Williams Lake Classic 2014
Kids Races, Williams Lake Classic
June 8, 2014
The Williams Lake Classic will kick off the New York State Mountain Bike Series (NYSMTB) on Sunday, June 8 at Williams Lake in Rosendale.
The 5 mile course of mostly technical, flowing single track snakes through the Williams Lake property, including a cave.
Christian Favata, owner of Favata’s TRT Bike Shop, and race organizer, has made some changes to the course since last year. Most predominantly, the race will go in the opposite direction.
“I try to keep it fresh every year,” Favata said. “I had to build some new sections to make it work and there was a lot of trail clearing to be done after the rough winter”.
It’s a good mix of double track and a lot of really gnarly Catskill single track. There are little breaks, and then back into tricky, rocky, Catskill stuff, Favata explained about the course.
The race has been going on since the early nineties and has always been at Williams Lake. Tim Quilty was the original promoter. In the late nineties it was voted one of the best races in the country, according to Favata.
“It’s good stuff,”Favata said about working with Williams Lake. “I want people to be able to ride there, and I want people to be able to ride there through the whole transition”.
Williams Lake is in the process of changing hands.
This year’s race should have even more of a festival atmosphere. There will be representatives from Trek Bike, the Last Bite café in High Falls will have a food truck there.
“We believe in community and having an event, a mountain bike race,” Tim Allred, the project manager of Williams Lake, said. “We made it more community friendly with food and music, enhancing what’s going on at the start/finish area. The kids’ race has more and more participants each year, and it’s a great way to get kids involved in the sport, and it’s something to do, and it’s a great way to be on the property and its fun”
The rubber hits the rock for the first race at 10 am, the second at 1pm.
There is Pro and Cat 1 men’s and women’s category, as well as Cat 2 and 3 with age groupings of 19-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50+ for men. Women’s are 12-34 and 35 +.
Different skill levels will do more loops on the track. Pros do 5, Pro women do 4.
Registration is through BikeReg. https://www.bikereg.com/22504.
The kids’ bike race is free- kickstands up at 12:00
The race is a great chance to get out on some ground not usually accessible to the public.
This is considered some of the best terrain the north east for mountain biking, according to Allred.
A big part of the vision for the Williams Lake resort is to enhance a really great network of trials with a professional trail designer in order to enhance the trail network that is already there, to create a trail loop for professional athletes.
“We’ve been doing it for years and now we can build on it as our first really great, consistent race,” Allred said. “Build on that and have bigger better events in the future”.
The new Williams Lake Resort intends to take the site’s rich history and use that to create a springboard for a recreational and competitive venue for triathlons, mountain bike races, hiking, fishing and Nordic skiing.
Currently, in addition to the Williams Lake Classic, two of the Kingston Summer Series cross-county races take place at Williams Lake, as does the Zombie Run in October, put on by Ulster Corps.
Peak Magazine will be posting pics and results from the race, so check back here!
The 5 mile course of mostly technical, flowing single track snakes through the Williams Lake property, including a cave.
Christian Favata, owner of Favata’s TRT Bike Shop, and race organizer, has made some changes to the course since last year. Most predominantly, the race will go in the opposite direction.
“I try to keep it fresh every year,” Favata said. “I had to build some new sections to make it work and there was a lot of trail clearing to be done after the rough winter”.
It’s a good mix of double track and a lot of really gnarly Catskill single track. There are little breaks, and then back into tricky, rocky, Catskill stuff, Favata explained about the course.
The race has been going on since the early nineties and has always been at Williams Lake. Tim Quilty was the original promoter. In the late nineties it was voted one of the best races in the country, according to Favata.
“It’s good stuff,”Favata said about working with Williams Lake. “I want people to be able to ride there, and I want people to be able to ride there through the whole transition”.
Williams Lake is in the process of changing hands.
This year’s race should have even more of a festival atmosphere. There will be representatives from Trek Bike, the Last Bite café in High Falls will have a food truck there.
“We believe in community and having an event, a mountain bike race,” Tim Allred, the project manager of Williams Lake, said. “We made it more community friendly with food and music, enhancing what’s going on at the start/finish area. The kids’ race has more and more participants each year, and it’s a great way to get kids involved in the sport, and it’s something to do, and it’s a great way to be on the property and its fun”
The rubber hits the rock for the first race at 10 am, the second at 1pm.
There is Pro and Cat 1 men’s and women’s category, as well as Cat 2 and 3 with age groupings of 19-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50+ for men. Women’s are 12-34 and 35 +.
Different skill levels will do more loops on the track. Pros do 5, Pro women do 4.
Registration is through BikeReg. https://www.bikereg.com/22504.
The kids’ bike race is free- kickstands up at 12:00
The race is a great chance to get out on some ground not usually accessible to the public.
This is considered some of the best terrain the north east for mountain biking, according to Allred.
A big part of the vision for the Williams Lake resort is to enhance a really great network of trials with a professional trail designer in order to enhance the trail network that is already there, to create a trail loop for professional athletes.
“We’ve been doing it for years and now we can build on it as our first really great, consistent race,” Allred said. “Build on that and have bigger better events in the future”.
The new Williams Lake Resort intends to take the site’s rich history and use that to create a springboard for a recreational and competitive venue for triathlons, mountain bike races, hiking, fishing and Nordic skiing.
Currently, in addition to the Williams Lake Classic, two of the Kingston Summer Series cross-county races take place at Williams Lake, as does the Zombie Run in October, put on by Ulster Corps.
Peak Magazine will be posting pics and results from the race, so check back here!
