synthetic wrote:
What are some competitive races here?
So far I see:
Valley of the Sun (vos)
Sea otter classic
CBR
Tour de Tuscon
Sea Otter ... mehhh (seems more competitive on the MTB side)
Honestly that was the big disappointment for me when moving from the East Coast to the West Coast... very few big road races left (many struggling to get participants and/or permits). Tons of crits though.
Depending on what you're looking for, the responses will be a little different. As a spectator, if you want to see a decently strong pro field I'd definitely have Redlands and the San Rafael criterium (if it happens again) on the list.
As an amateur/participant, you have a few historical races in NorCal that have lower visibility and lower number of participants but still attract the local Californian elites with strong P/1/2 and master fields: Snelling, Cat's hill (crit), Chico (if they can revive the stage race... turned into a crit this year), Berkeley Hills, Golden State weekend (TT, Circuit and Crit... all in a business park so not very scenic but great atmosphere and always very well attended), Davis 4th of July (crit) and Giro di San Francisco (crit).