*** Wenatchee Criterium crowd with gutsy skills ***

Wenatchee, Washington -- 05/17/2005
“All right, it looks pretty strung out coming out of that corner!”
announcer Robert Trombley boomed into his microphone on
one of the early laps.

“They’re looking around to see who will make the next move,”
he continued. “It’s Rob Campbell for Valley Athletic!”

The mellow strains of “Sweet Home Alabama” came from the
sound system when Trombley quit talking. He stood on a portable
stage in front of Davis Furniture on Wenatchee Avenue, the start
and finish line of the Wenatchee Twilight Criterium.

Across the Avenue spectators lounged on the grass of Centennial
Park. Some bought food at a Bison Bagels booth. Others enjoyed
brews at the Wenatchee Valley Volo Beer Garden in the Key Bank
parking lot.

They came to watch some of the best bicycle racers in the Pacific
Northwest compete in the final one-hour round of the criterium
— a speed-based sprint race on a four-corner, 1-kilometer course,
around two city blocks.

Lap after lap, they went — north on the Avenue, down Orondo
Avenue, south on Columbia Street and up Kittitas Street to the
Avenue.

Following a ways back from a pilot car, some 50 bicyclists sounded
like a swarm of bees descending Orondo, starting into the Columbia
corner wide, then leaning to the right and clipping the corner tight at
about 40 mph.

Fifteen bales of hay lined the far side of Columbia
in case someone crashed, but no one did.

It was an adrenaline rush just standing at the corner about two
feet from the helmeted bikers, looking into their faces as they
flew past. It felt like they were coming right at you. Like they
would sweep you away.

“This corner is better than a carnival ride. I do love the sound of it,”

said Ginger Shamley, a registered nurse at Central Washington
Hospital and co-worker of Dr. Ed Farrar who founded the race
in 1999.

It was Shamley’s first time at the race, but Ed and Cindy
Farrar are there every year, helping organize, cheering
racers on.

Their son, Tyler Farrar, won the criterium in 2001 on his 17th
birthday. He hasn’t been in it since because he’s in Europe this
time of year competing in bike races on the U.S. National Team.
He’s a five-time USA Cycling National Champion in the under
23-years-of-age class.

He just finished a five-week recovery after breaking his c
ollar bone in a crash in a race in Belgium, his mother said.

This was the second year the criterium was part of the
Washington State Omnium Stage Race Championship
along with time trials earlier Saturday and Sunday’s
Malaga Road Race.

“See how they are singled out, chasing hard. When they bunch up,
they slow down. Like a snake stretches out to strike and coils up
to rest,” Ed Farrar explained at the Orondo-Columbia corner.

The bicyclists have to be extremely proficient because they
occasionally lean on each other for stability or to position
themselves when they ride inches apart in a pack, he said.

The strategy is to follow in the leader’s draft and then break
for the lead in the final two laps. Teams of three to seven riders
each work together to make the break and hold competitors back.

“Woo! Good move! That lead guy just took off. He’s throwing
down the gauntlet, saying if you don’t catch me I’m going to win
the race,” Farrar said, walking south on Columbia.

“These guys are going up that hill (Kittitas) faster than Category
3 (an earlier division) went down the other hill (Orondo). It’s
insane,” said Ron Snyder, a Wenatchee Valley Volo member,
as he passed Farrar, walking the other way.

Jeff Hansen, owner of Hansen School of Driving, one of the few
spectators on Columbia, watched from a warehouse loading
dock across from his business.

“Go Johnny, Go!” Farrar yelled to Johnny Sundt of Jittery Joe’s
Coffee Team, Seattle, as Sundt led up Kittitas in the last few minutes.

Farrar noted “most stayed in the saddle,” seated,
instead of standing to pump up hill at about 30 mph.

Each lap now was taking less than a minute.

“Anyone crash?” asked police officer Kevin Dresker,
standing midway up Kittitas.

“These guys are so good, they hardly ever crash,”
Farrar replied.

“You guys keep it up! The field can’t get organized! They’re
trying to bridge! They’re trying to bridge!” Arnie Liati, a member
of the Valley Athletic Club Team of Olympia yelled to the lead
bikers near the top of Kittitas.

Liati was talking to his team members in the race via radio.
Racers 15 seconds behind the first three bikers were trying
to break or “bridge” into the lead group.

Kenny Williams of First Rate Mortgage Team, Seattle, and a
former national criterium champion, came from behind in the
second to last lap to win.

Farrar said it showed power.

Dave Wamsley, of Olympia, said it was a huge move, that
Williams broke away single-handedly. “Most guys can’t
close a 15-second gap, but these guys can,” Wamsley said.

Afterward, Williams, 38, said Russell Stevenson of Benaroya
Research Institute Team, Seattle, went to the lead with one lap
to go.

“He sat up and saw me sitting there and I just hit it as hard as
I could,” Williams said, explaining he took the lead just before
the Kittitas hill.

“This is a great race. I’ve won it two years in a row now.
Too bad Tyler (Farrar) wasn’t around for it. I love to race
with the kid. He’s an amazing rider.”

CC - http://www.wenworld.com

* Wenatchee Twilight Criterium Photos & Results
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