EAST BUFFALO TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- People who live in the Lewisburg and Mifflinburg areas enjoy the Buffalo Valley Rail Trail every day. But this weekend, people from all over the country will ride their bikes on it.
The inaugural "Unpaved of the Susquehanna River Valley" is Sunday. Planning for it has taken years.
"The planets lined up and so here we are four years later. We're all excited and stoked and we're ready to introduce the area to a lot of cycling enthusiasts," Andrew Miller said.
Organizers say the race will be easy on the eyes but hard on the legs. There are four different courses, from 30 to 120 miles long. The race starts and ends at the Miller Center near Lewisburg and goes through Bald Eagle State Forest.
"It was kind of hard to pick what roads to show because there are so many good ones. It was a lot of back and forth over the last twelve months to get this going," Brett Chadderdon said.
Nearly 600 cyclists are already registered for the event. People are coming from all over the US and Canada.
Organizers also expect the event to bring in a lot of people to Downtown Lewisburg itself.
"Spending money, eating and hopefully having fun and spending money buying gas. We're looking at a quarter of a million dollars in visitor spending for this event," Miller said.
But perhaps no one is more excited than riders who live in this area. Christopher Motto of Lewisburg is riding the 120-mile race.
"To have a race of this caliber in our neck of the woods is just going to be fantastic. We have some of the best gravel roads in the country here and to be able to showcase them to riders from all over the country is just going to be fantastic," Motto said.
The event is this Sunday at the Miller Center near Lewisburg. Organizers already have the date set for next year's race and expect it will be even bigger than this year.