Hey all,
I just looked and USA cycling finally has the specific dates for the Nationals events. They are in Albuquerque this year. Unfortunately, they don’t have any firm details on where the exact events will be. My main focus is the time trial. Is anyone on here familiar enough with the area to suggest where I should stay? I don’t mean a specific hotel, but rather a place around the city that is likely to be near the time trial course. I figure picking something Central should be okay because I don’t imagine they would have the event 3 hours outside of the town, but since I’ve never been there any input would really help! Am I fine just picking any hotel within the city or should I look for a specific area?
Cheers!
Below is the course from last year. I assume it will also be the same course this year. Hopefully this will give you an idea of what location to stay.
See you there 
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FWIW I stayed in Santa Fe last year and it was about a 45 minute drive to both the crit course and the RR start. I know you mentioned your main focus in the TT, but oddly enough, that’s the one discipline I didn’t race at Nats. If you can afford it (time and money wise) NM was super rad to explore for that weekend. My wife and I made a trip out of it and visited some hot springs, went out to dinner at a quaint little restaurant outside of Santa Fe and generally really enjoyed the trip.
Here’s the crit course, it’s pretty simple, the course is wide open and super easy to ride. The only somewhat “sketch” section is the left on the inside, because it’s got some weird drainage grating, but it wasn’t really anything to write home about.
The RR spit me out quick, if you’re a bigger guy, not acclimated to the altitude, or just not that great at climbing, it’s rough. Make sure you bring more water and food than you anticipate, I ran out of water and food with almost an entire lap to go, and while there was a neutral feed, it was a mess and a half. Definitely made the second half of the race a death march.
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Thanks for the tips both of you! That’s a huge help… @Majoeric could you link to your actual Strava ride so that I can play around with the map a little?
@TheCyclissimo I plan on doing a lot of heat acclamation beforehand. I will probably do the road race but I am definitely not doing the crit. I’m already planning on going down a few days early since hotels are relatively cheap and I can work a little bit remotely. I live in Utah, and during the summer it’s pretty easy to ride up to 10,000 ft, so the altitude shouldn’t be an issue. And some of the climbs here are exposed and like furnaces, so getting used to both isn’t too bad…
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I’m a local so feel free to ping back if you have more questions.
Anyhow, if you plan on being in town for a while consider staying someplace with easy access to the bosque trail on the east side of the Rio Grande. It runs pretty much the length of the city north-south. It can be very busy, so not a place to do tt training but it is nice to use for easy spins or getting to other places. On the south end are a few generally good routes to get up to the west mesa where the TT course is. Rio bravo/Dennis Chavez is likely the least busy but also the furthest south.
You might also consider staying near tramway, which is the loop road on the north and east sides of town. This is likely the most popular road for biking in town, and provides access to the north end of the bosque trail, northern routes (Algadones, Placitias) as well as access to the east mountains (where the RR is) via the SE end of tramway.
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