There’s been some outstanding early racing at Superweek, but the biggest story so far has been the course for Sunday’s Olympia Club Criterium.

A protruding manhole cover was unable to be patched safely, so the course was shortened from the planned 6-corner .6 mile to a 4-corner .5 mile through a development of mostly vacant monster homes.  In addition, a raised lip of concrete lined the gutters of the unfinished streets: deep enough to take you out, but shallow enough so that you forget it’s there. Andy Daley (Vitaminwater-Trek) likened it to a giant game of Operation: Touch the sides, game over. These gutters, a tricky Turn 3 and a strong, swirling wind — and no doubt some dodgy handling — resulted in a series of hard, bone-breaking crashes in the closing laps of the Cat 3 race. That field started with 60 riders. Officials and organizers were thus wary of unleashing more than a hundred P/1/2’s on the course. A chaotic riders meeting was convened at 5:15 p.m., a half-hour before the scheduled start. The issues were presented, and various solutions were proposed, including splitting the field into two heats, running a shorter race or canceling the race altogether. (More than one wag suggested a miss-and-out for what was essentially a 800m velodrome. Match sprints and madisons were also mentioned.) At one point, announcer Eddie van Guyse took a straw poll of who wanted to cancel the race. The photo above shows Rahsaan Bahati (Rock Racing) registering his vote.
Guyse: “Is that your hand, Rahsaan?”
Bahati: “That’s both my hands — and my bike!” It was a tense yet almost comical 20 minutes.  In the end, riders who wanted to bow out were offered credits or refunds. Most local amateurs took advantage of the offer, reducing the field by about a third. I couldn’t stay for the entire race, but I watched as the first few laps passed without incident. The riders lined out at a scorching pace but took the corners smoothly. And it resembled a miss-and-out after all, with about one rider getting popped and pulled on each lap. Later, multiple crashes would take place in Turn 3, a fast, sharp and bumpy corner. With about 30 of the 80 laps to go, a group of four had formed, including ABD/Geargrinder riders Zach Watson and Josh Carter, who counterattacked following an intermediate sprint.  With 16 to go, however, a serious crash suspended the race while an ambulance was brought in. The break was restarted with a half-lap lead, and then Watson, an expat member of the squad living in Boulder, Colo.,  led out Carter for the win. Other notes from the first weekend of Superweek, with the caveat that my commentary is somewhat hamstrung by the fact that few results have been posted:

• » Rock Racing took another bite out of Superweek Saturday with Bahati winning and Friday’s winner Sterling Magnell taking 3rd and keeping the lead in the overall.
• » Team Tati picked up the first victory in its short history with Liam Bradshaw sprinting to win Saturday’s 4/5’s in Blue Island after a late Wild Card flier was reeled in with one to go. The downstate Wild Card squad, another new team in orange, still managed to put riders in 2nd and 3rd. Many have wondered how Team Tati’s retro wool jerseys are holding up in the heat: “The Ibex wool is great,” Patrick Myers reports. “Really no problem at all. I did a 200k brevet in it.” So there you have it.
• » Nothing like creating a secret alliance with another team, getting them to promise to lead you out — and then losing the wheel and finishing 2nd to your co-conspirator. That’s what happened to Nick Gierman (Vitaminwater-Trek) in Saturday’s 4’s race. He’d lose to Nate Iden (Spidermonkey Cycling), and then Sunday would finish 2nd again, this time in a two-up sprint against Dan Damotte (Proctor) after the field disintegrated in their wake.
• » XXX Racing-AthletiCo had a banner day at Olympia Fields. First Dave Moyer won out of a three-man break in the 4/5’s. Then Jonathan Dugas and Brian Morrissey took an early leave from the masters 4/5’s race, creating a break with Brian Kavanaugh (2CC) that nearly lapped the field. Dugas won and Morrissey getting 3rd, and then Newt Cole and Jeff Holland went 5-6, giving the squad four of the top six.
• » There were attempts to get away but nobody got a very long leash in the Cat 3 race. With 10 laps to go, however, Tomasz Boba (WDT-Allvoi) counterattacked a move and quickly built a quarter-lap lead. From my perspective on the sidelines — I had exited the race in order to get a better view of the sprint; the things I do for you people — Vitaminwater-Trek appeared to be the only team willing to commit bodies to the chase. That lack of commitment, plus disruptions from the aforementioned crashes, let a fading Boba hold the narrowest of margins all the way to the line. Just one second behind him an argy-bargy sprint barreled to the line, sending James Pradun (Endeavour) into 2nd and Chris Hurst (Baraboo Sharks) into 5th but also into the barriers, out of his pedal and then down the tarmac.

Full Superweek results.

Blue Island reports
ABD/Geargrinder (P/1/2): “‘One of the Canadian guys totally chopped me in the turn [for Rahsaan Bahati’s wheel], and then what really killed me was that he couldn’t even hold Rahsaan’s wheel!’”

Rahsaan Bahati (Rock Racing; P/1/2): “On this course you could come out of the corner sixth or seventh and take your time because it was so long to the finish.”

Brian Boyle (Vitaminwater-Trek; P/1/2): “Out of the last turn I was able to drill it and pick up many places over the apathetic riders at the back who were just looking to finish.”

