Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 31, 1993 TAG: 9305310070
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B9 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It let Odessa Osorio of Darlington, S.C., for example, go easy. Only sweat-pasted brown hair tattled on the 10-year-old's effort in the ROC Hillclimb, a 3.3-kilometer ride that gains 847 feet in elevation en route to the top of Roanoke's geologic ambassador.
"I'm a licensed rider," Osorio said, seriously.
The veteran cyclist - she's been competing since she was four, in places like New York, Indiana and Texas - admitted the course tested her, but it didn't wow the member of a family in which Mom, Dad and three of six kids are licensed competitive riders.
"I like riding," she said. "That's our hobby."
The big hill with the star on top wasn't so generous to all. Approximately 275 riders in seven categories and various age groups registered to pedal to the top in the $2,000 event that is part of Festival in the Park. Several dozen, Osorio included, weren't pros or even highly ranked riders. Just people who felt like a 15-minute-or-so ride on a twisty, ascending course, for differing reasons.
One of those, 52-year-old Jerry Stone of Brevard, N.C., was a man in search of his sanity at the top.
He's a mountain-bike rider by hobby, and a competitive one. Never done a Hillclimb, but figured, What the heck? Answered Mill Mountain: Here's what.
"I just did it to make me work hard," Stone said, "and to show me how bad off I am."
Stone owns Camp Rockbrook in Brevard, a girls' outdoor camp that he says has "an outpost" in Tazewell County, from which he drove to Roanoke. He will drive back humbled.
"My hat's off to these guys," he said. "I was glad to finish it. I didn't stop, that's all I can say. [And] nobody older passed me."
Roanoke resident Jeff Ostrander looked ready to pass out after finishing, but that was because of a major kick he undertook near the end. A couple of minutes before Osorio sailed calmly across the finish line, Ostrander had taken a quick left into the grass, dumped himself off his bike and propped himself up with his hands flayed out behind him.
"I just pushed it," he said.
Ostrander has goals. A William Fleming High School graduate, he attends Ferrum College and wants to become a licensed rider to keep racing competitively. The 18-year-old said he had enough competition points to qualify as a licensed Category 4 rider this year, but he wants to make sure he's ready before he joins the serious bunch.
"I love it," he said. "To me, it's the best of all sports. It doesn't wear you down as much as so many others do."
It certainly didn't sap Xavier Lee on Sunday. The 12-year-old Northside Junior High School student had a leg cramp on the way up, but he didn't look fazed as he walked a path at the top.
"I can go another time," he said. "It didn't really tire me out."
Lee says his father, Roy, got him into cycling and said he rides for "exercise, I guess, and competition." He wasn't terribly impressed with his 15-minute, 56-second time Sunday.
"I could do faster than that," he said.
by CNB