Jessi Prinner (ABD) and Edwardsville’s Zach Reed (Dogfish) won the women’s open and men’s P/1/2 races at the O’Fallon Grand Prix on Saturday to become Illinois state road race champions.
Prinner won out of a six-woman sprint, while Reed, after spending much of the hot, 90-mile race in a four-, three- and finally two-man break, won a two-up sprint against Dave Henderson (Columbia Bike Club).
Full wrap-up to come.
Whoops! I’m sure he gets mistaken for the Sky rider all the time.
Looks to be an unfortunately small turnout.
Maybe its due to the fact that the Illinois State Championship was held in Missouri after 2 straight weekends of strong racing out of the Chicago area…maybe next year we should hold the State Championship in Tennessee the weekend after Superweek??? It looks like Wonder Lake and Spring Prairie had much stronger fields…hmmm
Spoken like a true Chicagoan!
It’s the Illinois State Champs, not the Chicago Champs.
Lets try and not forget that 60% of Illinois population is in the Chicagoland area…
This is a map of ALL licensed (USCF) riders in the state of Illinois as of the latest USCF database dump. While it’s clear that the majority of racers list Chicago addresses on their licenses, I’m not sure it’s 60%.
http://binaryoven.com/riders.html
Suffice it to say, the Chicagoland area does in fact contain a significant population. That said, if you or anyone you know is disappointed by the selection of O’fallon as the course (or any other racing issue), I recommend putting your money where your mouth is and becoming involved with the ICA so you can be responsible for making these decisions… Otherwise I’ll politely encourage you to shut up.
You’re right, it’s probably more than 60%.
I’ve got no issues driving to races, but putting the state championship in…essentially…St. Louis is, on the surface, a little silly.
I don’t know what’s involved in setting up such an event, but if it were a little more centralized to Illinois then I think the numbers would have been significantly higher.
Where to begin…
1. Can we expect PSIMET to host the state road race next year?
2. Can we expect PSIMET to host A race, period, this year or next? Unless I’m mistaken, hosting an event is a requirement of club/team creation…
3. You are spoiled. When I started racing, my average travel time in the car was 3.5 per race.
4. ???
5. Attendance looked fine to me - or did you mean Chicago area racer attendance, those shining gems of humanity who are ‘more’ Illinois than the rest of the Noise?
6. People don’t like road races. They are stupid.
7. Illinois total pop is 12.8 mil; Chicago is only 2.8.
8. You got a problem with St. Louis?
9. Profit!
10. Ok, maybe the p/1/2 turnout was a little small…only 22 riders, but you had high quality regional, if not national quality riders (Dave Henderson is widely acknowledged to be the 30+ Masters Nat’l Champion), Zach Reed is Public Badass #1 (and longer time resident of Illinois than you, I’ll wager), and Will Nowak, I sure hate that guy (when he does the Turin ride - pain). All the other fields had 40-50 guys.
11. You will need to travel and race near StL if you harbor any desire to do well at the Gateway Cup.
12. Gary Dyer and Gary Doering were there. The Spidermonkies were there.
13. Shut your ButtonHole !
For the last two years we’ve been spoiled by Tower Racing, which put on two great road races close to the city. And, indeed, numbers were a little higher.
P/1/2: 34, vs. 22 at O’Fallon
3: 59 vs. 50 at O’Fallon
4: 56 vs. 53 at O’Fallon
Women: 20 vs. 28 at O’Fallon (Whoa—MORE women showed up to O’Fallon, including five women’s open riders from Illinois, up from three last year.)
Granted, out-of-staters skew those numbers a bit, but it’s not like a close-to-Chicago race guarantees a boffo turnout.
And it’s not like the ICA selection committee had any other road races to choose from, and it’s not like the summer has many other free weekends to start a new race on. Hillsboro is the only other USAC road race in the state (except for the new Great Egypt road race next month), but that doesn’t seem an appropriate choice. Nonetheless, those fields sell out, despite falling in the first week of April, and it’s almost as far from Chicago as O’Fallon. Go figure.
“I don’t know what’s involved in setting up such an event.”
A LOT! If you think the crit your team throws is hard (your team does throw a crit, right?) try a road race!
The O’Fallon complaints boil down to this refrain: “Someone should put on a road race close to Chicago! That doesn’t conflict with another race! Or come within a week of another big travel weekend! Or conflict with my wedding anniversary!”
But until a local promoter or team steps up and replaces that “Someone should ...” with “We will ...”—as Tower Racing did—the complaints ring hollow and whiny to this ear.
Here’s how this works:
WRONG: “Someone should hold a spring criterium close to Chicago.”
RIGHT: “WE WILL hold a spring criterium close to Chicago.”—Burnham Racing, South Chicago Racing, Half Acre Cycling
WRONG: “Someone should create a big omnium on the track.”
