June 9, 2005

By Lauren Heaton

Vehicles and pedestrians will have to make way Monday afternoon, June 13, as nearly 100 professional cyclists blaze a fast trail through the streets of Yellow Springs and Miami Township as part of the 10th annual Dasani Tour of Ohio International Bicycle race.

Yellow Springs starts the third stage of the nine-day race that begins in Delaware on Saturday, June 11, and ends in Athens on Sunday, June 19.

The racers will start the course in Yellow Springs on Walnut Street around 3:45 p.m., taking a spectator lap through downtown and onto Limestone Street and then to Corry Street, where they will gather speed and take off for 52 miles of varied terrain through Greene County.

The course is what Yellow Springs police officer and bicycle enthusiast Tim Knoth calls a technical course, with turns and switchbacks to challenge the race’s category 1 and 2 riders.

Knoth, who is organizing traffic control for the race, said spectators will see an interesting event as the cyclists haul down Grinnell at speeds likely to reach 60 miles per hour, grind up the Devil’s Backbone, or John Bryan Park Road, and then onto State Route 343 to Clifton. In Clifton, the cyclists will travel on Jackson, Water and Clay Streets and head east on Clifton Road and back to Grinnell and Bryan Park Road.

They will make the loop in Miami Township five times before returning via Corry and Limestone to Yellow Springs around 5:45. The race will conclude with 10 laps around Mills Lawn School.

Knoth said that 19 local and area officials will direct traffic along the bicycle route. Stationed at various locations in the village and along the course will be five Yellow Springs police officers, five Miami Township Fire-Rescue volunteers, three Greene County sheriff’s deputies, two state park and two county park patrol officers and two security police from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

In Yellow Springs, the block around Mills Lawn, from Walnut to Limestone and Phillips and Elm Streets, as well as Short Street, will be closed from approximately 3 to 6:30 p.m.

While the professional racers are out in Miami Township, youth ages 4 to 12 may participate in mini-races in three different age categories around the Mills Lawn lap. Children’s Hospital in Dayton has donated 50 helmets to give away as raffle prizes.

Registration for the children’s races begins at 3:45, and the races will be held from 4:30 to 5:30. Youth must be accompanied by an adult.

For those who want to watch the races in Yellow Springs, Knoth recommended that spectators park within a block of the Mills Lawn campus. To observe the race along the county route, spectators should park in legal spaces, such as the entrance to the Clifton Gorge or in Clifton, he said.

According to a press release from Tim Tyler, the executive director of Tour of Ohio, the weeklong race includes stages in Croton, Somerset, Hocking Hills State Park, Coshocton, Granville and Athens, and will draw elite cyclists such as Worthington resident Marco Aledia, who leads the Texas Roadhouse Cycling Team, and Ryan Rish and Ryan Gamm from the Savage Hill Cycling team based in central Ohio. Cyclists from national teams from Canada, New Zealand, Belgium and Ireland are also expected to participate in the race, the press release said. The cyclists are competing for over $5,000 in prize money.

The race supports bicycle enthusiasm throughout Ohio, said Knoth, who is happy the tour has come to Greene County and wants to keep it here in the future.

“We hope to draw spectators from here as well as neighboring communities,” Knoth said. “Anyone in the Dayton Cycling Club and groups like that will catch wind of this and want to see it — it’s going to be a good time.”