Last weekend, April 15th, XO Racing sent its top road race riders to the uncontested Queen of American Races – the Tour of the Battenkill in Cambridge New York.

Battenkill is the closest that riders in the United States will come to riding a true northern European Spring Classic:  the men’s Pro UCI Race on Sunday featured 124 miles of punchy climbs, gravel and dirt sections, countless flat tires, and the best professional riders in the country. The squad – which included Sean Barrie, Keck Baker, Adam Farabaugh, and Adam Switters – pulled off  the best team finish of any amateur Domestic Elite team, with Adam Farabaugh finishing in 19th place and Keck Baker in 23rd.  Riders finishing just ahead of Adam and Keck included Tour de France veterans,  international professionals, and the best domestic riders in the country. From Adam’s race report: “Battenkill was awesome, fast, and brutally hard, and dusty as heck as you may have seen from some of the pictures. First lap was fast but pretty much stayed all together until coming back over Meetinghouse where the group really whittled down.  I just caught back on right before after running up a steep loose gravel section where everyone was across the road.  Yo-yoed on and off and chased back on the pavement after meeting house with 5 others for a few k’s. Lead group was probably down to 30 through the start finish with Switters and I making the split.  Everyone just kept attacking all the way to just before Juniper swamp to try and set the days break keeping the pace guttered at 30mph in a cross wind.  I followed a few moves but didn’t have it to follow the one that finally went [ed note: with Tour rider and eventual winner Francisco Mancebo]. We would go hard on the climbs and dirt sections, especially at the end but just rode steady in-between.  It went hard over the last climb and was fast into town for the sprint for 14th.  I went kinda early as to not get boxed in and started to wane toward the line and ended up 6th out of the group for 19th.  Keck was just behind me in 23rd and he’ll tell his story. One heck of a race and one of my favorite.  Wish we could do races like that every week…” More excellent race photos of all teams can be found here

Tour of the Battenkill 2012 Top 25

1. Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Competitive Cyclist in 4:55:54 2. Jesse Anthony (USA) Optum Pro Cycling-Kelly Benefit Strategies 3. Jeremy Vennell (USA) Bissell Pro Cycling 4. Joey Rosskopf (USA) Team Type 1-Sanofi at 5. Mike Friedman (USA) Optum Pro Cycling-Kelly Benefit Strategies 6. Jeff Louder (USA) Unitedhealthcare 7. Ben Jacques-Maynes (USA) Bissell Pro Cycling 8. Benjamin Day (Aus) UnitedHealthcare 9. Bruno Langlois (Can) Spidertech p/b C10 10. John Murphy (USA) Kenda-5-hour Energy 11. Chad BEYER, Competitive Cyclist 12. Tom LAST 13. Devan DUNN 14. Cole HOUSE, Competitive Cyclist 15. Shawn MILNE, Kenda-5-hour Energy 16. Luca DAMIANI, Kenda-5-hour Energy 17. Evan OLIPHANT 18. Kiel REIJNEN, Team Type 1-Sanofi 19. Adam FARABAUGH, XO Racing p/b Cisco Sytems 20. David FLEISCHHAUER 21. Frank Kevin PIPP, Bissell 22. Ian CRANE +11:43 23. Keck BAKER, XO Racing p/b Cisco Sytems 24. Jeffrey PERRIN 25. Aaron FILLION