Speedweek(end)

Keeping the good vibes rollin’ at SpeedWeek!

SpeedWeek is known as the first big crit weekend of the season, where everyone who races on the American circuit shows up. It hosts two of the most iconic crits, Spartanburg and the infamous Athens Twilight.  If you race crits in America, winning Athens is most likely on your dream board.

The team had just come off two pretty successful races.  This year we seemed to just gel. Not only on the bike, landing 3 podiums at USA Crits, but we also seemed to really understand each other out of spandex too. 

The bike race makes up just 1 hour of the day, and there is so much team work that goes on in between that really effects how you race, and how much fun you have.  For example, when there are only 7 seats in the van, but 9 of you, you have to improvise...  Or when you are the worlds worst packer and forget a jersey, a teammate doesn’t hesitate to lend hers up. Or even, when you are a few minutes from starting Athens and you pull the core out of your valve extender on your wheels and the whole team rallies together to get you sorted out.  Lets just say, I’m thankful to have teammates like these.

We lucked out pretty hard with our host house too - thank goodness for Julia and her beautiful Southern mansion with a wrap around porch. She also happened to work at the local brewery who are huge sponsors of the Athens race, so her fridge was fully stocked with apres beers.  Very welcoming and very needed.

We also had a very nice addition to the team this trip by way of photographer; Adam.  Not only was he able to capture candid moments on film, but he definitely brought a tone of positivity and fun to the trip.  We also had fresh meat to torment about things like why bullet coffee makes no sense.

Oh, and the racing?  I’m going to humble brag and say we are pretty good at racing our bikes.  You might even say we raced a bit too hard.   So no, we didn’t win Athens, but man did we race.  I can’t even count how many primes we won, how many breaks we were in, and how much pressure we put on the rest of the teams.  We may not have landed on the top step this weekend, but the W’s are on their way. Let’s keep this thing rolling!

Now it’s time for a little racing break back home, and then we are off to sweaty Oklahoma for some of the hardest races of the year - Oklahoma City Classic and Tulsa Tough!