The 2024 Dick Evans Memorial Road Race is being held this Sunday, August 25th.
This 112-mile race around O‘ahu is presented by Aloha State Bicycle Racing Association & Outta Bounds Hawaii
Dick Evans Memorial Road Race History:
August 2001 Honolulu Weekly newspaper.
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On Sunday, July 29, American cyclist Lance Armstrong won his third consecutive Tour de France – joining the pantheon of road-racing legends who have dominated what is arguably the most grueling athletic event in the world. Hawai’i has its own, local cycling legend in Dick Evans. On Sunday, Aug. 5, the 19th annual Dick Evans Memorial Race spins 112 miles around O’ahu while paying homage to the man killed riding his bike in downtown Honolulu in 1982. Evans was not your standard, ripped jock. Lanky and bespectacled, he was more Ichabod Crane than Armstrong. Evans was a thinking man’s athlete, a dominant tactical genius.
During a fast and furious race in Kahala, a spurt of rain made sharp cornering treacherous. Some riders saw the potential danger and thought to move up in the pack before entering the turn. Meanwhile, Evans had already sprinted ahead, as if he had been watching the ominous rain cloud all along and predicted when it would strike.
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In 1982, during a race in Kane’ohe, Evans shocked the field, breaking away solo with three laps still to go. Without other riders riding behina to conserve energy, it looked doubtful that he could sustain the pace he needed to cross the finish line first. His gambit paid off As the rest of the pack closed in on Evans looming in the distance, he never looked back and actually seemed to slow up. As the rest of the pack pedaled like demons to try to catch him, Evans cruised over the finish line slowly, savoring the victory “like a matador who most enjoys that last quarter inch between his guts and the horns of the enraged bull,” according to fellow racer Tony Gill, recounting Evans’ final victory. “That was his last gift, to do something terribly hard, but to finish The Game with a flourish of artistic humor.”
This circle-island race also happens to be one of three events that spawned the original lronman Triathlon, along with the Waikiki Roughwater Swim and the Honolulu Marathon. The best points to catch the fast flying colors of this year’s race include the Ala Wai Canal and the start/finish at Hawai’i Kai’s O’ahu Club. With same-day registration, fit cyclists with Tour de France fever still have time to join the pack.
Check out the video below from the 1987 Dick Evans Memorial Road Race! There’s a few familiar faces still leading the racing scene too!