The BISSELL Pro Cycling Team will be battling it out on different sides of the continent next weekend in 2 very different types of racing. The Sea Otter Classic which takes place April 16-18 in Monterey California is a 19 year old cornerstone of mountain bike, gravity, and road racing events. The Tour of Battenkill is a younger race on the schedule and promises to tests the riders on this treacherous course in upper state New York.
BISSELL’s Tom Zirbel, Frank Pipp, Omer Kem, Sheldon Deeny, Graham Howard, and Joao Correia will battle in America’s Queen of the Classics, Tour of Battenkill, on Saturday, April 18th. The race has been compared to Paris-Roubaix and although there aren’t the famed cobbles there are 8 sections totaling over 15 miles on dirt and gravel. The race is 100k and includes 1,233 meters of climbing on 7 major climbs with the max grade of 18%. The off road stretches combined with winding sections through local hamlet villages give this race a European feel. The race has made some changes this year with added sections and the new start/finish venue of Cambridge, New York. April in upper state New York can bring almost any kind of weather so luck will need to be on the racers side when they take on this rigorous race.
In a starkly different venue, Ben Jacques-Maynes, Andy Jacques-Maynes, Peter Latham, Paul Mach, Tim Farnham, Kirk O’Bee, Cody O’Reilly, Morgan Schmitt, Joao Correia, Burke Swindlehurst, and Jeremy Vennell will contest the Sea Otter Classic. The Sea Otter Road Race includes 3 pro races starting with Thursday’s crit on the Laguna Seca Raceway. The 60 minute crit includes 1 uphill turn and 2 technical turnarounds at each end of the 1 mile course. Friday’s Road Race takes the riders from the race track to an 8.5 mile stretch of private road through the former Fort Ord. The road race culminates with an exciting mountain top finish. The final day of racing is a 70 mile circuit race taking up the entire 2.23 mile course with 300 feet of climbing and a treacherous corkscrew descent. The Sea Otter Classic is the largest outdoor expo in the country, and the crowds that it brings will be sure to motivate the racers.
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