For two years now I have repeatedly blogged about riding in the Battenkill valley, racing the Tour of the Battenkill, and Cambridge NY in general. Unfortunately it probably isn't something you can put into words, you really have to experience the roads first hand. Having ridden a fair amount in Europe and the eastern US, the Battenkill valley is one of my most favorite places to ride, and the Tour of the Battenkill is definitely my favorite race by a long shot. After a strong finish last year, I had high hopes for this years race. The new course was good with a punishing final 18 miles and I was closing in on my best form in quite some time. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, the universe had other plans for me. None the less, my wife and I still headed up to Cambridge for the weekend to support my teammates, much better than sitting on the couch being depressed. For me, it was a very tiring weekend physically. Although I am making significant progress healing up, I am still nursing injuries and this was the first real venture out of any significance.
The amateur races were held on Saturday and our boys did the team proud. Ben won the cat 4 race and Jimmy finished 5th in the cat 3 field. I knew Jimmy was going to be strong when we reconned the new course a few weeks earlier and he was climbing really strong when we hit the last kick in the groin, aka Stage Rd.
FGX Racing Cat 4 Tour of the Battenkill crew (Ben holding the winner's chocolate milk)
Sunday brought the UCI 1.2 Tour of the Battenkill professional race. Since I know the roads rather well from all my trips up to Cambridge, we hopped in the Jeep and headed out on the course for a better view. Wow were we in for a treat. Upstate had not had rain for two weeks and this was the driest I have ever seen the course which meant one thing...dust, and lots of it! Our first stop was at the top of the first Meeting House Rd. climb some 45ish miles into the race. What a sight, that's all I can say. It was good to see the pros working just as hard as us wannabes. The race and its caravan was impressive, very cool to see a professional race on the same roads I ride and race. Our second stop was on the opposite side of the course, a serious kicker of a climb (somewhere around 20%...on dirt!) known as Juniper Swamp. No racer refers to it as "Juniper Swamp Rd." but rather simply Juniper Swamp, the infamous climb that has been walked up in races similarly to the Koppenberg in the Tour of Flanders. We just barely beat the peleton there and hung out as the long dropped riders came through. Once the race was through, I decided to drive Juniper Swamp to head back to Cambridge for the finish. Two dropped pro riders were struggling up the base of the climb as we were heading up and when they moved over I pulled along side and put both front windows down and offered a ride. It was funny to see their white teeth shining through their dirt covered smiling faces as they latched on, one on each side. We talked on the way up and unfortunately they both had bad luck some 20 miles back. They were likely cutting the course back into town since there was no way they were finishing, they didn't want to make their teams wait. When we reached the top, they thanked me over and over and I wished them well. Unfortunately I didn't think to offer them a ride back to town until we were well on our way. I was more focused on getting them safely up the climb. Hopefully their ride back was as comfortable as possible. Once we were back in town, we watched the finish and called it a day. While I kept the walking and physical activity to a bare minimum, it was an exhausting few hours for me since my body was still recovering. We retired to the hotel for burgers and drinks. Amazingly, the hardest day for me to watch was Sunday, the pro race. The beauty of the sport definitely struck a chord that day.
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