I’ve written here before about how we follow the Tour de France each year and normally that is the extent of our cycle racing for the year. Cheri tries to keep up with the tours around the world but news reports are few and far between outside of the Tour de France and its extensive coverage. Well, starting today there is a new race bringing many of the world’s top racers and their teams here to the USA for a gruelling trek through the Colorado Rockies.
Called the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, this event covers 7 days of racing over some of the highest mountain terrains. All of the racing is at elevations over 6000 ft and several of the peaks they are scaling reach well over 12000 ft, more than 2000 ft above the the summits they faced in the Tour de France. It will be an exciting race that should be a real test of endurance over extremely high altitudes.
Tour champion Cadel Evans and runners-up Andy and Frank Schleck are among the elite cyclists that will hopefully make this into an even more anticipated event in the future. It would be great to have a showcase here in the states that gets the type of coverage that allows casual viewers to see the excitement and drama of the racing combined with spectacular scenery that makes cycle racing a compelling sporting event. Hopefully, the organizers of this race have set up a course that showcases these strengths.
The race begins today with a short time-trial held in Colorado Springs before heading to the high peaks. It is being covered by NBC and shown on its Versus network, beginning at 4 PM EST.
Redtree Times 