Twilight Brings the Heat

And Flagpole Helps You Figure It All Out

originally published April 23, 2008

Now staring down its third decade of competition, the Athens Twilight Criterium has matured into one of the jewels of American cycling over the past 29 years. Fast, tough and seen by tens of thousands of spectators every year, Twilight has grown into a festival-sized celebration that encompasses sports, music and a modern, healthy living lifestyle expo.

Covering 80 kilometers (40 kilometers for women), riders approach heart-straining speeds as they spin lap after lap around downtown Athens, dodging uneven pavement and the sharp elbows of their competitors while engulfed in a wall of sound created by enthusiastic spectators around the rectangular course. If you’ve never witnessed the event live, it’s a must-see, whether you care one whit about bike racing or not. The handcycle criterium (always worth seeing) is scheduled to start at 6:30 on Saturday night, the Women’s Pro race at 7:45 p.m. and the Men’s Pro race at 8:45 p.m. - and those times could be pushed back - but both Friday and Saturday are full of Twilight events all day long (one notable example: the BMX contest runs from 11 a.m.–3:30 p.m. Saturday, downtown on College Avenue), and the full updated schedule is online at www.athenstwilight.com.

Athens is home to several pro riders and four cycling teams, and Twilight is a big day on their race calendar. Our local squads always hope to do well here, but the tremendous amount of heat that shows up for this now classic event is so top-shelf that nabbing a hometown win is tricky to say the least.

The Locals: Who’s Who

Jittery Joe’s

Jason Spruill

The Jittery Joe’s squad in training, earlier this spring.

Probably the best-known local team, Jittery Joe’s is run by Micah Rice and his Directeur Sportif Jesse Lawler. For years the team looked to their fast man, Jeff “Lightning“ Hopkins to snag a hometown victory, but it has so far eluded them. With Hopkins gone and this year’s Tour de Georgia running concurrently with Twilight, Rice will be fielding only three riders here this year. But he remains confident that they remain players for the overall winnings. Gone also are the Jittery Joe’s Mini Coopers that many a journalist crammed into while covering the team. (Augusta’s Taylor BMW now sponsors the team’s more spacious rides.) The team has added a bit of semi-camouflage green to its uniforms for added flair, but there’s no comment on whether the team’s caffeine-based sponsor gives them an unfair advantage.

“The difference for us this year is that we’ve got a really core group of guys that we can count on,” Rice says. “We’ve got Chad Hartley who’s a very good sprinter and a proven criterium rider. We’re also bringing Tim Henry and Ben Kneller, who is a super crazy strong kid. It’s a smaller squad then we’d like to field, but with Tour of Georgia on the same weekend, we kind of had to move stuff around. We kind of made our decision about who is doing Georgia by making sure we had a strong team for doing Twilight. Even though it’s only three guys, I think we can get in there and scrap it out.”

More info on the bean team is at www.thebeanteam.com.

Toshiba-Santo

The Toshiba-Santo Professional Cycling Team presented by Herbalife is one of the best criterium teams in the U.S. The outfit stands a more than significant chance at winning the 29th edition of the Twilight Criterium. The team currently counts the under-23 national criterium champion (Keith Norris), last year’s USA CRITS overall series winner Frank Travieso and the 2007 Athens Twilight Champion Mark Hekman.

Team director Gus Carrillo sums up the race this way: “I haven’t really seen the odds, so to speak, so I can’t really say that we’re the odds-on favorite. I think that once the experienced people that watch racing here in the U.S. see our roster, they’re going to see that we’re definitely going for the win. We’re not scared of anybody with that roster of eight guys. The pressure will be on us a little bit to do a lot of work, but we look forward to it. That’s what we have to do to win bike races.”

The young man who will be feeling the majority of that pressure, Frank Travieso, is resigned to do everything he can to deliver the win. “Twilight with me is a big fight. Every year I come to Twilight I come with my best form, and I can never get into the top 10. This year I want to win. But if one of my teammates goes in the breakaway and laps the field, I will work pretty hard for him. For sure, one of us is looking to win.”

Find more on the team at: www.toshibacycling.com.

Aaron’s

Micah Rice also happens to head up the Aaron’s Pro Women’s Cycling team, and last year they produced the winner of the Athens Twilight Criterium, Katherine Carroll. Carroll’s career on two wheels ever since has taken a considerable upswing; as a result, she will not be returning to Athens to defend her title because of her racing schedule in Europe. Nevertheless, Aaron’s should not be discounted in 2008, according to Rice.

“We’re bringing a strong team of six, including some of our best sprinters,“ he says. ”Our new sprinters… Anna Lang was third at the [National Criterium Championship race at] Downer’s Grove this year, and Erica Allar is the under-23 national criterium champion two years running. So we have some strong crit riders here for sure and a good support like Rebecca Larson, who is an Athens resident and the collegiate national champion two years in a row.” More at www.aaronscyclingteam.com.

Locos Grill & Pub

Locos Grill & Pub Elite Cycling Team is a squad of local elite amateurs who often use the team as a springboard to bigger programs. But lately, Locos is showing some real muscle on the criterium circuit, particularly in the form of one Chris Scott.

“Chris is riding better than he ever has,” says team director Micah Morlock. “These guys are in it looking for high places and to get in the moves. Their sprinting skills are good if they can get in the break. One of our foremost goals is to be a development team for people who want to get into professional cycling, but it’s also a place for Athens’ elite riders to have a home.” http://teamblingbling.com.

What’s Going On?

