Tour de Catskills
BY KENNETH LUNDGREN
A few of the athletes with whom I work e-mailed me when this new race hit BikeReg…
The Tour de Catskills in early September.
The race, from what I gather, is basically two big hilly days. Day 1 is the harder day as the hills are very steep and spread throughout the race. The course starts out with lots of flats, then spiking with some super steep climbs the last 30-40 miles. The climbs appear to be nothing more than a mile in length. One of the guys, who knows the route well, thinks the Catskills course is, on paper, the hardest loop of the year. Much more intense than Battenkill or Unionvale…
Day 2 is the easier of the bunch, but not by much… The course is packed with many similarly nasty climbs but also offers a long 10 miles of downhill rollers and then a trek back up the mountains towards Windham for a 6-mile climb towards the finish, steady 5% of climbing.
Both loops are killer and the stomping ground of Justin Lindine, a Cat-1 friend of mine from Target Training. The kid is a monster climber. I was off the front with him during a race earlier this year, and on the flats I could fight fire with fire with him because I’m a decent time trialist, but man this kid could boogie up the hills!!! Lindine most likley helped plan the route…
From what I’ve read, the Cat 3s, 4s, and Masters are doing 50-60 miles and the 1-2s 80-90 miles (ouch). This is a climber’s weekend for sure but there are also plenty of good flat rolling sections prior to the climbs, offering plenty of opportunities… Both days start off with about 15 miles of flat and moderate rollers. Breaks will go. Then the nastiness of the chaotic climbing ensues…
Windham is a hotbed for cycling, offering tons of places to stay and eat. After NORBA Nationals a few weeks ago, the town is really excited to host more bike racing… The town would really like to see the race take off, so encourage your teammates and friends to race… I know for the athletes who shot me those e-mails about doing this event, we’re going to try to take full advantage of a second peak of the year and also the fact that many riders are going to be quite toasty/overtrained/burnt at this point of the year…
http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=6905