RIGHT: “WE WILL hold a big omnium on the track.”—WDT/Allvoi, Bouledogue Tout Noir
WRONG: “Someone should have a cross race with bigger payouts.”
RIGHT: “WE WILL have a cross race with bigger payouts.”—South Chicago Wheelmen
It’s a simple matter of search/replace, friends.
Hey Luke I think there also needs to be a new tip, here are some suggestions:
“This is the color yellow.”
“This is what center means.”
“Oh no, I’m boxed in! Should I break this rule I have been warned about prior to every race or wait for an opportunity to present it’s self to move up.”
For the record, I don’t think a small, new team like Psimet can or should be expected to throw a race in its first few years of existence, and not throwing a race should not mean you can never make a complaint or observation about races.
However, my experience has been that public criticism of races tends to be inversely proportional to a rider’s involvement with holding a race. Riders and teams who have hosted races tend to better understand the difficulties and hardships, and are thus more empathetic to other promoters.
There are A LOT of riders out there who love to bitch and moan about races, yet have themselves never been seen working a registration table or waving a flag on a corner.
Chapeau! Matt, Luke, and Julian.
I think you forgot one however…
WRONG: “Someone should start a website about IL cycling with a race calendar, forum, ride board, reviews about races (before and after), results the next day, etc, etc ,etc…”
RIGHT: “Luke will start CBR and the ICA will revamp http://www.illinoiscycling.org”
Congrats to everyone who raced this past weekend.
Simmer folks.
The numbers speak for themselves. If it were important enough for me to make the trip, I would have.
Unfortunately I had other things going on that prevented me from making the drive.
I’m thankful for every race I’m at. Ask Luke how many times I’ve thanked him for this website.
I don’t demand or expect anything. That said, if you (general you) want an Illinois State Championship with a lot of Illinois State riders to attend, it should be reasonably close to the majority of Illinois State racers. Otherwise you may just end up with a field of 20-ish in the P/1/2 race.
Facts are facts.
By the way,
“7. Illinois total pop is 12.8 mil; Chicago is only 2.8.”
The chicago metro area which includes the counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will has a population of about 8 million.
http://www.catsmpo.com/regionalinfo.htm
I actually reside about an hour and a half northwest of the city.
For the record, Rob very much wants to get more involved in the actual race scene outside of racing.
I happen to know, for instance, that he was looking into throwing a weekly practice crit earlier this season that unfortunately didn’t develop.
“However, my experience has been that public criticism of races tends to be inversely proportional to a rider’s involvement with holding a race. Riders and teams who have hosted races tend to better understand the difficulties and hardships, and are thus more empathetic to other promoters.”
I’d also like to point out that I’m not complaining about anything. I’m just making an opinionated observation, a few actually.
The turnout was fairly small, numbers aside if you look at who turned out it’s unfortunate. Looking at my own cat (3), there are a few names that I’m surprised are missing from the results.
It’s all good. I see how it might appear we’re ganging up on Tim and Psimet here, but in truth my comments are a reaction to a wide array of complaints and blog posts out there, not just the observations that have been made here.
OMG, I totally forgot about the Leland Kermesse, which this year turned USAC.
As in: “WE WILL throw a grueling, one-of-a-kind road race close to the city.”—Flatlandia
No I understand. I see it all the time. People bitch and moan before during and after races all the time and often the complaints make me cringe.
I’m sure I’m guilty of it myself (Yellow line @ Hillsboro, for example. In retrospect, that’s an example of an awesomely massive under-taking and all else considered, carried out very well and I’m super appreciative of it).
I just want to be clear that I’m not complaining about anything. I personally had a great weekend of racing right here in my home-town. For which I’m grateful for RDS Cycling and the wonderful young event they threw in Wonder Lake yesterday (and I thanked him and his family many times).
Glad that is over with….“So I heard this weekend @ my kids soccer games(sorry St. Louis!) that PSIMET was hosting a point to point state championship road race with rolling closure next year?”
As in: Let’s all enjoy ourselves..FYI. I did the Egyptian RR as a jr in 1992. It is the best course in Illinois. I highly recommend the trip, especially if you like hills. My guess is that it will be a good regional race. I just wish it wasn’t the same weekend as NASCAR in Chicago..haha
WRONG: “Aww, boo-hoo, my team is too small to host a race…”
RIGHT: “Hey, we’re small, why don’t we do like Burnham and Spider Monkeys and TEAM UP to host a race together!!”
Here’s a fact for you. The ICA has a database of all Illinois teams. In that list we know which teams are members of the ICA and who is in good standing etc… Further, we know how many riders are licensed on each team… The average is 10.
Indeed one of the requirements for any team is that they host a race. Now certainly not all teams have the manpower or finances to do so alone but that shouldn’t stop a team from giving back to their community in some way- be it with practice crits, skills clinics, a night at the track, volunteering at another race, a monetary donation to the ICA for use with the video equipment, donation of time to aide with the website etc…
There are plenty of ways for EVERY team to become involved with the ICA and ensure that the sport about which they care deeply remains healthy and growing.
