Bike Race Rolls Through Downtown Ventura

A swarm of bikes ruled downtown, sounding more like a cloud of bees buzzing along the street, and closing off Main and Poli streets to automobile traffic through most of Sunday morning.

At the second annual Ventura Cycling Classic, sponsored by the Kiwanis Club and the Open Air bicycle shop, about 100 competitors from throughout the region converged on Ventura for a high-speed race through downtown streets, rocketing around a loop between Ash and California streets as many as 50 times.

“It’s a short course with high speeds. It’s pretty exciting,” said Jon Avery, one of the race’s organizers and owner of Open Air. “They’re fast and furious.”

The race is called a criterion, in which bicyclists race a short course many times. The average time for a 50-lap race--equal to about 35 miles--was an hour and 10 minutes for the pros. The classic had two other categories: those for the relative novices, and masters--racers older than 35.

The organizers reported no high-speed crashes, which they attributed to a hairpin turn near City Hall that prompted riders to slow down before the steep descent down California Street.

“There can be spectacular crashes [during these events],” he said. “But we haven’t seen any.”

Winners were Jamie Paolinetti of Santa Barbara in the professional race, Karl Holst of Camarillo in the intermediate race and Jim Edwards of Rancho Santa Margarita in the masters race.

Pedro Gutierrez of Santa Barbara and Ruth Vomund of Ventura were the men’s and women’s winners in a related 5-kilometer run.

The race, which raises money for various Kiwanis projects, took in about $6,000 last year, Avery said.

Ventura resident Eve Bucher stumbled onto the race by accident while driving to the grocery store, and decided to take a peek at what the hubbub was about. Even after a couple of minutes, she admitted, she still wasn’t sure.

“It’s tough to keep track of, they move so fast,” she said from her vantage point on Main Street. “One minute they’re here, the next they’re gone.”

The streets of Ventura offer a particularly challenging course for riders as well as spectators because of the steep slopes, the cyclists said.

“It’s a very hard course,” Mike Camarena, a visitor from Porterville, said after his race. “It’s the hill that just gets you.”