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The 15th Valentine’s Day Cycling Classic is coming up this weekend and while the defending champion American Rich Harper won’t be here to defend his title – there are 15 foreign cyclists signed up for the race. The race which is seen as an important warm up for the Cross Country starts at 9:00 am from San Ignacio and Cycling Association official Kwame Scott told us why it’s worth coming out to the roadside to see.

Kwame Scott, Belize Cycling Association
“As we all know Valentine has traditionally been a time of love and our love is for cycling so what we do normally is there is a race that coincides with the Cross Country training. It is a race of 81 miles long. It starts at the three quarter point of a hill, the infamous cement hill in Cayo.

Travelling to Benque and back to Cayo is about 15 or so miles of nothing but what we call rollers. But inevitably there are hills. The first 50% of the race I would say is all about hills, what we call hills in Belize, and it normally separates the race early. This is a race that normally the winner is decided in a group that separates themselves from as early as the first two or three miles sometimes. It is a very exciting race and if you want to be a part of it you can also line the Western Highway to watch it roll by.

There is also that awesome talent of Belizean riders who have been consistent over the past couple months in the Saturday races. We have the Darnell Barrows, the Froggie Leslies, the Gregg Lovells, Marlon Castillo, the Choto brothers, and there is a list you can always add to so to speak when talking about the Belizean riders.”

The will also be a junior and female category.