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WILKES-BARRE – There’s a sound that is connected to all bicycle races, a sound familiar to people throughout France, Spain and Italy.
It’s the hiss of a hundred or more bicycle tires on tarmac, and the rush of air as the peloton blasts past.
It’s a sound that is more than a century old, dating back to the first mass bicycle races, the European Tours, and it was the sound heard in Wilkes-Barre Friday night as the city hosted its first Pro-Am Twilight Criterium bicycle race.
For a first-time event, it was all that major sponsor Blue Cross could have asked for, according to representative Leigh Ann Wiedlich. The competition promotes health and wellness, and shows off the riverfront revitalization.
Organized by Phil Cable, the event contained a medley of youth and celebrity events before the 33-lap, 33-mile Pro-Am event. The youth races drew more than 50 kids, ages 6 through 14, with distances up to two miles. The celebrity event, which was originally scheduled for five laps, was dropped to three on concerns that the light would be gone before the main event was completed. The main race had originally been set for 50 laps, but darkness prompted the shortening of the race.
For Daniel Veneski, who rode with all the young riders in a Dunkin’ Donuts costume, a giant coffee cup astride a black bike, it might have been one of the more interesting races he’s ridden. The 25-year-old recently won the category 4 Tour of Lancaster, but was ineligible for the category 3 Wilkes-Barre event.
Veneski, as well as all the other competitors in the 11-14 event, were soundly beaten by a ferociously ridden, single-speed BMX bike that proved that raw energy could beat anything else in the field.
In the celebrity field, pre-race banter between Mayor Tom Leighton, and Tom Nardone, of Nardone Brothers Pizza, as to which was likely to win failed to take into account the serious competition from Blue Cross entrant Liza Prokop and the others who slipstreamed Nardone most of the three laps and cut past him at the end.
The route developed two spectator stages, one at the South River start-finish point, and the other around Public Square and Midtown Village.
Thai-Thai customers got to sit at outside tables, eating their dinners and watching the bikes whoosh by at two to three minute intervals, while others perched on the bleachers set up near Subway.
Rich Adams of Around Town Bicycles said that the logistics involved in planning the event had led to some concerns – whether there would be a good crowd turnout, whether a sufficient number of cyclists would come, whether the roads could be closed without major disruption on a Friday night – but everything had worked out well.
The event drew more than 90 competitive cyclists.
At first the crowd was larger on South River, but as the twilight fell, significant crowds also built up between Midtown and the square.
And it was on the square that two children,.Hannah Gildea and her cousin Jacob Soderman, stood against the security tape, and felt the wind of the peleton as it raced inches by them, and said, “wow.”
It was the first race they had seen, according to Jacob’s mother Jennifer Soderman, and judging by the looks on their faces, it had left a lasting impession.