Is The NCC Tour Of The Hilltowns the most underrated road race around NYC? There’s a case to be made.

It’s about three hours of the city and, once you’re there, promises some of the most beautiful and (as it turns out) tough racing on the calendar, TBD members Scott, Alex and Ben headed up for a sweltering day of New England racing and severe cramps. So, for your consideration, here are a few reasons to get excited about The Tour of The Hilltowns that will maybe get you interested in registering next year.

It’s Close!

Or close enough, relative to some of the other “local” northeastern options in Northern NY or Vermont. You can do it in a day. We made the drive up in around 3 hours– it means an early start but pack some coffee (or a sinister Tupperware of boiled eggs if you’re Alex) and it passes in no time.

A Dynamic, Muscular Course!

As the name suggests, ‘Hilltowns’ (for the sake of brevity, I’m going to refer to the race by one word like it’s the title of a TV show I created) passes through the beautiful rolling scenery of western Mass. This makes for a ‘punchy’ and ‘muscular’ course that we all sorely underestimated, particularly with the heat.

The course itself is certainly interesting. It’s ~52 miles for most and ~84 miles for the pros, but where Hilltowns is particularly intriguing is that it’s built around a big old climb that arrives about a third into the race. The race starts with a rolling descent, at 19 or so miles, you hit the lowest point of the course and from there you start going up, which is another reason you should get excited for this race:

It Has A Big Climb

This sort of deserves its own point just because we don’t have a lot of climbs longer than 10 minutes around NYC so that makes East Hawley climb a bit of a USP for Hilltowns. It’s over 5.5% for just over 4 miles with 3 miles over 6% and it hurts a lot but it’s honestly such a valuable experience– as NYC park racers, we generally need all the climbing prep we can get for the likes GMSR and KSR, so a race that offers a big climb at full-gas pace that you can drive to and from in a day is a great shout.

There’s More Race After The Climb!

Actually, most of the race happens after the climb. The following thirty miles is rolling terrain which gives way to some tricky drags along wide roads in the last few miles. In our field, the front selection of six was made going over Hawley and that’s how things stayed for the rest of the day. It’s an attritional kind of race with people continuously falling off the back.

At the finish line we all gathered together again and debriefed over beers and subs, all completely spent but all impressed with this unsung race. All in all, Hilltowns is a fantastic day of racing, and if you live in NY, you should give it a go.