A criterium, or a “crit” simply enough, is a bicycle race of a specified number of laps on a course over public roads closed to normal traffic. But the mechanics of the race and the strategy can be all but invisible to casual observers simply trying to keep the head on their beer intact as the field zooms by. Last year’s Twilight was marred by crashes, and a seven-man getaway group eventually lapped the main field. Amid all that chaos, spectators were hard-pressed to know what was going on unless they paid close attention to the announcers.

Each team that rolls up to the starting line does so with some strategy for either an outright victory, or the hope of winning part of the prize purse. The more teammates you can bring to the race, the better the odds are of doing well. Teams support one or maybe two riders for the overall win by keeping their best men/women shielded from the wind and chasing down any threats from competitors that might change how the race plays out. Breakaways do happen in criteriums, and as in the bigger road races like the Tour de France, the right combination of riders could stay off the front of the field, scooping up prize money and setting themselves up for the finish. Plus, if the main pack gets lapped again this year, any other hopefuls who are not in the breakaway could be frozen out of the competition simply because of the amount of speed required to make up a lap with little or no help.

If the team’s protected members can stay fresh over the course of the race by not having to chase down every breakaway attempt (since their willing lieutenants are there to do that for them… until they get tired, that is), their job is to stay safe and close to the front of the field during the final laps. There can be a lot of dangerous jockeying for position through those final corners, and they have to be prepared to mix it up if they want to stay upright and competitive within the thundering herd.

Then there are the races within the race. Periodically the announcers ring a bell to signal that on the following lap a prize or “preme” (pronounced “preem”) will be awarded on the next lap. The first rider to cross over the start/finish line will receive whatever’s on offer (cash, gifts, etc.) to be split among teammates. Teams who will probably not figure in the final gallop for the big victory can still go home with a nice chunk of change in their pockets. With the sport still being run on low salaries and tight budgets, the higher cash prizes are hotly contested. In the first 20 of the 80 laps to be run, a good portion of the riders will exhaust themselves completely in pursuit of these premes.

Where to Set Up and Spectate

No matter where you stand or sit, you’ve got an interesting view of the race. With the riders going by at just over a minute a lap, there’s essentially no break in the action, and you can easily catch the race from a variety of vantage points depending on what level of intensity you’re up for.

Start/Finish

This is the best place to keep up with all the nuances of the race, courtesy of announcer Chad Andrews. Andrews spends the entire evening giving people insight into race tactics without bogging his listeners down with too much jargon. Get there early for a spot on the fence.

Backstretch

By planting yourself on the back end of the course on Washington Street, you get to see the racers not only vie for the best spots in the field, but you can also gauge who are some of the stronger riders on the course. Since the race is run counter-clockwise, the hill on Washington puts a bit of sting in the legs of Twilight participants: certainly one of the best places to see an attack out of the field.

Corner 1

The hay-bale-lined corner in front of the Georgia Theatre is the site where poorly executed turns can result in serious wreckage. Last year’s mega-pileup there resulted in the race being “neutralized” and re-started. Not a place for the faint of heart.

Café Areas

Any of the fenced-off café areas on the Twilight course are an ideal spot to watch the race in relative comfort, where you can easily enjoy the delights of food and drink while the men and women in lycra blow past you.

Riders to Watch

Elite cycling coach and veteran announcer Chad Andrews has called the Athens Twilight Criterium for the past five years, and as a result, has witnessed some of the very best of this unique form of American racing up close. While the Pro Men's field will start with over 100 riders, fewer than two thirds will probably finish either due to wrecks, mechanical issues or sheer exhaustion. Of the remaining riders, only a handful of heavy hitters will have the fitness, skill and full support of their teammates to be in contention for the final sprint to the line. Then again, last year’s men’s and women’s winners, Mark Hekman and Katherine Carroll, would have been dark horses at best. Andrews says these are some men to watch this year.

Frank Travieso (Toshiba-Santo)

“He literally looks like he’s riding with wings. He looks lean, confident and comfortable… and just fast.“

Martin Gilbert (Kelly Benefits-Medifast)

”If he starts this season like he finished last season, forget it… he’s a factor. The guy not only has a great sprint, but he has a great finish. With three kilometers to go, he really fights well for the front. And that’s very important at a race like Athens, because those last five laps are absolute mayhem.“

Jeff Hopkins (Abercrombie & Fitch/Inferno Racing)

”Jeff is an opportunist. If he can survive the first 20 laps, I think he’s got as decent a shot as anyone to be in the finish. The people that always beat him, except for Frank, won’t be there.“

Emile Abraham (Team Type 1)

”Emile usually excels at some of the late season stuff. But the fact that he already did well at the San Dimas Stage Race, where the talent level is significantly higher, puts him somewhere around a 7 to 1 chance of winning.“

John Murphy (Health Net)

”He’s riding awesome, but does the time on the bike he’s put in this year come back to bite him? He won the Tour of Taiwan; he raced in California and in some of the Georgia Cup races. Has he been taking the time off to be ready to race in Athens?“

Kyle Wamsley (Colavita-Sutter Home)

”Super strong, and he doesn’t necessarily need many teammates to be successful here.“

Chad Hartley (Jittery Joe’s)

”He’s young, but his experience of having done this race before may help him get through the first 15 laps. If you’re going to have success at Twilight, you need to have raced it before. This is monkey junk… put it through the windmill, into the gorilla’s mouth and hope that it goes in the hole. It’s too frenetic.“

JoE Silva