Volume 5 Chapter 50 Various compet.i.tions
It was another spring that came.
When April came, Banta City once again turned lively.
Because it was time for the annual Banta City spring bicycle race. There were many people who lived riding bicycles that came from all over.
These people not only came from Banta City, they came from the other cities and many people even came from other countries.
What was most exaggerated was that there were compet.i.tors that came from the Norton Duchy that was over two thousand kilometers away.
Although since the February of this year, because of the road built by the Amrit Chamber of Commerce reaching the Norton Duchy and because they connected to the road system between the Rudson Kingdom and the Lampuri Kingdom, the Fersen Transport Chamber of Commerce created a super long public transport system from the Lampuri Kingdom to the Norton Duchy that made things very convenient.
This was a journey that was over a thousand and five hundred kilometers. So even if they took the public transport Magic Car the entire time, it took them close to three days to come here.
The reporters of the «Banta Times» received this news and specially interviewed these contestants who came from afar.
In response to the questions from the reporters, this compet.i.tor from the Norton Duchy said that when he heard the news from Banta City that there would be a professional organization holding bicycle races, that had become his dream.
No matter how far the journey was, he had to partic.i.p.ate.
When this report was published in the «Banta Times», pa.s.sing through the Lampuri Kingdom and the various other countries, people became even more enthusiastic.
The people in Banta City surged for a time and it became very crowded, even being several times more lively compared to usual.
But after several races, for the people of Banta City, the bicycle race that was held twice a year was like a festival for them.
The City Lord Manor even cooperated with this compet.i.tion. At this time each year, they would have all the companies give three days vacation so people could partic.i.p.ate in the festival as much as possible.
And this year’s bicycle race was much more eye catching compared to before.
Because according to the news that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced in the «Banta Times», after half a year of preparations, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would be holding the professional race circuit after the spring bicycle race with the seven bicycle producing companies.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the seven bicycle companies would each organize a professional team to partic.i.p.ate, fighting for the championship.
According to the rules announced, this race circuit would begin after the spring bicycle race and end before the autumn bicycle race that was held every year before October. The time would be half a year.
For now, the circuit would be holding eight races in eight cities of the Lampuri Kingdom. Each race would have a winner and would give points according to their rankings in the race. In the final championship, the rankings would be determined by how many points they had received during the circuit.
At the same time, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced that starting next year, this circuit would very likely be holding races in the cities of countries other than the Lampuri Kingdom, while also expanding the scale of the compet.i.tion.
But for the normal citizens, it wasn’t the rules of the race that they cared about, but rather the prizes.
Last year, when the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced this, they had said that it was very likely the winners of the circuit would receive fifty thousand gold coins which had shocked everyone then.
But this year when they had confirmed the event, the prize money that had been announced made people unable to believe their eyes.
A hundred thousand gold coins!
The person who won the championship would be receiving at least a hundred thousand gold coins!
Almost everyone had held their breath the moment they had heard this number.
G.o.d, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce is crazy!
A hundred thousand gold coins!
What kind of a concept was this!
It had to be known, a hundred thousand gold coins would be enough for a family to live a life of never caring about money again.
A hundred thousand gold coins was already the annual income for some of the smaller cities of the Lampuri Kingdom!
Even though the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had done many crazy things, seeing this terrifying reward money, everyone felt that they could smell the smell of craziness.
Perhaps it was because of this reward that most people focused their attention on the upcoming racing circuit. Rather, many people’s interest in the spring bicycle race had decreased.
However, the announcements of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the other companies in the «Banta Times» had brought everyone’s attention back to this race.
In the statement, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the other seven companies had stated that the spring race was the first event of the Frestech Bicycle Circuit. Their eight companies would all pay attention to the compet.i.tors who did well and chose outstanding members from among them to join their teams.
According to the news from the eight companies, once they became a professional cycler by joining one of the eight teams, they would receive at least five hundred gold coins in wages each year and would even earn compet.i.tion prize money.
Calculating it, even if they couldn’t get the terrifying hundred thousand gold coins, it wouldn’t be hard to earn several thousand gold coins each year.
When this news was spread, everyone’s enthusiasm towards partic.i.p.ating in the spring race increased again.
This time was different from before. If you performed well in this race, you might be able to enter a professional racing team and become a professional race, receiving a generous salary.
So the atmosphere was different from the other compet.i.tions. Everyone was focused on trying to obtain a good position and win a spot on the professional racing team, so the compet.i.tive spirit was very intense.
In this intense atmosphere, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had announced another piece of news through the «Banta Times», which was inevitably ignored by everyone.
This news was that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was planning on building a racing track outside of Banta City to hold Magic Sedan races.
This racing track had already been built in the Stantine Duchy for over a year and was very popular there, but this was the first time it appeared in Lampuri Kingdom, so it didn’t attract that much attention.
Other than this, there was another main problem. Compared to a bicycle that only cost several dozen gold coins, with even the most professional bicycle only costing a hundred gold coins, even the cheapest Magic Sedan cost over a thousand gold coins. So it was out of the reach of normal people.
So the Magic Sedan was another world for most normal people, it wasn’t related to them. Naturally the Magic Sedan races wouldn’t attract their attention.
Of course, even if normal people didn’t care, that didn’t mean others didn’t.
Since the first launch of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s Magic Sedan, it had now been two years and there were over seventy three thousand Magic Sedans that had been sold.
Although it was insignificant compared to the millions of bicycles that were sold, this wasn’t considered a small number.
Just in the Lampuri Kingdom, there were over forty thousand Frestech Brand Magic Sedans sold.
In Banta City, there were over fifteen thousand Magic Sedans.
The reason for this was on one hand because the Magic Sedans were first launched in Banta City, so they were quickly accepted.
On the other hand, because Banta City’s economic development had been driven by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, other than the normal merchants, there were many citizens that had become much richer.
Take old man Sarkozy who had been transporting goods for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce over the years. He had been a normal farmer before, but because he transported goods for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the other companies, he had acc.u.mulated over five thousand gold coins.
Just last year, old man Sarkozy took out one thousand and five hundred gold coins to buy the new line of Magic Sedan from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
And this was just one example.
In Banta City, there were countless people like old man Sarkozy who had become rich through their own efforts over the years.
The Magic Sedan for many people of Banta City wasn’t that un.o.btainable.
Of course, buying a Magic Sedan and qualifying for the Magic Sedan race were two different things.
For people like old man Sarkozy, the magic Sedan was something that they could afford, but it was very expensive and they weren’t willing to damage it.
To take it out for a compet.i.tion, there would certainly be accidents, so normal people couldn’t afford to play with it.
So like this, the only people who were interested in the Magic Sedan races were those with good financial conditions, so they wouldn’t feel pained even if they broke a Magic Sedan or two.
At the same time, these people had plenty of free time, having plenty of energy and power to prepare for the Magic Sedan races.
After all these conditions were filtered out, there really weren’t that many people left.
In mBanta City, there were less than fifty people who decided to partic.i.p.ate in this Magic Sedan race.
Among these forty people, all of them were “rich second generations” from large merchant or n.o.ble families.
Baron Belil who was one of the few who survived of the Stagg Family was one of those people.