MILLINOCKET – Hundreds of cyclists, some coming from as far away as New Brunswick and Boston, are expected to participate today and Sunday in the Golden Road’s first bicycle race and touring event in at least 20 years, organizers said Friday.

The Golden Road Bike Tour will begin at 9 a.m. today with a ribbon cutting that will be followed until 6 p.m. by races and bicycle tours along about 30 miles of paved road from Ambajejus and Millinocket lakes to Ripogenus Dam and Gorge.

Concerts, dinners, historical displays and discussions and lots more riding will occur Saturday night and Sunday before the event wraps up Sunday afternoon.

“It’s history,” one of the organizers, Lisa McLaughlin, said Friday.

“It’s going to be a very good experience,” said her husband, fellow organizer Stanley McLaughlin. “This has never happened before.”

Both are founding members of the Katahdin Trails Alliance, a 35-member nonprofit bicycling and hiking club that, following in the footsteps of area ATV and snowmobile riders, wants to map trails, publish a trail guide, promote bicycle and hiking safety and education, establish bike lanes and signs on roads, create Katahdin racing and touring events, and apply for private, state or federal grant money for those efforts.

The KTA’s longer-term and most ambitious goal is to turn Katahdin into one of New England’s great bicycle and mountain-biking destinations, which the publication of bike trail maps could help.

The Golden Road Bike Tour is their first large-scale event. Profits from it will go back into their trail-making efforts, Stanley McLaughlin said.

Besides being good exercise, the biking event will allow riders to sample the wildlife and natural beauty of the region and the lifeline to Katahdin’s storied and still vibrant paper manufacturing and forest management industries, said Stanley McLaughlin, co-founder of the Katahdin Trails Alliance.

“It’s a great idea and I am very pleased with it,” Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said Friday. “It is one more element in the recreational offerings in this area.”

Event registration begins at 7:30 a.m. today and continues throughout the weekend. Single riders will be charged $25, while groups will be charged as little as $17 per person. For more information, go to katahdintrailsalliance.com.

The Golden Road Tour packet, which registration pays for, will contain a registration tag, rules of the bike tour, a map of Millinocket’s points of interest, and an invitation to a free concert at Millinocket’s bandstand.

Volunteers were working Friday to prepare for the weekend’s events. The McLaughlins were installing 14 rather large caution signs on the Golden Road, while other volunteers were cooking sauce and pasta at the local VFW post.

No logging truck traffic will be running on the road this weekend, they said.