A Whirlwind Summer

June is Here

– Emily Flynn

The team set out for a busy month of racing this June. First up was Tulsa Tough, which saw a record number of entrants and spectators this year! As always, Tulsa was a heatwave. It was the team’s first race together and they put in a good fight. Ashley, Avry, Monica, Daphne, and Katie supported Dani in retaining her 7th place position in the omnium going into the infamous Cry Baby Hill course. Cry Baby is a brutal course, but the party-like atmosphere is out of this world! Daphne always crushes on this course and this year was no exception.

From Tulsa, the team headed right to Nationals in Knoxville, TN - more on that in a separate post. 

@pdalyphoto

Immediately following Nationals they made their way to the land of cheese – Wisconsin – for Tour of America’s Dairylands. This is when I was finally able to make it down and reconnect with the team, who I had not seen since 2019 TOAD was high on my bucket list, having never done it before, and was so excited to get back with the team and finally meet some of our new recruits! The first couple of nights were marred by some bad luck getting caught behind and, in some crashes, but as always, we bounced back. For myself, let’s just say when your first race back is an 80min crit, it's a bit of a shock to the system. 

Throughout the week we worked on dialing our lead-out train, which was super cool as it is not something we have really done before. The last day in Wauwatosa was a tough one. It was a long course with a climb and a drag-race, headwind finish. The race was fast from the gun and strung out. I ended up getting a couple of primes and the team worked hard to chase down any potential breakaways. Coming into the last lap Dani was in good positioning and waited until the last second to come around and crossed the line for a second! It was a great end to a long block of racing.

*continued by Kelli Sam

With a short 5 day break next up was Boise Twilight Crit, a one-day race can often take more logistics than a 10-day series. Boise was insanely hot as per usual, but with the support of the city (Kelli’s hometown), we made it through and headed straight out to another week of back-to-back crit life with Intelligentsia.

@creedub

We arrived in Chicago to open arms from every angle. Chicago is a special city filled with amazing and supportive people. This year we partnered up with the race series to launch the first-ever new racer program. A program that provides in-race mentorship for new racers along with pre and post-race questions and advice. It was also the first official race for our junior dev team. We show up to the race and race hard and it’s always rewarding but this year was even better we gained a renewed love for the sport through this program and our juniors. Watching as new racers fall in love with the sport, challenged themselves, and continued to improve day in and day out was just the reminder we needed.

The racing was hard and fast but we raced as a team and that is always the goal. Stay tuned for an in-depth recap of our junior’s experience coming soon. Next up we head to Ashley’s hometown St. Louis for Gateway Cup.