While a certain high profile event was taking place in upstate New York, members of Threshold were down the road at the second edition of the Tour of the Catskills. Nick “The Brit” Liddell, Joe “Masi Warrior” Marinelli and Matt “Tofu Pup” Miller enjoyed the perfect weather, stunning parcours and lovely townfolk of the Catskills. The three day race consisted of a 2.3 mile prologue TT, 52 mile road stage, and a 57 mile road stage containing the (in)famous “Devil’s Kitchen” climb
Day 1: The TT course starts in “downtown” Tannersville and after about 50 meters takes a sharp right-hand turn into the steepest part of the course. After a brief stab in the legs the course levels out to a gradually rolling climb that averages 4% up to the finish. There’s no real “strategy” to an 8 min TT other than suck it up and give it your all. Cross-hack ensued for all.
17 8:30.96 Matthew Miller
48 9:13.09 Nick Liddell
61 9:36.09 Joseph Marinelli
Day 2: The first road stage was marked by one interesting incident which impacted much of the rest of the day’s racing. About 1 hour into the stage as the field was descending off the mountain (41.3 mph) we came around a sweeping right hand turn to find 5 horses in the road. They were probably minding their own business, trotting along the side of a country road (as horses are wont to do) when a fast car with flashing lights sped past followed by some skinny, spindly creatures in bright colored spandex yelling loudly.
Now if I were a horse (of course) I would get scared, maybe a bit upset, and maybe say to myself “Yo, what are these ugly, weird things doing on MY road going crazy fast?! And who are THEY to yell at ME? WTF!!!” And maybe I would rear up, and maybe run off the road, yes, maybe I would even step on one of these creatures. Well, all of this happened. Ladies and gentlefolk, I give you HorseGate.
What made HorseGate a heavily debated issue amongst the Cat 4 Pros was not the horses but the impact on racing. While calamity ensued behind, four riders raced through the horses and two of those riders held on to win with a gap that was exactly the amount of time that the field was stopped for HorseGate. As with a certain Tour de France incident involving certain overall contenders there was a great debate as to whether or not these 4 riders should have stopped and waited while their equine-trampled Cat 4 brethren sorted themselves out or if they should have kept racing.
Well, lo and behold, the officials did not neutralize them so they did what they had to; kept racing. To be sure, I could not find any USAC rule that specifically addresses equine interference or “horse play”. And if the referees tell you to keep riding, you keep riding.
Due to HorseGate’s proximity to the day’s major climb (a 5K long beast at 11%) the field was shattered once we started racing again. MM found his way into the 3rd group on the road while NL and JM pushed it along in the field. MM’s group caught the second chase group with 7 miles to the finish and these 20 riders were racing for 3rd. NL and JM rolled in with the shattered field.
8 2:29:37 @ 0:01:18 Matthew Miller
61 2:57:40 @ 0:29:21 Joseph Marinelli
62 475 2:57:40 @ 0:29:21 Nick Liddell
Day 3: As you can imagine, HorseGate had made things a bit tense around the breakfast table for the Cat 4’s on Sunday morning. During the race many folks had the chance to chat with the post-HorseGate leader during the quiet moments on the road. He was a nice fellow and felt genuinely bad about the incident. Although he was in yellow he wasn’t particularly happy about the circumstances that got him there; he was simply racing and the pace car flagged him forward. Who can blame him?
The second road stage headed up the “Devil’s Kitchen” and everyone was content to ride tempo until the foot of the climb, knowing that the field would be destroyed by the top. The climb lived up to its reputation. It kicks right up and hits grades of up to 22% in the middle. Many riders were forced to walk and Miller shamelessly paperboy-ed his way back and forth all the way up the climb.
A saving grace of the Devil’s Kitchen was that the summit was 10 miles from the finish, allowing chase groups to form. Miller got himself into the 3rd chase group for the 2nd day in a row. Despite a valiant attempt in the final 500m where he bridged up to within a few meters of the 2nd group on the road he was given the time of his group-mates. Both NL and JM rolled in solo but with huge smiles on their faces.
9 2:42:55 @ 0:03:04 Matthew Miller
54 2:59:37 @ 0:19:46 Nick Liddell
58 3:04:23 @ 0:24:32 Joseph Marinelli
Final GC:
12 5:21:02 @ 0:03:33 Matthew Miller
56 6:06:30 @ 0:49:01 Nick Liddell
58 6:11:39 @ 0:54:10 Joseph Marinelli
Even though Chelsea was a DNS for Catskills I think we had more fun than Ted Danson, Oprah, and Slick Willy combined. Tour of the Catskills will certainly go down as a “must race” in the Threshold 2011 calendar. The scenery, beautiful roads, iconic stages, and friendly town residents make for some great racing and definitely some of the more challenging parcours in the Northeast.
One Response to “Tour of the Catskills”
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I like the detailed discription of stage two. This year I brought the cattle prod. After all if I was going to get the tail end of the horse this year..I would surly make the Beast pay for it.
Regards
The Horses Arse No more…:-)