Tour of the Battenkill

From the Batenkill web site: America's largest one-day Pro/Am cycling race. Racers compete over 65+ miles of rolling terrain on both dirt and paved roads as they travel through the world famous Battenkill Valley. Set in early spring, the race courses includes covered bridges, family farms, and rural villages along the many challenging backcountry roads that traverse Southern Washington County, New York.

The 2014 edition played host to nearly 3,000 amateur and professional cyclists from throughout North America and 15 countries. 

Marty participated in the race and I was able to get the below out of him.  He told me what stuck out to him the most was all the guys walking around with bike parts, left over from crashes, during and after the race. 

I did Battenkill this last weekend, I just knew that it was a famous race and thought that it would be fun to check it out.  It had lots of dirt roads, nice and hilly.  It was warm and windy.

They did not have any mixed Cat fields so I signed up for Cat 3.  When I walked into the registration room they had the Cat 3’s in the corner and the masters races on the same long table to the right.

As I walked up, the gals were watching me and they were reaching for the masters books, it looked like they were trying to guess which masters book to open.

Their eyes opened up when I announced that I was preregistered for the Cat 3. It was like they were surprised and a little embarrassed.

Ok, I guess that you will be in the Cat 3 book is what they said to me as they moved over to the Cat 3 book.

To give you an idea of the field, even though I was ranked as the highest Cat 3 in Ohio, I was ranked 37th out of 131 in this race. (I am now 17th out of all licensed racers in the state of Ohio)

I will include a few pictures of the race, not very interesting blog material but I thought that it would be fun to share with you.  Even the guys that are pictured off the back of the group looked super fit.

I finished with the chase group and ended up 25th place.  Still, that gave me my best ranking points for the season.

The guy who won is in the BMC kit, orange helmet and shoes in the second picture.  He attacked the field until he got away with two other guys and burned the two guys off his wheel.  He was on a whole different level as were many of the other guys.  Little story on Araya:  http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/12/14/tico-ronald-araya-wins-first-leg-of-vuelta-ciclistica-a-costa-rica

You can see me on the right with lots of sun screen and a smile or grin or pain, maybe all those things (above).