The Tour of the Catskills Stage Race starts this Friday and CRCA is well represented on the starting line up.  This year the race starts with a 12 mile flat course TT, instead of the historical 4 mile hill climb prologue of past years.  This slightly tips the scale back away from the hill climbers who tend to dominate this race, but with Saturday’s race featuring the leg wrenching “Devil’s Kitchen” climb with 20% grade sections, its fair to say they will still hold a decent advantage. Many of the sub-teams have riders racing and we are represented in just about all the categories.

The feature event, then Men’s P/1/2 race, will includes CRCA riders from BH/Garneau, Jonathan Adler and Stan’s No Tubes/AXA.  They will be doing battle against teams such as BikeReg.com/Cannondale, Champion Systems Racing, GS Mengoni and Westwood Velo, amongst others.  Expect John Minturn, Chris Johnson and Michael Margarite all to perform well.

In the Women’s P/1/2/3 race, CRCA riders from Comedy Central, Fuoriclasse/Discover Chiropractic, Houlihan-Lockey/Sanchez and Radical Media will all be racing.  Fabienne Gerard and Raquel Miller should both be competitive in a strong field.

Some of the other riders to watch for in the results are:

• Sam Morkal-Williams from the junior development team will be up against some the region’s best juniors in the 15-18 junior race
• Gregg Galletta (BH/Garneau) in the Masters 40+
• Al Blanchard (Blue Ribbon – Translations) and Eutimio Quintero (Foundation) in the Masters 50+
• Darius Shekari (TEANY), Chris Gurr (Setanta) and Phil Penman (BH/Garneau) in the Men’s 3
• Eric Sutherland (Houlihan-Lokey/Sanchez), Corey Morenz (Siggi’s/NYVelocity) and Andrew Dunn (NYAC) in the Men’s 4A
• Warren St John (TEANY) and Brian Sullivan (Setanta) in the Men’s 4B.
• Russell Bogin in the Cat 5 45+ and Oliver Davis (Siggi’s/NYVelocity) in the Cat 5 under 35
• Katherine Amos (Houlihan-Lokey/Sanchez) and Mackenzie Landers (Siggi’s/NYVelocity)in the Women’s Cat 4

Good luck to all those racing.  Highlights of the results will be posted as they become available.