8/6/2019 Bigger and better June 1, 2011 Kaleidescope

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Panorama PointPrologue

This off-and-on stage, which hasmadeseveralappearances in the Classicschedule, is back in 2011 after a year off.

The time trial provides a leisurely intro-duction to the race.Riders will start at the PineGrove Grange Hall and then ride 3 miles on East-side Road to Panorama Point.

When: Thursday, first riders depart at 5:30 p.m.Where to watch: Panorama Point Park to see the

riders climb to the finish

Downtown Hood River CriteriumThe crowd favorite is back to its original time

Saturday night.After years of being held on Sunday afternoon, the

most spectator-friendly race is being moved back to a more spec-tator-friendly time. Riders will start in front of Full Sail Brewery be-fore taking off on a series of high-speed loops around downtownHood River.

When: Saturday starting at 4 p.m. Pro riders start at 6:45 p.m.Where to watch: Everywhere. Pretty much the entire

course is open to the public.

Trout LakeTime Trial

Part of the course from last yearsMt. Adams Road Race returns in timetrial format this year on Saturday morn-ing as riders do a doubleheader with twoSaturday stages.

The course starts atTrout Lake School and fol-lows State Route 141 to Little Mountain Roadwhere the riders go right and eventually loop backaround Sunnyside road to the start.

When: First riders start at 9 a.m.Where to watch: Trout Lake Schoolfor thestart

and finish; corner of SR 141 and Little Mountain asriders make their first turn.

ColumbiaHills RoadRace

A new course thisyear for the classic fol-lows an old course in OregonCycling. With the race short-ened by one day, it takes thespot of both the Wyeast roadrace and the Columbia GorgeTime Trial the two previousWasco County stages, on theschedule. Riders follow thesame course from the 1999Oregon Road Cycling Champi-onships.The start is at the Wah-tonka campus of The Dalles-Wahtonka High School in TheDalles and then follows the His-toric Columbia River

Highway from TheDalles to Mosier and then backto the Columbia Gorge Discov-ery Center.

When: June 3, 9 a.m. start.Where to watch: Corners

of Oregon and Second and Ore-gon and Third in Mosier towatch riders begin their turn-around; Columbia Gorge Dis-covery Center both as riders goout and come back.

Three Summits Road RaceAn original course from the Cycling Classic,

this course had been unusable since 2006

when a flood wiped out the RedHill Bridge. This year anew bridge is inplace and juste n o u g hs no w h as( h o p e f u l l y )been cleared tomake it accessible again.

Riders will start and finish atthe Cooper Spur Ski Area. Thestage includes two 2,000-foot climbs, and the pro mens fieldwill ride the longest version of the stage at nearly 100 miles.

When: Riders start at 9:30 a.m.; Pro Men go at 10 a.m.; ProWomen go at noon.

Where to watch: Baseline Drive in Parkdale as riders passthrough and Cooper Spur for the big climb to the finish.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011 B1

Inside: B2, Parkdale NewsI B3, HappeningsI B5, YesteryearsI B6, Classifieds

Bigger and better,Bigger and better,Mt. Hood Cycling Classic rolls into town June 2

The cycling world has its own terminology that can beconfusing to outsiders; however, once you know the lingo,its very simple to follow. Here are some key words andphrases to know:

Breakaway: Thelead riders or riderin the field; in cy-

cling races it isused both as a verband a noun: So-and-so have pulledto the front and areforming a break-away. The ridersin this pack are notalways the fron-trunners. Oftentimes a supporting teammate of a strong rider will go tothe front to try and wear down another contending riderbefore the finish.

Peloton: The main field behind the breakaway pack.At the front you will often find teammates of the lead

rider or riders trying to control thepace of the big group and allowtheir rider to stay out in front. It canalso include riders saving their en-ergy to take a spot in the breakaway.

Criterium: A short road race typ-ically held on city streets.Yellow jersey: The overall race

leader.

Time trial: Riders are not racingeach other head-to-head, but are try-ing to be the fastest to complete thecourse. Instead of a mass start they

go one at a time at intervals.

King/Queen of the mountain/lap: Bonus time ormoney is given out to riders who have the best time in aclimbing stage segment (typically the toughest climbs onthe course) or a fastest lap in a criterium.

Judges: Race judges monitor the action throughoutthe race either in person (criterium) or in chase cars. Achase car is typically assigned to the breakaway groupand several others to the peloton.

Drafting: Riding behind another rider to break upwind resistance.

Penalties: Race judges cant throw a flag, but they still

keep notes. Riders and teams can be penalized points ormoney for everything from failure to sign a start sheet,prolonged drafting, dropping water bottles outside thefeed zones or failure to respect their fellow cyclists orrules of the road.

