Sunday, July 08, 2007
Local ride shows best of cycling
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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On the opening day of the world's best known bicycle race, there came proof that purity can still be found in cycling.
It came on a steep and winding mountain road in Roanoke, where 77 amateur cyclists rode a 1.86-mile time trial up Mill Mountain in an atmosphere refreshingly free of accusations of cheating and doping.
There was purity in the grimace on Wayne Durham's face as he crossed the finish line in just under 18 minutes.
"Two years ago, I was 15 minutes," the Blacksburg 60-year-old said a few minutes later, still gasping, his face flushed but smiling. "I don't like this trend."
There was innocence and exuberance in 11-year-old Sterling Hinkle, including the leg he banged up when he crashed barely halfway through the climb.
"I like to go fast, be competitive," said Sterling, who lives in Virginia Beach. "But I hate to go up hills.
"I'm just glad I finished."
In fact, all bikers finished the race, which was part of the Coventry Commonwealth Games program.
Some seemed to fly up the course. Some didn't.
Karen Hanson of Goochland has raced the Mill Mountain time trial four times, with varying results.
Saturday, she was slower than she'd hoped. She even stopped once.
She also has asthma.
"With asthma you have good days and bad days," shrugged Hanson, a 42-year-old insurance claims representative. "Today was not a good day."
But it was still a good day for riding. They all are.
"Cycling allows me to continue to maintain a really healthy lifestyle," Hanson said.
Susan Scheel knows it, too.
"It makes everybody healthier," said Scheel, a 46-year-old Virginia Beach homemaker who started riding three years ago. "My husband and I have lost a combined 70 pounds.
"That's what cycling can do for you."
But there are what Scheel called "barriers to entry."
"Like being a middle-aged lady in Lycra," she said, laughing.
Having overcome that mental barrier, Scheel faced the barrier of getting herself and her bike up the mountain.
And it hurt.
"Thank God that's over," she said as she crossed the finish line.
A few riders were gluttons for punishment. Virginia Beach pawn shop owner Jeff Craddock and his son Elliott, 16, raced the course twice.
"That second time was much harder," said the 42-year-old Craddock, who was slightly faster than his son on both runs.
Warren Carswell, a Methodist minister from Covington, did it twice, too -- much slower on the second trip, when he was pedaling a mountain bike and towing a trail-a-bike and his 6-year-old son, Seth.
"It was fun," Seth said.
Easy for him to say.
"When you're racing, it's not necessarily fun," said Jason Fizer, a 32-year-old artist from Roanoke. "There's a lot of pain and suffering."
The joy comes at the end, he said, when know you've pushed yourself to the limits.
Fizer was slower this year than he has been, but he was proud of his ride.
He gave up much of his training this spring to be with his elderly grandmother, Juanita Redman, who died June 16, at 90.
Saturday, Fizer carried her picture on the ride. "Today, I rode in her honor," he said.
Fizer said he started riding in 2000, inspired by Lance Armstrong.
Like so many weekend racers, Fizer is a fan of professional cycling, and remains one even as doping scandals have wracked the sport.
"I'd like to believe there are some good guys out there who are really in it for the riding," Fizer said.
There are.
Saturday afternoon, 77 of them rode up Mill Mountain.
See full time-trial results at roanokecycling.org/games.
