My First Taste of Superweek

Last Saturday, I got my first taste of the Point Premium Root Beer International Cycling Classic and Superweek Pro Tour (affectionately known as Superweek). I found myself in Illinois visiting the in-laws for the 4th of July and since my wife and I are now jobless vagabonds until we move to the Milwaukee area for me to start medical school I figured we may stick around through the following weekend so that I could race while we were in town.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Superweek, it is in its 42nd year of providing high quality bicycle racing for the Milwaukee area and northern Illinois. It has been raced by up and coming pros whose names you might recognize like George Hincapie, Lance Armstrong and Tyler Farrar to name a few. So when I knew I'd be around to try my luck I couldn't pass up the chance.

The race I was in was the Mill Race Cyclery Classic in downtown Geneva, IL. Downtown Geneva is a cool little town surrounded by neighborhood with a feel like Stillwater, MN (but thankfully without "the wall" that Stillwater uses in their Nature Valley Grand Prix stage).




On race day I arrived in plenty of time to warm up and rode 8 or 9 laps of the course to get a feel for it. Turn 3 at the corner of 5th and South Streets was especially treacherous because the corner was scattered with patched pavement over a couple of water main covers and banked away from the corner. Not only that but the road narrowed from a typical residential street to a single lane. Had the pavement been in better shape, it wouldn't have been too big of an issue but as it was all the riders were eyeing it carefully and picking the best lines to try and avoid any trouble.

As I lined up to start at the intersection of 3rd and Franklin I found myself in a field of 75 Cat 4/5 riders ready to push it to the limit for every one of our 25 laps. At this point in my racing career I always expect criteriums to start off at a high pace, and this race was no exception. With the draw of great racing, a wide range of riders were in the pack from first timers to the top club riders from around the area (or even out of town). I anticipated the high starting speed and did well in the pack, but as we finished 5 laps I was still too far towards the back of the pack and having to pick my way through riders who were falling off and trying to close the gaps they were leaving. I found another rider who looked as strong or stronger than me in the same situation and hopped on his wheel. He closed a few gaps for me but began to feel the pressure as well and I was on my own again trying to chew through the peloton. After 10 laps like this I was starting to wonder if I could keep this up. Still 15 laps to go and no sign of slowing. Thankfully it was just then that the field began to need a little recovery and I found myself in mid-pack able to get some water.

Then we were off again. Somewhere around this point a rider in front of me went down in the second to last corner after a flat. Thankfully, his momentum took him to the outside of the turn and the rest of us were unaffected. Around 10 laps to go I was hurting again, but knew that I could make it to the end. Two laps later after a rider in front of me tossed his chain going through the treacherous corner I was slowly fading of the back. The rider had been just a few riders in front of me on the narrow section of one lane road. It wouldn't have been too much of a problem except for that those of us behind him had to slow down before making the turn around corner 4 and going up 6th street and going up 6th street really means going up. The hill wasn't too steep but it was significant enough that it was the place to make a move or be dropped if you weren't ready. I don't know how many of us fell off at that point, but I wasn't the only one. I fought as hard as I could to close the gap, but by the end of the lap I knew I'd likely be finishing alone.

However, as luck would have it, I didn't have to finish on my own. With 6 laps to go 5 other riders pulled up alongside me just before making the final turn south onto 3rd st and told me to hop on and share the work. I sat through as the front two riders pulled and had enough recovery to do my share. We worked together for the next few laps and could see that we were slowly making up distance on the peloton. With 4 laps to go we saw them go around the bend to the right at 6th and Campbell and hope began welling up in me. We rounded the corner and were suprised to see a pile of 15 or so riders in the middle of the straight on the right side of the road. I'm not really sure what happened, but suddenly I though "we could be back in this." I moved to the front and did a long pull before trading with the rider behind me. With only 2 more laps our little group had been whittled down to just three of us.

I led our grupetto through the start/finish on the last lap planning to make a move at Turn 5 after letting another rider pull me up the hill. It worked perfectly and I opened a big gap on Campbell street. Just to make sure it would work I jumped hard one more time as I came onto the home stretch and powered home. It was good enough to beat my breakaway buddies and I then slowed to congratulate them on the good work we did together and on making the most of what had looked like it was a futile effort. In the end it was good enough for 19th. There were only 40 finishers from the starting 75. My average speed when all was said and done was around 26 MPH. A hard day indeed!

It was a pleasant surprise to jump up at least 10 places after the crash and to not have been a part of it. I'm sure I was being watched over because had I stayed with the peloton I would have certainly been in a dangerous place at the point of the accident (seeing as I was toasted enough to only have been riding on the back of the group). Even better than finishing in one piece was to have the support from my family there to cheer me on. My 3 year old twin nephews were there shouting their encouragement every time I passed and apparently were very interested in the race. Good to know that I have a couple of early converts already.

Later that night we came back to watch the men's pro race. 73 laps and 100K later 5 riders had lapped the field and three of them made another break to fight it out in a 3 way sprint finish. What a race. I didn't even really think it was possible to do that... This was only day 2 of the 16 day Superweek tour so I'm sure there are many more impressive feats to come.

Superweek, unfortunately, is in danger in Illinois. They have met a lot of resistance from the towns and vendors where their races are held which means the schedule frequently changes from year to year and at the last minute. Because of that, this race was thrown together on short notice. However, it did not affect the quality in the least and I think once all was said and done, the community was thrilled to have had Superweek visit. Hopefully the race is back again next year. Hat's off to Mill Race Cyclery for holding an excellent race on a great course.