Price captures women’s road race

COLUMBIANA

Sally Price, Gray Patton and Jennifer Martin were 1-2-3 among women riders in Saturday’s road race as part of the Tour of the Valley.

Price, with Team SummaCare, improved on her runner-up finish in the inaugural TOTV when Emily Walling of Dayton won.

Walling, however, didn’t participate this year.

On Saturday, Price beat Patton by a bike length after Price, Patton and Martin rode together the last 20 miles of the 33-mile distance through the roads around Columbiana.

“There’s big hill where we made our move and separated the group there,” Price said of a grade 12 miles into the ride.

Jane Evely, the overall women’s winner in 2009, was fourth on Saturday. Price was third last year.

Last year, Price said that she and Walling broke away at the same point, but Walling assumed her leading place to the finish.

Price, who lives in Cuyahoga Falls, works at SummaCare. When the 24-year-old Patton, Price and Martin realized that their threesome was far ahead, they decided to stay together.

“We were talking a little before the sprint that we’d rotate in and spread it out,” said Patton, who didn’t have a National Velo teammate. Patton was fifth last year.

Martin, a 48-year-old participating in her first TOTV, was riding for 15x11 Competitive Gear out of Erie, Pa.

“I was into running before,” she said, noting that she was a Pan-Am Games silver medalist in the marathon in 1995. Then she switched to cycling.

O’Brien Forbes of Cincinnati (Huntington Bank) won the Masters (40+), followed by Ray Russell (Sette Nove/ACA and Rudy Sroka (Lake Effect Racing).

Among Cat 4-5 finishers, Cary Ferguson Jr. (Stark Velo/Subway) held off a fast-charging field to win by feet. The 25-year-old of Northfield has been riding less than a year. Over a 66-mile course, James Doan of Reynoldsville, Pa. beat out Lance Johnson of Buffalo (Handlebars Cycling Co.) and Aaron Cruikshank of Summit Freewheelers in Cat 3 Men.