Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 1, 1994 TAG: 9405050181
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: TDP6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Show up in Beech Mountain, N.C., around 4 p.m. on May 11 and you're a lock to hear a lot of huffing and puffing.
The '94 Tour's only mountain-top finish - at the summit of a 3.7-mile haul up the east side of Beech Mountain - will have "most guys' tongues dragging pavement," said Jim Birrell, the Tour DuPont's technical director and course designer.
"It's an extremely tough way to finish," Birrell said. "After riding 122 miles in the mountains just to get there, the legs can get pretty heavy and tired going up Beech. Let's just say here is where you separate the men from the boys, so to speak.
"When it's over, I'm sure some guys will want to know who came up with this. Riders come looking for me every now and then. But the way I see it, if there's $250,000 in prize money to win, they should have to work for their money."
Work? How about slow torture?
"There's only one word to describe it from a general public's slant, and that word is H-E-L-L," said Jim Copeland, a 32-year-old American rider who lives in Winston-Salem, N.C., some 75 miles east of Beech Mountain. "It's so steep that it's hard to describe it.
"If you weigh 175 pounds, in order to get your body up the hill you're going to have to be able to lift every pound with one leg on every stroke of the pedal. It's as tough as it gets, believe me."
The ascent of Beech comes minutes after the riders have made the descent into Banner Elk, N.C., fresh off a laborious 7.8-mile trudge up Valle Crucis Mountain.
"It's certainly one of the toughest stages, close to being the toughest," Birrell said. "A lot of guys aren't going to be able to keep up.
"You can bet on it being well spread out at the finish. By the time they start up Beech, you might see a group of three in the lead, with another group of three or so back a good ways. Then about 25 more will come, with a large group of stragglers left behind."
It was on the climb up Beech, at an elevation of 5,058 feet, the highest point in the Tour's history, that American Lance Armstrong tried a breakaway from Mexican Raul Alcala in an attempt to take the leader's jersey last year in Stage 9. Alcala staved off Armstrong's push, pulled away and went on to win the overall individual title two stages later.
Copeland, a member of the Chevrolet-LA Sheriff team, said this trip to the Beech tests a rider's limits - not only physically but psychologically.
"You somehow just have to be prepared mentally," he said. "It can really be a huge distraction when something that hard looms in the distance and you're sitting there knowing just how hard it's going to be to struggle up it."
And what's it like when you finally make it to the top?
"You're just totally spent," Copeland said. "Every fiber of your body is twitching at the end. Unless you do some kind of endurance sport like triathlons or something, it's very hard to describe the feeling you get at the end of a climb like Beech Mountain."
The 125-mile ride begins at 11 a.m. on Main Street in Wytheville, making it the only '94 stage covering two states. The pack will exit downtown Wytheville onto Old Stage Road, where it will head to Rural Retreat via routes 677 and 675.
The initial rolling 40 miles give way to challenging back-to-back climbs over Iron Mountain Hiking (a Category 3 climb, with Category 1 being the most difficult) and White Top Mountain (Category 2, elevation 4,500 feet), which lurks in the shadows of Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia (5,729 feet).
After a five-mile descent down White Top, the riders will zip into North Carolina via Route 58 around 1:40 p.m. Two more Category 4 climbs - Three Top Mountain and Little Elk Ridge may soften the peloton for the final two killer humps - Valle Crucis (Category 2) and Beech, one of only two Category 1 climbs during the 1,060-mile tour.
While Stage 9 of last year's race also included the panting parlay of Valle Crucis and Beech, the 151-mile trip from Blacksburg to Beech didn't encompass the four preceding categorized climbs along this year's route.
"The format is different than in years past," Birrell said. "The riders wanted more mountain stages included. So this year we've tried to accommodate them and throw a lot in there for everybody.
"They want mountains, well, now they've got 'em. There are five KOMs [King of the Mountains, places in the race where the first six riders arriving receive bonus points] in Stage 6, six in Stage 7 and six more in Stage 8."
Prime viewing spots for the Virginia section of the stage include Main Street in Wytheville, Route 675 through downtown Rural Retreat and the peaks of Iron Mountain Hiking Trail and White Top Mountain.
Once in North Carolina, the best stakeout for a good look-see, Birrell said, is just past Boone, when the riders veer left off Route 321 to 194.
"There's a great switchback there where you can see riders really attacking," Birrell said. "That's where I'd camp out to watch."
by CNB