After an eight-year absence from the US street racing scene, a Battenkill street race marks a return as a “revitalized new occasion” on Could 10, 2025 in Cambridge and Washington County in New York state.
For 12 years the Tour of the Battenkill was a staple on the home racing calendar, even holding UCI 1.2 males’s races in two of these years, with USA’s Caleb Pretty successful in 2010 and Francisco Mancebo in 2012.
Dieter Drake, who established the occasion in 2005 in close by Salem, plans to carry novice and elite street races in addition to a gran fondo, now registered by USA Biking as simply ‘Battenkill’. The novice races for numerous age divisions will race 100 kilometres, whereas the elite races shall be 120km for ladies and 180km for males. All programs will characteristic a mixture of gravel and paved surfaces in the same mixture as The Growler one-day race launched in 2024 at Levi’s Gran Fondo.
“It will likely be very related in feel and look to what existed there once we produced the Tour of the Battenkill on lots of the similar roads years in the past: paved and gravel roads, coated bridges, lovely landscapes. Every course shall be about 20% gravel,” Dieter Drake, president of Anthem Sports activities, advised Cyclingnews.
Anthem Sports activities, the corporate which organised the sooner editions, discontinued the occasion in 2017 after an effort to boost funds to improve the lads’s elite race on the UCI degree once more. The occasion was then taken over by one other group and staged as Tour of the Battenkill gran fondos from Greenwich, New York by way of this yr.
“It was totally an novice occasion then, and rapidly grew right into a Professional/Am. It was moved to the Village of Cambridge in 2009 the place we held our first skilled race (not UCI that yr). In 2025 it is going to return to the Village of Cambridge,” Drake defined.
Drake advised Cyclingnews that USA Biking was “very accommodating and receptive to the occasion being added to the regional calendar”. The second Saturday in Could subsequent yr was chosen to function build-up for regional and different skilled races, together with the Gran Fondo New York. There may be additionally the potential of a return for the UCI-sanctioned Joe Martin Stage Race, which was speculated to have held a forty seventh version on Could 24-27, 2024 however was ‘postponed’ attributable to manufacturing prices.
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“The date was set to accommodate the regional calendar for racing and different in style and long-standing biking occasions. It is actually vital that we assist these occasions first,” Drake stated. “On the skilled aspect, I’ve had conversations with Bruce Dunn at Joe Martin Stage Race and I am hopeful that Battenkill is an effective prelude to that nice occasion returning subsequent Could.”
A Gran Premio New York Metropolis was held this previous Could as a UCI 1.2 occasion. For 2025, a Gran Fondo New York is on the schedule for Could 18, which is simply three hours from Cambridge.
