It’s not “A Sunday in Hell,” it’s a Saturday in Washington County.

Well, not just any Saturday.

The Tour of the Battenkill strives to emulate the Paris-Roubaix road race in northern France, and does an excellent job of it, based on the quality of riders scheduled to be at the starting line in Salem on Saturday.

The Battenkill course also provides cyclists, beginner and professional alike, with the kind of features — sans cobblestone streets — you’d find at Paris-Roubaix, which was first held in 1896 and gained nicknames like “A Sunday in Hell” and “The Hell of the North” after riders were forced to traverse the ruts and craters left behind by World War I.

The internationally prominent Team R.A.C.E. and two of its top riders, Mark Walters and Ryan Roth, who are in contention for spots on the Canadian Olympic team, will compete in the Pro/1 race at 12:05 p.m.

The star of this show, though, is the course, which loops for 55 miles through Salem, Cambridge and Greenwich, with one shorter side loop for the higher-level riders that forces them to race a total of 82 miles. Along the way, cyclists will encounter sharp turns, steep inclines and unpaved roads.

“It’s very difficult and challenging,” race promoter Dieter Drake said. “The Paris-Roubaix goes through the French countryside, and this sort of mimics that. Twenty-five percent of the course is on fairly unpaved roads. It’s a very signif­icant component. It definitely adds an element of discomfort, not only because it’s dirt roads, but there’s very difficult climbs.”

Bonne chance with all that.

The schedule of 16 races will start in Salem with juniors as young as 10 years old at 9 a.m., and the last ones to hit the finish line will be the Category 2 and Pro/1 riders, at around 3:30 p.m.

About 10 miles into the main loop, the riders will run into a half-mile hill with as much as a 16 percent incline up Juniper Swamp Road.

The pro riders will see another steep one during the side loop on McKie Hollow Road.

“Juniper Swamp Road is a very difficult hill, and everybody has to ride it,” Drake said. “It definitely breaks up the field and throws everyone a real curveball. You get it out of the way early, but you also know your place after that.

“This course really takes some practice to get used to.”

The course uses the Eagleville covered bridge, has a flat, open six-mile stretch on Meeting House Road between Cambridge and Easton that is spectator-friendly and passes Willard Mountain on the way to Greenwich.

The race’s Web site, www.battenkillroubaix.com, provides a spectator guide with driving and parking directions.

Drake, a former track and cross country star at Guilderland High, said he expects a total of 1,500-1,600 cyclists, making it the biggest singe-day road race in the country.

“It’s a different kind of cycle race; most are circuits or stage races,” he said. “It’s a different flavor from a criterion. This is a real road race.”

Walters is a five-time Canadian national road champion, and Roth is the 2007 Univest Omnium champion.

Their team not only competes professionally but also promotes Race Against Cancer Everywhere (R.A.C.E.).

The team is managed by Tour de France stage winner and Olympic silver medalist Steve Bauer.

“We are sure the competition will be very good,” Bauer said in a press release. “It’s a classic road race. It has great elements to bring out the best in racers.”

“We’ve had some real positive feedback,” Drake said. “We don’t pay a lot, but we still get enough pros that, instead of racing them all in one big blob, we can split them [into their var­ious categories] and still have full fields.

“They want to race a difficult early-season race that resembles what they’ll see later in the season in Europe. This is very unique.”