Since Jeff White's short and sweet posting has managed to rouse the lot of you to get excited and register for a New Jersey stage race in late June, I'm going to attempt a similar tactic for this, one of my favorite races of the year. It's been going on for 52 years, and if that doesn't make it a classic, then it is, at a minimum, vintage.

3 days of incredible racing for Cat 3s, 4s, Women 3/4, Master's 40+ and 2 days for Cat 5s. Cat 2s have to race 4 days with the pros this year. Convenient and affordable-ish housing option to stay in dorms.

6/29 Hill Climb. 9.1 mile mass-start TT, that finishes on the summit of Mount Wachusett.

6/30 Road race (64 miles for cat 3s). with some serious climbing, but strong flatlanders can fake their way through if they are clever too.

7/1 Criterium. Great classic course that will test your skills as well as your leg speed. Super fun to watch big time pros race the same course later in the day.


https://www.bikereg.com/Net/15901

I'm looking to do this one. Any other cat 4 cats wanna join me?

hell yea

I think it's this or Giro del Cielo for me. Not both. I'm gonna need a big rest after June.

FYI, bad news for all aiming for this one....Logsjo Classic/Fitchburg is cancelled:

yeah, i kept checking numbers and they were really low. it's a shame.

Sorry to hear that it is cancelled. But what is a "mass start TT"? It seems like an oxymoron.

And it sounds like they totally over reached in the planning phase. 550 riders will net them $7-8000. They list a $20,000 prize list for the Pro12 men AND women, and then $1500-2000 for a bunch of other categories.  Seems like they wanted to jump right back into the big leagues without bothering to build things back up from the ground floor.

Mass start TT is not really as oxymoronish as it sounds. It actually works pretty well. Basically the group stays together for the rolling bits, but once the big climb hits, all gets blown to pieces and people have pretty individual times. The Green Mountain Stage Race did it for a few years before they were able to secure a course to do a true ITT.

Here's a copy of the letter I wrote to the organizer:

Hello,

For years, this race has been my
personal Tour de France. I've lost track of the number of years I've
competed in it. This year I wasn't able to register because my wife and I
are expecting our first child, and the date is just too close.

As for my teammates, and I can tell
you that the Kissena Cycling Club is one of the largest clubs in the
region (over 100 members), and my stories of racing Chris Horner,
Brothers McCormack, Team Saturn, Mercury in the glory days just could
not get them excited about this race. It's a generational thing, I
think. When I started racing in the 1990s, Fitchburg was one the great
stage races in the country. The last five years though, other races have
captured the imagination of my teammates. They spend their money and
"hall passes" away from family time on races like Battenkill, Killington
and Tour of the Catskills. A few will do Green Mountain at the end of
the year, but mostly their time and money budget is already tapped.

Because of the nature of
registration and racing, I think you would have gotten pretty darn close
to your minimum threshold of riders needed. But it's a risk. I think
hiding the pre-reg list was a little tone-deaf, and probably irritated
more folks than it scared into registering.

I think you might have had more
success if you tried to come back a little more modestly. Right now, for
the time crunched 2 day, 3-stage, stage races are pretty efficient and
popular. For example, you could have had the classic road race on
Saturday, Sunday morning the mass start TT, afternoon/evening
traditional crit.

I personally loved the new
expansion, (missing the old circuit race though...that's a really
interesting race from a sporting point of view), but like I said,
Fitchburg has always been my Tour de France.

Hopefully, you'll be back next
year,

Marc Bertucco

I looked over the courses today - it will be fun.

I'm 99.9% going to take a pass on this race this year. With the addition of the TT climb, this is definitely a race for climbers. The crit is awesome, for sure, but big time will never be gained there. And as far as the road race being for roeluers? Well, kind of...but make no mistake about it, the climbing in that race is SIGNIFICANT. Steep nasty 2 part feedzone climb is complemented by short rollers before, and rolling 2-4% stuff after the feedzone for the aforementioned 6.5 miles before you hit a 50mph descent (and that's no Paul and Phil hyperbole, you can and probably will hit 50 on the descent. Definitely 45+. You are basically going up for 2/3 the course. The remaining 1/3 is descent or flat...and it always goes too quick!

The course seems to be different than in years past.

Oh, bummer. I thought the only change was the loss of the circuit race and the change in the TT (which to be honest, changed about every 2 years anyway). But a little googling reveals that the RR course is in fact different. Other than the crit, it's a totally different race.

