Stacy Appelwick (Bouledogue Tout Noir) placed 3rd in the women’s 3/4’s at this weekend’s prestigious Tour of the Gila in New Mexico.

Appelwick made the elite selection in both of the long, hilly road races and won Saturday’s criterium. Her rivals made up time in the time trial, however, and Appelwick wound up 27 seconds down in the general classification, 4 minutes ahead of the next rider.

A handful of other local riders made the trip, too, with the top result coming from Chris Mosora (Verizon Wireless), who placed 6th in the 40+ criterium and finished 25th in the GC.

And some of you may remember Minnesota’s Jonathan Toftoy (Synergy), who won a handful of races at the Gapers Block Crit Series. He won the 3’s overall after winning the time trial and winning the Day 2 road race

with a 9-minute gap over 2nd place.

The next big national stage race is this weekends Joe Martin Stage Race in Arkansas, and I know of more than a dozen local riders making the long trip.