gathering on April 11-13 of this year.

Cyclists head into Oriental in the 2004 event. While about a thousand cyclists arrived in Oriental in one day, they arrived in small groups over several hours.

The bicyclists created a “tent city” at Lou Mac park that held lots of campers in 2004. Camping will happen again in this spring’s event, but still more accommodations are needed.

This time around, the bikers will use Oriental as a base of operations as they cycle routes around Pamlico County during the day. They’ll return here for the afternoons and evenings.

It’s being viewed as the kind of event that may encourage more low-impact tourism in the future. The Oriental Tourism Board, the Oriental Express Bicycle Club and other volunteers are working to make it happen.

There’s a way that you can help, too. Do you have a bed to spare?

Oriental has about 70 hotel rooms — including the B&B’s — and most of those have been snapped up already. Organizers expect that about 100 of the bikers would be happy to do some ‘indoor camping’ in town, while another 200 will opt to pitch a tent outdoors. Those sites are being secured now.

But that leaves about 150-200 of the bikers who will need other accommodations. If we can’t find a place for them in Oriental — or within a mile or two of town — they may have to seek a hotel in New Bern.

New Bern of course, is a fine town, but sending visitors 30 miles down the road is not exactly the message Oriental wants to send. So — and this is where you come in — do you have a spare room and bed where a biker could stay?

Tourism Board member Dottie Miller and her husband Dan are compiling a list of Oriental residents who would open their doors — and spare rooms — to a visiting bicyclist.

Whether you have a separate suite (such as in-law quarters) or a bedroom with private bath or bedroom with a shared bath, it’d sure help if you could put a biker up for the two nights of the event. The bicyclists are willing to pay for a room in a house — just as others are paying for a hotel room. Whether you charge and what you charge is up to you.

Ideally, these would be homes near the Old Village part of town — or short biking distance. But homes a mile or two out may be helpful, too.

In Oriental we share the roads with bikers all the time. This one weekend.. perhaps we can share our homes, too. If you can, please let Dottie and Dan Miller know soon, either by email — dmtouronc@gmail.com or by calling 252-249-2803.

For more about the 2004 bike event that ended up in Oriental, click here for the story.

Posted Monday January 14, 2008 by Melinda Penkava