The race takes place on the island of Saint Croix, one of the US Virgin Islands that the United States bought from Denmark in 1917. They were under Danish control for more than 200 years, which explains the Danish sounding names of the two cities that gives this race its name. Christiansted and Frederiksted are named after the Danish kings, which have been called either Christian or Frederik since 1448, apart from one John. Th...
Read moreThe race takes place on the island of Saint Croix, one of the US Virgin Islands that the United States bought from Denmark in 1917. They were under Danish control for more than 200 years, which explains the Danish sounding names of the two cities that gives this race its name. Christiansted and Frederiksted are named after the Danish kings, which have been called either Christian or Frederik since 1448, apart from one John. The two cities on the island also inspired the nickname of the island, which is Twin City.
Enough with the history lesson, and on to the race route. The race starts out from Christiansted next to the water front and then follows the north coast almost to the eastern tip of the island. It then hugs the southern coast all the way to the west coast and Frederiksted. This first part is more or less flat, but after around 60km the rider turn inland and the climbing starts. The road back to Christiansted is now on twisty roads.
A rider who has not studied the route in detail might think they would get a nice flat finish down by the seaside. But they would be wrong. They have to climb again up to the finish line. In the last 3km they will climb from sea level to 230m of altitude, a hard climb to finish of a hard race. The hill is called recovery hill, but there is no recovering before reaching the finish line!