And until those teams who aren’t involved begin taking action and GIVING BACK the opinions of their riders don’t count anywhere but on blogs.
And I’m not just calling out PSIMET, there are a whole slew of teams who have demonstrated no interest in becoming involved in any way whatsoever. This is noted and the ICA is keen on rectifying this.
Yeah I just want to point out that no one from PSIMET has said anything about why we haven’t hosted a race yet soooo…lets move on from that, yeah?
In addition that, our team is about 6 months old, so go pick on a team that has managed to hold on to a roster for more than half a race season.
This has gotten too off topic, my fault.
Jessi & Zach, congrats and awesome.
Whats up with all the hostility on this blog? No one said there shouldn’t be a race in O’Fallon, or that the promoters and teams didn’t execute it well…In fact I never said the State Championship should be in Chicago either. Generally, just pointing out that a centrally located race would have been fun, it would have been cool to see all the guys who have been dominating the top 10’s in each category all show up and race for the State championship.
And the nonsense about you have to have “qualifications” to voice an opinion is not a mindset that leads to growing a sport or fosters an environment for teams to join forces and put on events. The fact remains that Luke has put together a place where people can share information and voice opinions and find out how things are done…too bad too often it gets used for people to attack eachother.
Last major theme was Whipple “sandbagging” which was a joke…seems to me he’s now dominating the 3’s. Well done professor!
RYWRider, “centrally located” would be Springfield.
Springfield, Decatur, Bloomington…take your pick.
GREAT course. Lousy turnout.
Don’t know about any other race, but the 50+ had 10 Illinois riders and about 15-20 Missouri riders. It led to some pretty negative racing. If any IL guys went up the road, every other Illinois guy gave chase. If only MO guys went up the road, it rolled away. Didn’t take long for the MO guys to figure out that little tactical gem. I chased a MO break of three for almost two miles and got zero help and nobody even tried to bridge across. After that I just said “screw this.” Our State Champ finished 7th!
“And the nonsense about you have to have “qualifications” to voice an opinion is not a mindset that leads to growing a sport or fosters an environment for teams to join forces and put on events.”
Or improve things at all…in any arena.
I’m not sure where the hyper-sensitivity is coming from.
I guess I’ll just crawl in my crappy PSIMET hole until we have the fortitude to put on a race. Until then, none of us are worthy.
Am I allowed to preregister to races yet or no?
Julian, that map is SO COOL! (yes, I went to IIT) Do you know who made it?
Jason, in reference to your wrong/right statements I’m not sure “We will hold a crit” with 4 or fewer corners should count as a “right”. (Obviously I’m not from the mid-west and this whole grid thing still throws me off.) Props to these clubs for putting on races at all, and just so it doesn’t seem like I’m picking on the two teams you used as examples I’ll point out that SCW has the juniors program and Half Acre does all their women’s/gravel/cross stuff.
> I’m not sure where the hyper-sensitivity is coming from.
For me it wasn’t you guys as much as a particularly insulting blog post I read this morning along the lines of, “People sure are stupid for deciding to locate the championships downstate.” As if there had been any other option. It really fouled my mood. So that’s where my particular hypersensitivity comes from.
Geez…I go on vacation and I get knifed by the established urban elitists.
For the number of times I have approached some of the specific ICA reps that have replied on this thread and gotten blank/cold stares when I’ve tried to specifically give money or learn how to put on a race….you guys can suck it.
I tried multiple times to find some help putting on a Wednesday crit up on the northwest far suburbs but then found that the ABD clan was going to do their thing out at Pella - kudos and I’d rather support them than try to do something competing.
There are some specific people that have an agenda. Once you come out of your “no one can do it as well as we can but I’m going to call all of your guys not in our “club” out…” then let me know.
I have this little team that likes to race and win.
Oh…and jasonK….are you finally going to take some money from me for sponsorship this year or am I still not legit enough?
State Road Race - uh…it was in St Louis. Does anyone really care who the state “champ” is anyway? We all saw the schedule. We all made our choices. Not going isn’t an direct insult to the organizers. As we have demonstrated here they can do no wrong. It’s just the choice of the riders.
Who cares? What should riders have been ‘shamed’ into racing it out of obligation?
...and check your USAC book guys…you are no longer required to put on a race in order to remain an active club. In order to be a sponsored “club/team” you are supposed to. There are a lot of clubs in this area that have been around for YEARS that have not put on a single event. Go knock on their door and let me get back to selling wheels.
And with that, this thread is closed. You guys can e-mail one another if you’d like to continue.
See you at Sherman Park!
Jun 6
2010
9:18 am
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Burnham Racing)
Grats Zach! And it’s DAVE Henderson. Two gladiators duking it out with the large battle axes, I’m sure.