Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406140092
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wes Wilmer will do it. Starting next weekend, he will spend 24 days riding the nation's highways, eating, sleeping and sightseeing.
At some point, he also probably will ask, "Are we there yet?"
Wilmer will fly from Roanoke to Seattle, then travel 3,333 miles, from Everett, Wash., to Williamsburg. He will stop and eat a couple of times a day and spend nights in motels.
He will travel through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia.
He will travel on a bicycle.
Wilmer, owner of a regional franchise for Jani-King, a commercial cleaning service, will be among 50 riders from 21 states - and one of two Virginians - on the Pacific-Atlantic Cycling Tour. It's not a race. It just will feel like it.
"I'm going to sit back and enjoy the scenery some," Wilmer said, "but I will be riding in the fast group."
The average daily mileage is 140. The vertical climb is a combined 100,845 feet. Wilmer will make 780,000 pedal revolutions. He's prepared. Since Jan. 1, the Roanoke County resident has pedaled more than 5,030 miles in preparation. Last weekend, he rode 250 miles in one day, his personal distance record.
As of 18 months ago, he hadn't ridden since his high school days.
"It basically was a 20-year layoff," he said.
Wilmer ran cross country in high school and college and competed in junior cycling. About a year ago, Wilmer decided he missed riding, so he joined the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club. Now, he's ready to make the step from a Category 4 to 3 cyclist, a level where competition with professionals is permitted.
"I got caught up enjoying the racing side of cycling," Wilmer said. "I signed up for the PAC tour last year, and the idea was just to ride. Now, it's more than that."
Many PAC tourists use the trip as a stepping stone to the Race Across America, but Wilmer said the RAAM "isn't a goal at this time." He is considering, however, pedaling a 1,200-mile Rockies tour from El Paso, Texas, to Calgary, Alberta, next summer.
"I look at this as a competitive stepping stone," said Wilmer, who is part of the Xloy Racing Team sponsored by the Pulaski metal manufacturer.
Wilmer first traveled cross-country in 1984, when he drove to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He's never been in most of the states he will ride through with an eclectic group that includes a fireman, a chemist, a lawyer, an insect ecologist, an anesthetist, a professor, a registered nurse, a chiropractor, an engineer and a Missouri woman, 39, who lists her occupation as "crazy."
Wilmer, 38, is at the average age on the tour. Since he began riding again a year ago, he's dropped 35 pounds from his 5-foot-9 frame, to 164.
While he's riding about 12 hours a day for more than three weeks during the PAC Tour, Wilmer and his fellow tourists will dine on meals prepared from support vehicles that follow the riders. Each day begins with a 6 a.m. buffet in a motel parking lot.
"They stop about the 80-mile mark," Wilmer said. "We all meet the same place for lunch at the food wagon. Then they stop again later on, and then we all meet at the hotel at night. You start out the next morning with the slower riders leaving first, so everyone gets to the lunch stop about the same time."
The PAC Tour costs $3,000 per rider.
The two longest days may be the second and third on the road, with the most distance, at 161 and 170 miles, as the tour leaves Washington, passes through Idaho and stops in Montana. The toughest climb is much closer to home for Wilmer - 11,000 feet of squiggly U.S. 33 from Buckhannon, W.Va., to Harrisonburg. The tour finishes with Harrisonburg-Ashland and Ashland-Williamsburg segments.
"The best part for me is every day, I know I'll be getting closer to home," he said. "That has to help keep you going."
It's coast to coast with little coasting. And when Wilmer returns home, he will be due for an 8,000-mile checkup.
by CNB