Blacksburg Cycling Classic - This weekend
 

Va Tech Corporate Research Center Criterium - Saturday June 20 - $1900
The crit course got great reviews last year. Located at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center. It's a technical, challenging course with both left and right turns. It also has a nice stiff hill into the finish and a false flat just around the corner that will leave your legs burning.

Mudpike Time Trial - Saturday Evening June 20 - $900
The time trial is a 16km out and back time trial over flat to rolling terrain.

Maggie Valley Road Race - Sunday June 21 - $1800
The road course is located in beautiful Craig County, Virginia. It features a scenic transit across the valley floor and then one twisty roller after another. Do this 15 mile loop a few times and then proceed up the side of John’s Creek Mountain for a classic 8% finish climb. This race has real selection and is perfect for breakaways.

For all you NC and TN racers, we are quite close, only an hour from either border. 2hrs from Greensboro, an hour from Bristol, 4 from Knoxville, etc.

At those prices, I'd race twice :-)

3 1/2 hour drive, one way. Can't make it happen with gas going through the flippin roof again. Unless a bunch of use carpool. We'll see.

I said the same thing about Sanford. Then went and raced thrice that day.

i might be there sunday.

If I remember correctly those are approximately the same courses VaTech used for the collegiate races this year (excepting the TT). The RR course is simply awesome. Highly recommended.

Yeah, the RR course is awesome. Too bad it's something like 4.5hrs away for me, and school wouldn't be footing the bill for travel expenses this time.

That RR is tempting.

Our school barely recognizes we exist... no reimbursement for anything :(

What about those from WV??? I am relocating there and looking for any "close" races and this appears to be about as close and good race venue as I've seen. Unfortunately I am still a few weeks away from relocating...

If that's the same road course VT used for years (99-2002, in my case), I had the chance both to race it and to be a moto-official on it. It's a great course. Much fun, very challenging, and almost no vehicle traffic.

The road coarse is exactly the same as the VT collegiate race, the crit is the same except with an extra dog leg added on the top to make it a six corner with lefts and rights compared to a 4 corner rectangle. 0.9 miles long.

That sounds nice - I remember loving the crit course for the collegiate race because it was so non-technical and I suck at crits, so non-technical was good. An extra dog-leg will spice things up nicely.

That said, I'm not going - other stuff going on this weekend. sigh....

Trust me you will absolutely love the race venue. There are very few races in this area that can compare, this is not your typical race with 'a hill' in it ;) The course design is very challenging and very scenically beautiful. And check out the prize money! there is also a street fair down town with live music till midnight. Lots of stuff going on - great place to spend a weekend racing your bikes. It will be worth the long drives. Hope to see you there.

Oh yeah and the monsoons are over the sun will shine!

It was my first road race with a real climb. On the second lap, I'll admit I had to do some zig-zagging to make it to the top. There is, at least, a nice chance to recover before you do the big climb again. Although, I can say that in the rain, it is kind of nasty. Lots of crap on those roads (literally).

I think the course is a little different from when you did it back in 2002. We are putting the main miles in on a 15 mile loop around the edges of the valley (think steady Rollers) and then finish on the John's Creek Climb so it is only done once. This avoids the lousy descent on the Rt 42 side of John's Creek Mtn. John DeLong is aiming to reclaim his title from his VT days.

Hmmm. Still a fun course I imagine. I look back fondly on those days now that the longest climb I have near my house is all of a 1/4 of a mile :-(. And the joy of that course was trying to handle the descent in severe oxygen debt...

cancelled!? AHHHHHH!!!!!!

Actually it appears it's postponed according to the website, till late August. Which means I may be able to actually catch this race afterall.

There go my weekend plans.

Sorry guys I really am. We worked incredibly hard on this event and you can imagine how disappointed we are that no one wants to come. I know it conflicted with some other races but those other races are 4 and 5 hours from here and strangely their registration numbers are low relatively speaking for the area. We tried to guage responses from people here on BF and all over the area, 'will you come to a race if we put it on?' We had an overwhelming yes response so we are a bit confused as to what went wrong. It's quite possible that we are to remote a location to support a bike race. People simply may not want to travel here especially when there is another race in their every day locations. And we overlook that because if we want to race our bikes then we always have to travel at least 3 hours since there is no local races here, Roanoke being the exception. It's also possible too that people don't want to race in the mountains, I don't know?

Anyway we have so much momentum that none of us want to call the quits so we are going to regroup and see if we can't get the August 29th date.

I'm certain that the ToWC in MABRA land limited your #s from the WDC part of the world, as well as that we're extremely spoiled up here to have a big race calender within 1 to 2 hrs. of our front doors. Albeit very crit heavy and everyone's always whining about nothing with climbs.

It sucks to have to re-schedule, we had to for our race this year, but were able to slide it in an open spot on the calender fortunately.

If you go with August, that's a tough month as folks are crispy and talkin' cross, but the calender is totally void of events that time of year except for 8/9 which is the page valley RR in luray (MABRA RR championships) and 8/23 which is a big time crit in WDC. If you do re-schedule, ping the MABRA list serve weekly to promote the race, I dont recall receiving any emails about your event, just bike forums stuff, alot of folks are on the MABRA list serve and it's a good promotional tool, use it 'till you feel like you're being annoying, then use it some more ;)

Calender is here in case you dont have it: http://www.mabra.org/

also - tour of millersburg in PA is weekend of 8-11/12. it got a very positive response last year and likely will again this year. something to consider when re-selecting your date.

Maybe I'll get to go this time! Any way to change the schedule a bit? The RR goes pretty late for those having to drive to/from MABRA. I'm thinking some 4s aren't going to want to do a 50mi RR 4-5hrs away starting at 3pm on Sunday, and the MABRA 4s are a numerous bunch that you'll want to attract. I am all about sleeping in ;), but I am also a fan of being able to get to work on Monday, particularly if I've got to drive down Friday night. August is hot enough that you might not get too many complaints if you bump the RR earlier. I'd rather skip out on a Sunday afternoon ITT than that RR, as painful as it is.

Sorry it couldn't work out. Thanks for all your hard work anyway. I'm sure it will be successful in August.

psssst....August 16 or 23... :)

Hope you can pull it off in August. Since UVA will be startin up about then, we might be able to get a number of our riders together for it.

Btw, cross in August? Yikes! I might be thinking cross, but I won't want to do any races then!