We asked Pete Taylor of Star Track NYC to offer a few words about the Juniors Fields at the CRCA Grant's Tomb Criterium:

A state championship at Grant's Tomb in the first week of March? People were shocked, "it was too early in the season", "it would be too cold".....Madness it was decreed!!

Well not for us at Star Track Cycling www.startrack.nyc , we had a ball. Star Track came ready to race and race we did, championships were won, but most importantly, everyone had fun.

A big thank you to all the hard working folks at CRCA for providing the opportunity for all the junior classes to compete at another cold season opener!  Despite the temperature it was a wonderful event and every junior rider rode hard for their respective finishes. 

For many reasons junior bike racing is important, and it's certainly important to these young racers, who take the sport as seriously as any of the adult riders that attended the race on Saturday.

Junior racing is seeing increased participation all across the country and we would like nothing better than to see New York juniors competing against their peers at the highest level, both on the road and on the track, but that is difficult to do without good quality racing, and finding junior only fields is tough in New York. 

If more local organizers follow the lead of CRCA and continue to offer junior racing, it will build the confidence, the talent and the success of the youth riders from all over the region and champions will be found.

Thank you again for organizing the junior racing at Grant's Tomb, and I hope that we will be bringing many more of our juniors out to future CRCA events. 

Pete Taylor
Co- Executive Director
Star Track Cycling
www.startrack.nyc