Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 2, 1995 TAG: 9505020119
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Roanoke doesn't do blase very well.
Oh, sure, we may have tried to act as if this Tour DuPont thing was no big deal. Oh, is there a bike race today?
Take the crack legal team at Parvin Wilson Barnett & Guynn, who occupy a second-floor office on the Roanoke City Market.
A year ago, lawyer Doug Wilson had a telescope set up in his corner office, the television turned to live coverage, and his secretaries were leaning out the windows, hollering for all they were worth. (And you know how expensive legal fees are these days.)
This year, though, when the first Tour DuPont cyclists whizzed past the finish line, there was barely a peep out of the second floor. One secretary sat by the windows, munching on a salad. Too busy to watch much else, she said. Wilson was at his desk, studying legal papers. Too chilly to open the windows, he said.
For a while, it was like that all up and down the Tour DuPont route Monday - the crowds thinner and less vocal than a year ago.
Maybe it was the weather that kept people away. Or has the novelty worn off in just the second year the tour has come through the Roanoke Valley?
Or maybe, suggested local sports czar and Roanoke City Councilman Mac McCadden, we've simply learned a little bit about cycling. ``People have realized in a time trial the best racers go off last,'' he said. ``It started thin but the crowd escalated at the end'' - just in time to watch tour leader Lance Armstrong's dramatic finish.
Now that got our attention.
Maybe our reasons for rooting for Armstrong weren't always the most sophisticated. Amy Hart, who was hanging out at the course's end hoping for the Texan's autograph, explained her enthusiasm for Armstrong this way: ``I've heard his name so much and I can pronounce it.''
But hey, at least we knew enough to have favorites this year. And as soon as the public-address announcer downtown declared that Armstrong had crossed the Wasena Bridge - and had a chance to not only win the stage but break last year's best time - the City Market crowd surged to the barricades to cheer him on.
Heck, even the Parvin Wilson Barnett & Guynn folks flung open the windows and craned their necks up Campbell Avenue to see him coming.
And when Armstrong cruised around the block and came to a halt in the Allright Parking Lot, space number 41, by the tailgate of a red Volvo station wagon, it seemed as if half the crowd jogged along behind him - shouting his name and waving tour programs to be autographed.
So there.
After only two years, maybe we've got this time trial thing down pat. This time, we're:
Smart enough to know when the tour leader's speeding by and when it's just some straggler. Take Roanoke College senior Adam Draper. He needed to bone up for his 2 p.m. anthropology exam, but he didn't want to miss the tour, either. So there he was Monday morning, standing by the road, his anthropology book and notes in hand - but with one eye out for the big-name cyclists. Was he getting much studying in? ``Not as much as I should,'' he confessed.
Smart enough to know the rules. ``I'm enjoying it a lot more,'' said Helen Morgan, who staked out a viewing spot near the course's starting line at the Salem Civic Center. ``Last year I didn't understand it. I thought everybody went by at the same time.''
And smart enough to know when the whole thing is just a lost cause.
Take the businesses along Brambleton Avenue. Last year, many merchants grumbled that the tour shut down their street - and their business - for most of the day. This year, many businesses along that stretch of the tour route threw parties instead - ``making the best out of a bad situation,'' as Coffee Pot owner Carroll Bell put it. The Roanoke Rotary served up 400 lunches at the old Mick-or-Mack store; the Brambleton Teen Center ran out of food.
In fact, there was so much competition for revelers that business was down from last year at one of the rowdiest viewing spots - the Coffee Pot.
Still, 40 to 50 people made their way to the tent the nightclub set up by the roadside. ``I'm happy with it,'' Bell said. ``It could be worse. I could be closed.''
From the looks of things, there were plenty of businesses that should have been closed Monday, judging by how many workers took the day off to watch the race.
Insurance company worker Victor Barbanauskas explained his absence this way: ``These are athletes from all over the world. How often do you get a chance to see something like that?''
Many parents came to the same conclusion, pulling their kids out of school for all or part of the day to see some of the race. Six-year-old Mariah Gleason of Salem sported a Chevrolet-LA Sheriff team cap, well-inked with autographs. ``She's getting a thrill out of it,'' said her dad, Randy Gleason, a Salem cemetery manager, as they trolled the Salem Civic Center parking lot.
In some cases, teachers justified a field trip to the tour as a learning experience. Sandy Hill, a physical education teacher at Andrew Lewis Junior High School in Salem, said he wanted his students to see the cyclists up close so they'd be impressed by their physical conditioning: ``I'm trying to get them more in tune with what they need to do to get in shape as they get older.''
Whether that's the lesson they really learned is another matter. One student peered inside the team vans, realized the cyclists were only an arm's length away, then called out to his classmates: ``Hey, let's get some autographs!''
Staff writer Jan Vertefeuille contributed information to this story.
by CNB