Also, Dieter Drake...

Well, the crit is the same. We talked about this at the crit workshop. On that course, the OUTSIDE line is always faster around the top of the 180. Also less crashy.

The TT starts at the race hotel, then follows the old course by making a right. Then goes and climbs up the screaming descent from the old RR course. Then it goes up Mt. Wachussett.

The TT appears to be mass start as well.

Sent from my iPhone

eragot said:

The TT starts at the race hotel, then follows the old course by making a right. Then goes and climbs up the screaming descent from the old RR course. Then it goes up Mt. Wachussett.

Chrisssssss....there are going to be huge gaps. Back in the old/old/old days, the road race finished on top of Mt Wachussett, but NOT coming up the RR descent, and that section alone created massive gaps...now add a few more miles of climbing? Yikes.

The climbers are definitely going to get the group thinned out in a hurry. I am however going to still suggest a good warm-up, because there's a chance that unless there's a team of JPs who like to drill that mother-fucker on the flats leading up to the climbing proper, then it's going to be a lot of freewheeling and you don't want those legs to scream out when you hit the first slope.

The Mt Wachussett "ski road" climb feels like a lot of other ski access/mtn top roads you may have done before. It's also similar in feel (I don't know about length/pitch) to the Bear Mountain climb. The last time I climbed that road, it also ended on a pretty steep pitch that dumped you immediately onto a medium sized "lawn" of big loose gravel. So, you know, if you are charging up the final 300 meters balls to the wall, there's a good chance you will have a heart attack because of limited post finish-line roll-out area.

WTF??

Is this race cursed or what?

OK, in my defence, the red text was not at the top of the page next the the 'reg is closed' banner provided for ALL races by Bikereg.

Cursed indeed. I think Dieter must be looking for some dirt roads to include in the race...

I think the following will happen.

The whole weekend will not be a USA cycling event.
It will also not be a stage race, but instead a series of events, where one can enter any combination of them.

There will be a crit.
There will be a gran fondo.
There will be a time trial.

The death of road races is near only to be replaced by Gran Fondos...:(

Thierry Bonnaire said:

The death of road races is near only to be replaced by Gran Fondos...:(

You know...if road races disappeared altogether, it would force racers to do Gran Fondos, and then we would have the Euro style here and Uli could die happy.

I asked Dieter what happened. Here is his response:

2 reasons: there were too many race officials being demanded by USAC, and
anticipated police/EMS bills dwarfing any and all revenue for the stage race
as it was configured.

Thanks,

Dieter

Damn, 2 crits and a Fondo type thing, but no TT. Close, but no cigar. My psychic is clearly off her game. (although she was wrong about me meeting Jessica Alba too, now that I think about it)

ian ellis said:

Damn, 2 crits and a Fondo type thing, but no TT. Close, but no cigar. My psychic is clearly off her game. (although she was wrong about me meeting Jessica Alba too, now that I think about it)

Dieter is full of shit. He knew he wasn't going make money this year. He talked about being the big man who was going to help get this race back, but it was going to take a few years.

Ian, you still win the clairvoyant award for the week.

The latest:

The Art Longsjo Foundation has announced that the Foundation has assumed all responsibility for the promotion of the 2013 race, with Anthem Sports and Dieter Drake no longer involved with the event. 

Assuming the position of race director for 2013 is Alan Cote, who will work with other Foundation board members and members of the New England cycling community to insure the success of this year’s races. Cote, a native of nearby Townsend, brings more than three decades of experience in cycling as a competitor, journalist, and race announcer to the leadership of the event.

Earlier this week, the Longsjo Classic announced changes to the race schedule. Due to logistical challenges and costs, road stages planned around Mt. Wachusett were cancelled. This year’s event will include two days of racing, with downtown criteriums in Leominster (Fri 6/28) and Fitchburg (Sun 6/30). With the reduced schedule, The Longsjo Foundation and Anthem Sports mutually agreed the Foundation itself was best suited to organizing these two days of racing.

Ryan J said:

I asked Dieter what happened. Here is his response: 2 reasons: there were too many race officials being demanded by USAC, and anticipated police/EMS bills dwarfing any and all revenue for the stage race as it was configured. Thanks, Dieter

How does a race promoter decide that "there were too many race officials being demanded by USAC"?  This complaint came up earlier in the year with the UCI license issue and I'm wondering how promoters are the ones who should be dictating the number of officials?