| January | February | March | April |
| May | June | July | August |
| September | October | November | December |
Travel Highlights Archive: April
SRAM Tour of the Gila
One of America's toughest stage races, rolls into Silver City April 27 - May 1, 2011
The SRAM Tour of the Gila has a reputation as one of the toughest stage races in America, combining monster climbs at high altitude with screamingly fast descents and winding roads. Add to that the fickle nature of spring weather in southwestern New Mexico, which can quickly change from calm and sunny to incredibly windy with dust storms or snow showers, and you've got all the ingredients for an incredibly exciting bicycle race.
Silver City's annual Tour of the Gila celebrates 25 years as New Mexico's premier road race, bringing together world-class bicycle racing and small town hospitality. The Tour is proud to welcome back SRAM as the title sponsor for Silver City's signature event, which features 340 miles of racing across five days, in eight different categories. 2011 is also the 13th year for this event to be included in USA Cycling's prestigious National Racing Calendar (NRC) series, and race directors Jack Brennan and Michelle Geels look forward to excellent competition for this year's race.
Notable racers include Olympic medalists Clara Hughes, Kirsten Armstrong, and Alexi Grewal, the first American to win an Olympic gold medal in road cycling (1984), now 50 years old and launching a comeback to competitive cycling.
Race Stages:
• Day One, April 27: Silver City to Mogollon road race, a tough 94.1 mile point-to-point race beginning at Gough Park in Silver City.
• Day Two, April 28: Fort Bayard Inner Loop road race, a challenging 80 mile loop with 5,781 feet of climbing, starting and ending in Fort Bayard.
• Day Three, April 29: Dan Potts Memorial Individual Time Trial, a 16.15 mile time trial in Tyrone.
• Day Four, April 30: Downtown Silver City Criterium, featuring a 20 to 40 lap race (varies by category) right through the heart of Silver City, and an excellent opportunity for spectators to get up close to the action.
• Day Five, May 1: Gila Monster road race, a grueling 105.7 mile point-to-point race with 9,131 feet of climbing and 8,252 feet of descent, starting at Gough Park and ending at Pinos Altos.
During the Downtown Silver City Criterium on Saturday, April 30, the SRAM Tour of the Gila is teaming up with the Silver City MainStreet Project to host the Celebration of Spring Expo in the Morning Star parking lot. The Expo will include a beer garden, food booths and other vendors, a kid zone, and a bike rodeo, as well as live music from Boris McCutcheon and the Salt Licks and Edie Steed & Yucca Funk.
In addition to the SRAM Tour of the Gila website, this year's race will include extended coverage on a new social media site for the Tour, live streaming video of the Criterium, as well as Twitter and Facebook updates to engage with fans and share race updates, images and videos on the web.
