Although I attend the great institute at the University of Minnesota, I was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. For the last official collegiate race weekend of the year, we headed to the stunning capital city of Wisconsin for an aggressive weekend of racing. Madison is only about 4 hours from Minnesota, so we were able to chill all morning before bringing the rig down.

We arrived pretty early and the rest of the team got host housing from a guy named Hemanth (thanks Hemanth), but I stayed with my family. I ate some chicken tacos with the ‘rents and then went to bed.

I woke up the next day and picked up Louis and his girlfriend, Emma, to head to the criterium course. The crit course is at an office/research park on the west side of town where they run the Madison weekday practice crit series. To say I’m well acquainted with the racecourse is an understatement. It was the site of my first race ever (4th place in the Juniors 15-18 field) and by my count I’ve raced there probably in the neighborhood of 30 times.

We had a good start to the day, with Louis pulling out a 4th in one of his second B crit ever and Cole Feagler winning the C’s. The women had a good showing, but the Men’s A were missing some vital parts of our leadout train, namely the pocket rocket Chase Wark and the boy wonder Daniel Svedberg. Fortunately we had Logan and superstar Colin Catlin come down, which gave us a pretty strong squad nonetheless.

Collegiate Criterium National Champion/Team CCB professional Jonah Mead Van Cort was there along with his strong Lindenwood team. Marian fielded 12 riders, most of them Cat 1s, which gave us an impression that we had our work cut out for us. I was talking to some UW guys before the race, and they told me that Marian didn’t like leaving it up to a sprint against Lindenwood, since Jonah would inevitably win it. They liked to send breaks up the road and stack it against every other team. I talked to Logan and Colin before the race and the plan was for me to go with a move early and to work for Logan/Colin/whoever had the best legs if a breakaway didn’t get away.

It was very aggressive towards the beginning, but nothing stayed away for longer than a lap. Everything was covered by Marian or Lindenwood. With about 15 to go I started recovering and thinking about the best approach to lead out Logan for the win.

4 laps to go it was really aggressive, with people attacking and jostling for position. My friend from Lindenwood Nathan Schoonover crashed on the little hill on the back side of the course. Three to go Lindenwood and Marian both set up leadout trains on the front. Logan and me surfed wheels about 15 spots back. One to go I went up the left side next to Lindenwood’s leadout, trying to get Logan into position. I was worried I was going to be too close to the front too soon, but Logan wanted to be higher and kept yelling ‘up,’ so I kept moving up. I dropped Logan off in the top 5 through the final corner and he sprinted for 3rd, with me halfheartedly rolling in for a surprising 6th place. I was so happy with our teamwork and our little team competing so well against the two best varsity teams in the nation. We definitely punched above our weight class, with Jonah winning and Marian’s sprinter coming in second.

My parents invited the team to our house for a big Wisconsin meal of Brats and potato salad. It was fun having everyone over.

 

The road race was 66 miles on the nationals course from a few years ago. It was a long descent into a rolling section, then up a pretty significant climb, all in an 11 mile lap. A break of Marian, Lindenwood, and Michigan got up the road the first lap. I felt ok about the move being out there since the strong Wisconsin team missed out. Fellow Minnesotan Sam Fritz bridged up, and I told Colin to follow it. They both made it up to the break and quickly got 3 minutes on the field.

Heading into the fourth lap Michigan and Lindenwood were dropped from the break. I talked to Logan who said he was pretty fried after having to chase on after a mechanical. My legs were good so I told him to hang on as long as he could so he could set me towards the end of the race. We had good road position with Colin up the road in a break of three, and with Lindenwood caught on their back leg having to chase down a move that they counted on having a rider in. Nonetheless, three minutes was a tall ask, but UW and Lindenwood began chasing in earnest.

Descending into the 4th lap I hit a pothole and flatted on both wheels. I had no wheels in the neutral truck and that was it for me. I waited on the side of the road, bummed from my misfortune. The break surprisingly got caught, with Logan hanging on until the end for 14th place and Colin finishing a little behind. Not a horrible day, but the luck didn’t work out on our side.

Final conference standings just got posted, and I won our conference, which is an awesome achievement for me. It means I’ll get a call up in the Road Race and Crit at Collegiate Nats next week. I’m stoked and fresh, and I think we can do some damage this week. It’s gonna be awesome.