The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG - The 16th Annual Tour of Walla Walla bike race is returning to Waitsburg and Walla Walla this weekend and area competitive cyclists are getting ready for long rides and time trials.

The three-day race event will bring out everyone from hobby racers to cyclists who "take it very seriously," said Steve Rapp, the race director.

The race begins Friday on Lower and Middle Waitsburg roads and the cyclists will make two or three 21-mile loops.

On Saturday morning in Walla Walla, there is a race called a criterium, where riders will go around a 1.1-mile loop a number of times for 50 minutes. This will begin downtown at 7:30 a.m. and last until 1 p.m. Also on Saturday are the individual time trials where every rider races against the clock, from 2:45 to 8 p.m. at Walla Walla Community College. On Sunday, riders will start at 3:45 p.m. and leave from Waitsburg and head up toward Starbuck on a 27-mile loop and finish on McKay Alto Road and Lower Whetstone Road.

The race is a stage race and riders have to complete the race each day to participate in the next. The top four groups of riders will participate in the Friday race as well as those on Saturday and Sunday, and those at lower skill levels will not.

Rapp said the Waitsburg area has been chosen as a race site because of the great riding loops and country roads. But also because of the hospitality that has been shown in the past.

"The community volunteers for it with gusto," Rapp said .

Rapp remembers a few years ago at the race in Waitsburg when a big lightning storm hit the race staging area. Rain and lightning pounded the area and all of the cyclists headed into Waitsburg for cover. Rapp said cyclists huddled in the fire station and hardware store and community members brought out jackets and coffee for the riders. Rapp said that stage of the race was canceled, but the impression the Waitsburg community made on him and the riders will never leave him. He said the city received many letters of appreciation for the hospitality during that big storm.

"It's a fond memory in everybody's experience," Rapp added.

For Dayton resident Samantha DeVoir, 24, this will be her first time making memories in Tour of Walla Walla.

DeVoir, who works as the assistant manager of the rental shop at Ski Bluewood, just started riding road and mountain bikes last year with her husband, Jason DeVoir. She first got a "cross bike," so she could do both mountain and road biking. Once she started training and racing, "I didn't want to stop," she said.

She participated in a cyclocross race series last fall where she competed in about 1 to 2 races a week over an eightweek period. During cyclocross events, riders make short loops of about a mile over all terrain, including pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles that require the rider to quickly dismount from the bike and carry it while navigating the path and later getting back on.

DeVoir had just competed in her first road race last Saturday and pedaled her heart out for two 16-mile loops. Out of the five riders in her group, DeVoir said she came in last, but that's OK because she is just starting out.

"They pretty much just blew me out of the water," she said with a laugh.

That race for DeVoir was a good experience and she achieved her goal of finishing. For Tour of Walla Walla, she has been training one to two days a week and she hopes she can beat one or two competitors this weekend.

Her husband, who works for the Columbia County Sheriff's Office, will be working the race this weekend and he'll be able to cheer her on in this endeavor while keeping crowds and riders under control.

"I think I'm a glutton for punishment," DeVoir said. "But I think the best way to improve is to be challenged."

For more information about the race this weekend, call 509-525-4949.