The fifth annual Ames Grand Prix, set to take place over the weekend on Main Street, got canceled Wednesday afternoon.

At 1:30 p.m., the decision to cancel the event came after a low number of pre-registrations. While this event did not take place during 2020, this is the first time it has been canceled for this reason. Ames Velo, a local cycling club, organized and planned to participate in the races this weekend.

The decision to cancel the races was made by the Ames Velo’s executive board and their USA Cycling officials. They expected a high participation rate, but unforeseen circumstances stopped people from registering.

Jason Quinn, an Ames Velo member, said previous years had 150 to 250 participants for the entire weekend.

“There were two unexpected races that popped up on the race calendar for this Saturday,” Quinn said. “These are both gravel and multi-surface races and wouldn’t usually contend with something like our races, but those style of events are what is trending with cycling. One of the events has 700 participants that include many of our past competitors. Road cycling events have seen a downward trend since Covid, but this was a dramatic decrease even with our expected lower forecast.”

Due to the complicated process of planning this event, there is no sign of rescheduling, but it will continue next year.

“With the number of obstacles to put on the two days of racing, we will just be planning to re-launch the races in 2023,” Quinn said. “We feel confident that we will have a better shot at returning to the numbers we saw in prior years and are including some new strategies to help reduce the risk of our event being scheduled along other high-interest cycling events.”

Many local businesses have sponsored this event, but none will face financial loss as the money was saved for cash prizes.