Feed zone: These are only found in the big road stagesand it is exactly what it sounds like.In the feed zone riders collect waterfrom support crew on the side of theroad. There is a specific art andorder to what seems like chaos, asriders can only grab water fromtheir specific support area, meaningthey have to pick out their supportcrew (who are often shouting theirteam name from the crowd) slow,navigate through the mess of riders,grab the water, ditch their old bottleand not crash, all at the same time.

The womens field is likely to get most of theheadlines at the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic this year.

The race seems to alternate every year, with oneyear being strong for the men but weak for thewomen and the next year is the opposite. Thewomen are undeniably the big story this year.

Two potential gold medal contenders at the 2012London Olympics are in thefield. American Kristin Arm-strong is making a comebackafter having a baby last yearand recently won the Tour ofCalifornia. Armstrong won

gold in Beijing in 2008 and isattempting to go up againstsome of the worlds best inher comeback trail.

She will get just that at Mt.Hood Cycling Classic. Canadi-an Clara Hughes, who took apair of bronze medals in cycling in the 1996 At-lanta Games and a gold in speed skating at the 2006Winter Olympics. The multi-sport star recentlycame out of cycling retirement, and like Arm-strong, has her eye on gold at the LondonOlympics.

She recently won the Pan American Games andis one of the top-ranked female cyclists in theworld coming into the Cycling Classic.

The Classic will be the first time the two meetthis year, and they chose to race on the slopes ofMount Hood instead of heading to the LibertyClassic in Philadelphia at the same time.

The Liberty Classic and Mt. Hood Cycling Clas-sic have gone head-to-head for several years, withthe Liberty draining the womens field last year.This year it hits the mens field hard.

Many of the top mens riders will be in Philadel-phia, but there will still be plenty of action.

Last years overall teamwinner, Hagens-Berman, hassent a team to defend its title.Also back is second-place fin-isher Team Rio Grande andperennial contender Califor-nia Giant.

While many of the top rid-ers from last year on thoseteams are not back, somefresh new faces will have achance to win glory on the topof the medal stand.

Mt. Hood Cycling Classic rolls into town June 2

Snow is still covering part of therace course, sponsorship dollars arein the tank and Chad Sperry doesntlook like he has slept in a week.

But the man is still bubbling withexcitement as the ninth-annual Mt.Hood Cycling classic, which he has or-ganized for all nine times, comes tothe Gorge tomorrow.

Snow plows are busy clearing offpart of Lost Lake loop for SundaysThree Summits stage which willalso take advantage of a new Red HillBridge that was not completed untilthis week.

The weather forecast calls for moresnow in the mountain, and Sperrysaid riders will be going through aroad with a 10-12-foot wall of snow oneither side at points. Hes OK withthat.

The epic nature of the weather de-fines this race, he said.

The race is still going thanks to the

primary sponsors who have stuckwith it since the beginning. The race

is bringing two of the top womensriders in the world to compete thisyear, putting it under a big spotlight.

We are so grateful to those founda-tion sponsors, he said. If it wasntfor them we would not be here.

Over the last month volunteers,staff members of Sperrys BreakawayPromotions and local companies haveworked to get everything ready.

Back in February I was thinkingthis would be an easy year and wecould just cruise through, Sperrysaid.

Instead, construction forced severalcourse changes; it was in doubt untillate last week if the Three Summitscourse would even be an option.

Major kudos to Hanel Develop-ment for making this happen, Sperrysaid of the company that plowed outthe course.

While Sperry was excited over thesnowplows clearing his race course,

he was even more excited over the ad-dition of Clara Hughes of Canada and

American Kristin Armstrong to thewomens field. Both are Olympic goldmedalists and this will be the firsttime they have faced off this season.

Itsgoingto be oneto watch, Sper-ry said. Both are incredibly intenseabout this meeting.

With the Criterium stage no longer just a relative formality in determin-ing the overall winner after beingmoved to Saturday night this year,Sperry expects the race action to be atreat for fans who check out the down-town race stage.

People have got to be down at theCriterium when those two racers goby, he said.

The race is not likely to be decideduntil the final climb up to CooperSpur on Sunday, and Sperry invitedthe public to come watch what hethinks will be a dramatic finish in abeautiful location

There is not another race in the

c o u n tr y t h a t h a s t h i s s t u n n i n gscenery or this landscape, he said.

The best in the west

Get to know the lingo

American Kristin Armstrong and

Canadian Clara Hughes are two to

watch at this years cycling classic

Its not rocket science, but theres much

more to cycling than just riding fast

CLARA HUGHES KRISTIN ARMSTRONG

Stories by BEN MCCARTY, Photos by ADAM LAPIERRE, BEN MCCARTY and submitted