![]() Sunday, September 5: Basking Ridge “Greg Cordasco” Criterium Bike Race (races from 12 p.m. Professional bike racing under the lights in downtown Easton culminates with a fireworks display over the Delaware River-and passes right by the Bicycling magazine offices! Saturday, September 4: Easton Twilight Criterium Bike Race (races from 4 p.m. Come out and watch the races for yourself on Labor Day weekend. ![]() To say that this race changes lives isn’t an understatement, but if you’re in the New Jersey or Pennsylvania area, don’t take my word for it. My crit-racing career never took off, but that race and the atmosphere around it spurred on my passion for cycling. Afterwards, Van Gilder told me I did a good job in the sprint, and I nearly burst into tears of happiness. My parents hosted pro teams who needed cheap housing options, my dad made sure he got to the race early enough to get the best seat (and hit the beer tent with time to spare), and I distinctly remember taking my first (okay, only) prime during the pro women’s race. Getting into cycling as a young racer in New Jersey, it was the highlight of the season. What I Learned Racing My First National Critįor this reporter, the Tour of Somerville has always been the cornerstone of U.S.It’s exciting to see the event directors working so hard to bring this race back to its original stature.” And when he won the first time, he said that it topped anything else he’d done in his career. I remember Ron Skarin, who was on a couple of Olympic teams and multiple-time national champion, won Somerville twice in the seventies. ![]() “There was a time when the Tour of Somerville was the most prestigious race in the country to have on your record,” Saling told Bicycling. Saling calls that moment the crowning achievement of his 50-plus-year bike racing career. His father-in-law raced every year until the late 70s, and in 2017, Saling’s grandson Noah Granigan won the race-with Saling announcing. Joe Saling, known to many as the voice of the Tour of Somerville, won’t be announcing the races this year now that he’s retired from the position-but like every year since he was a child growing up in Somerset, he’ll be out spectating the race. Her first win there was in 1999, and her most recent was in 2018. It’s worth mentioning that Van Gilder’s record-setting five wins happened over a 20-year span. It remains one of the oldest races in America and still has the prestige of an iconic event on the racing calendar.” “Nationally, this race was the ‘Grandaddy’ of all criterium races and one not to miss. “As a five-time winner of the Tour of Somerville, and a 28-year participant of the race, this event is steeped in bicycling history as witnessed by the incredible community support and racer participation,” Laura Van Gilder told Bicycling. The winners in recent years tend to be domestic criterium experts, and in 2019, Canadian Maggie Coles-Lyster won the women’s race, while Connor Sallee took the men’s win. Riders like Olympian Ruth Winder have won in the women’s field, and in the men’s field, Davis Phinney (yep, Taylor Phinney's dad!) won back in the eighties, as did Canadian legend Steve Bauer.
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