The Easton Criterium: Why This Race Stands Out in a Shrinking Northeast Calendar
I have spilled too many words over the years on the challenge of sustaining road races, all while local road races continue to fade into extinction. Here in NYC we are fortunate to still have a mostly intact calendar of local park races, with their pre-dawn start times and familiar courses in Prospect Park and Central Park, but the local criterium calendar has not been so lucky. Gone are weekday series like the Rockland Criterium and (for now?) racing at Floyd Bennett Field, which amazingly used to happen two nights per week. Also gone are the full days of racing that once made-up the Orchard Beach Criterium and the Fort Lee Criterium, both of which I organized during my time on the CRCA Board. Losing these latter all-day races really stings given these were rare opportunities to race on unique and spectator friendly courses.
As the crit calendar has shrunk, races like the Easton Criterium in Easton, PA stand out for being that much more special. Easton features production value that is hard to find in proximity to New York City. For racers, the downtown Easton course offers exciting racing on a well marshaled course with lots of spectators and great announcing (with bonus points for their well organized gridded staging format). For spectators, there are a plethora of viewing areas available from the brewery on the back side of the course to restaurants dotted elsewhere, big video boards in multiple locations, multiple food trucks and vendors, a skate competition, and plenty of other entertainment.
All of which is to say: the Easton Criterium should be on your calendar as either a racer or a spectator. I originally planned on the former, but bailed after a longer than expected recovery from the Brooklyn Half-Marathon. Instead, I dug out my camera and had a blast walking the course and shooting the action. Even damp and somewhat grey afternoon conditions didn’t bring down the atmosphere for the Elite races that ended the day, with TBD’s own Leah Goldberg featuring in the Women’s field.
We’ll have a full 300+ photo gallery from these races later this week, but for now here is a smaller gallery of selected images to whet your appetite.
Easton Criterium Short Gallery
Full gallery coming later this week….
