The Parkside Fall Criterium of Sept. 16 has been canceled because of construction at the university. Rats! The fall Parkside race has always been a nice tune-up for, um, the spring Parkside races, which traditionally kick off our road season in March — a mere six months away!

The cancellation means the only remaining road races in ‘07 are the two weekends of the Fall Fling and, presuming it is still on, the ABR masters national road race championship on Sept. 22 (flier pending).

I hope the construction doesn’t jeopardize the spring series. That would be another big loss to the calendar, and I’m not sure I could handle going all the way to April without a race.

Update: Crack investigator Andy Daley (Team Clif Bar Midwest) digs into the University of Wisconsin-Parkside master plan and notes that there will no longer be a criterium-friendly inner loop. “We can all forget about racing at Parkside again.” Let’s hope our friends at Kenosha Velosport can dig up another course by March.