It started out a simple training course for a local team. Two decades later, it’s an annual, multi-division road race that sees up to 450 riders from across the regional pedaling their way across the Sequim-Dungeness Valley.
The Tour de Dungeness race celebrates 20 years when hundreds of cyclists and their families visit the area for races in men’s, women’s and masters race divisions on two Saturdays, March 11 and March 18.
Race organizer Mike Van Doren said he didn’t foresee this event hitting the 20-year mark back in 1997.
“It’s so unusual for a small local road without a major sponsor,” he said. “It’s just support from the riders that keeps it going.”
Van Doren said the race remains a popular draw for the timing during the season — it’s the first race for many cyclists — and the location.
“We have perfect, early season training race (here); the season is just getting underway locally,” he said.
Van Doren said the race got its origins with the Pettit Oil team. Bill Rowland, who started the club in 1985, trained the team on a course similar to the 12-mile laps that the Tour follows today.
“He thought it would be a great road race,” Van Doren said.
The first few years of the race team member would go out and sweep the course — a pebble or piece of trash can be dangerous for riders going upward of 35 miles per hour — and they were lucky to get about a hundred riders in all.
That is until word started spreading in the cycling community.
“Once the word got out about how great the course was, (numbers increased) every year, year after year after year,” Van Doren said.
Now about 450 riders and support staff are expected for the next two weekends. It may be a relatively big race weekend in 2017, Van Doren said, after the annual Mason Lake Road Race pushing their date into April.
The course hasn’t changed much, however. Weather can be tricky at times, Van Doren noted, but it’s usually dry and occasionally quite breezy.
“Wind usually is a factor in the afternoon; they either have a headwind or a tailwind,” he said. “At times a headwind from the east on Anderson Road they’ll be plugging along at 20 miles per hour. Then they turn west on Woodcock Road and they’re going 35 (mph).”
“But I never get a complaint.”
One significant change organizers made, Van Doren said, was to make the finish where Lotzgesell and Cays roads meet, an uphill climb.
“We had too many crashes at the previous finish,” Van Doren said. “That (new spot) slows it down a little bit; sprinting at 40 miles per hour can be quite chaotic.”
Race day problem-solving
While he was competitive in the early years — Team Pettit members who could be spared from organizing often competed — Van Doren has been more behind the scenes for much of the past 20 years.
“At 74 years old, it’s not fun racing with those young guys,” Van Doren said. “I just go out and train.”
“The (Pettit) team just kind of dissolved — I’m basically the only one left.”
Prior to a Saturday race, the county road department sweeps the course. Van Doren then touches up course corners with a broom each Friday prior. He’ll also set up a parking lot at the corner of Lotzgesell and Kitchen-Dick roads, land donated for the weekends by Tony Cortani of Tim’s Cabinets.
On race day, Van Doren is back in a lead car monitoring the front of the category and making sure vehicles don’t pull out of driveways into a pack of riders. A second car trails the pack.
Divisions can see fields of up to 100 in the men’s and elite women’s divisions, and up to 75 in others.
The course is an open one, Van Doren said, meaning cars can be on the roadway at the same time. The only instance roads are closed, he said are the last 200 meters of each race.
“Most people are pretty accommodating,” he said. “They’re giving a friendly wave as the (riders) go by.”
While Van Doren is busy overseeing the race Saturdays, a host of volunteers, generally from Seattle-area teams, help volunteer to manage various race-day issues.
And while many of the competitors vying for wins at the Tour De Dungeness are from I-5 corridor cities, there are a slew out out-of-region riders who give it a go in Dungeness, too. Van Doren recalled seeing Chloé Dygert Owen, now an Olympic Games medalist (Rio 2016), compete with some of the top men cyclists at the 2015 Tour De Dungeness. “Just training,” Van Doren said.
“We have had other world-class riders occasionally; they happen to be in town,” he said. “They just blow the field away.”
The races are not just for the pros, Van Doren said.
“I got a call (this week) from a 14-year-old, a local. He’s excited. He might race the second weekend.”
For those who want to catch some of the action, Van Doren said the best places are the two downhill corners — a right-hand turn from Cays Road to East Anderson Road (“a really fast, downhill right turn), and the turn from Sequim-Dungeness Way turning west on Woodcock Road.
Those who do get a chance to see quite a colorful group or riders — called pelotons — thanks to racing clubs’ tendencies to go bright with their gear.
“When the peloton comes, turns left from Lotzgesell onto Cays, with the mountains in background … that’s really cool,” Van Doren said. “It’s just a really scenic race.”
About the race
Riders in different categories compete on a 12-mile course which includes Lotzgesell, Cays and East Anderson roads, Sequim-Dungeness Way, then Woodcock and Kitchen-Dick roads.
Races start at 9:45 a.m. and run until late afternoon, rain or shine.
Motorists driving on these roads March 11 and March 18 should prepare for the possibility of minor traffic delays and to be cautious of cyclists on the road.
Tim’s Custom Cabinets has loaned race organizers its parking lot at the corner of Kitchen-Dick and Lotzgesell roads for the event. There will be no overnight parking, however, and participants are asked not to litter or use the site for tire spinning.
To register or to get more information, call Van Doren at 775-7796 or 417-5257 after 5 p.m.