John Coyle (Wolverine Sports Club; P/1/2): “The Colombian team continued to push breakaways and the field was unwilling to let them go, so the peloton resumed the strung out two abreast or single-file for dozens of laps and I began to tire.”

Eric Goodwin (Vitaminwater-Trek; 3): “I missed a turn at the front and started to draw a little unwelcome attention from my companions. I said something about seven teammates blocking and indicated that it would be my only comment on the subject (using fewer and more colorful syllables).”

Nick Gierman (Vitaminwater-Trek; 4): “Nate was right ahead of me and I was closing on him.  However, the line was closing on both of us.”

Don Hanke (Tower Racing; 30+ 4/5): “About 24 years ago I finished 2nd at the Moline Quad City race. That had been eating away at me for a long time, but not any more!”

Jeff Holland (XXX Racing-AthletiCo; 30+ 4/5): “I sprint, start to fade, sprint again, fade again, and then sprint again as I see people moving up to left and right. I cross the line 7th.”

Nate Iden (Spidermonkey Cycling; 4, 30+ 4/5): “I passed the taco stand and still had the lead, still grinding, just waiting to be over taken, but it never happened.”

Kudzu (P/1/2): “In the final three laps the field was pretty sketchy as it stretched more than 15 wide through the corners when only about 10 riders should have gone through.”

Chris Padfield (Team Pegasus; 4): “I never thought I would describe a crit as ‘mellow,’ but this was downright relaxed.”

James Pradun (Endeavour; 3): “I held onto his wheel, pulled out with about 100m to go, put my head down and gunned it.”

Mike Shea (Spidermonkey Cycling; 4/5): “The plan changed to a simple one: keep an eye on the stronger riders from each team and mark their position. I didn’t have extra juice to spare and it was still a hard race.”

Team Tati (4/5): “Meanwhile, the other teams ignored and overlooked us as usual, and fought it out over a series of futile breaks.”

Tom Thiesen (Endeavour; 3): “Despite being almost twice as long as most crits in the rest of the calendar, competition for positions was fierce from lap one.”

Tim Yuska (Get a Grip Off Road; 4, 4/5): “A rider tried to squeeze through a quickly closing gap directly ahead of me. Of course the slight contact caused a meeting with the pavement for the poor fellow.”

Blue Island photos
Carolyn Golz
Jason Knauff: 3, 30+ 4/5, 4/5, 4
Matt Smith
Team Tati
Team Tati (II)

Olympia Fields race reports
ABD/Geargrinder (P/1/2): “Josh Carter scored ABD/Geargrinder’s first win of Superweek, winning out of a break of four that had also been powered along by pseudo-teammate Zach Watson.”

Rahsaan Bahati (Rock Racing; P/1/2): “I won more points in the red jersey and Sterling Magnell finished 6th, and that allowed him to stay in yellow.”

Newt Cole (XXX Racing-AthletiCo; 30+ 4/5): “‘Sorry, bro, nothin’ personal. Those are my boys up there.’”

Aram Dellalian (Bearclaw; P/1/2): “It was a nice course. Turn 3 was a bit of an odd one, but nothing we hadn’t done 2,049 times before.”

Nick Gierman (Vitaminwater-Trek; 4): “I get to the front and started pulling. Next thing I look back and I have opened up a pretty big gap.”

Jeff Holland (XXX Racing-AthletiCo; 30+ 4/5): “We used strong team tactics to keep our guys in the break and also get our blockers a top-10 finish. Does it get any better than that? “

Nate Iden (Spidermonkey Cycling; 4): “None of us crashed, Alex came in 5th, me 3rd and Nick 2nd. That is all I can say about a 12-mile race.”

Kudzu (P/1/2): “Countless wrecks occurred as everyone battled for the wheel in front, only to run out of real estate.”

Sterling Magnell (Rock Racing; P/1/2): “Then came a crash that the officials stopped the race for, then restarted us, giving the break a dubiously generous head start.”

Brian Morrissey (XXX Racing-AthletiCo; 30+ 4/5): “I learned a hard lesson in tactics this afternoon, and that I am entitled to nothing until I cross that line.”

Dave Moyer (XXX Racing-AthletiCo; 4/5): “As we’re halfway up the hill before my pull I attack, which for some reason really surprised the other two.  I didn’t look back until two corners later and saw I had a pretty solid gap.”

James Pradun (Endeavour; 3): “With three to go the pace picked up again and didn’t slow down, stretching almost single file the whole way.”

Joey Rosskopf (Team Kudzu; P/1/2): “It turned into a very sane race for the amount of deliberation and worry that went on before hand.”

Matt Smith (Vitaminwater-Trek; 3): “A blue shirt had the audacity to tell the assembled riders’ that all the crashing wasn’t because of the course.”

Tom Thiesen (Endeavour; 3): “With 3 laps to go, the carnage started. Apparently everyone realized it was their last chance and simultaneously tried to move to the front.”

Tim Yuska (Get a Grip Off Road; 4, 4/5): “I was always getting gapped on the 120-degree turn that had already claimed several other riders’ skin.”

Olympia Fields photos
Carolyn Golz
Luke Seemann
Matt Smith