Page County's Bicycle Race

It’s not unusual to encounter cyclists on the road in Page County, although there are usually more of them up on Skyline Drive. In the last few weeks, Mary and I have been seeing uniformed teams on the local roads, apparently in time trials as they geared up for the championship race.

There is more information about the races here:
http://www.pagevalleycycling.com/Page_Valley_Road_Race.html

The staging area and starting point for the race was at the Stanley recreation area, which is very close to the Hawksbill Cabin. The races are sponsored by a number of the local businesses, including Hawksbill Bicycles and Appalachian Outdoor Adventures – not to mention the Mimslyn Inn, Main Street Bakery, and Luray Caverns.

The race has been held for the last two years on an 11-mile loop that has two major climbs - a 1.5 mile climb which starts gently then ramps up; and then 3/4 mile climb to the finish line, which is 8.3 miles from start. When we were talking with some of the folks from the County at the start line, they all remarked on this last hill. Mary and I are going to take a drive up there someday!

We watched as the Men’s Cat 1 and 2, and then the Cat 3 races got started. These races were 74 and 63 miles long, respectively, with fields limited to 100 riders. There were four other races – Women’s Cats 1-3 and 4, and a Men’s Cat 4 and Cat 5 race. These photos are from the 11:00 and 11:05 starts for the Men’s Cats 1-2 and 3 races.

All totaled, there were about 500 racers in town for this event. We saw bikes at several hotels; the Mimslyn was the official race hotel and we saw quite a number of bikes there over the weekend.

Next weekend is the Triathlon. Looking forward to similar crowds for that!