Downer's Grove

More photos are coming! In the meantime, check out Matt Moses' photos But here's the report: Paula, Shana and I headed out of the Cities around 1:30 – not bad, seeing as we’d planned to get on the road by 1:00. I hunkered down in the backseat of Paula’s Infinity, our trusty team car, with three bikes on top. Passing through Eau Claire, we got a call from Ms. Stratton, who was also en route with Pete and Eric. Soon we saw them, also with three hot bikes on top of their car, and for a moment I almost felt like we were a pro caravan – but that didn’t last. Soon we made a pit stop, where my sunglasses binge started.
Karla Stat: Pairs of sunglasses bought on the Downer’s Grove trip – 5. Pairs that were bought from gas stations on the way down – 2. (I started to try on another pair on the way home, but Paula staged an intervention.)
After 4 or 5 hours we rolled into Janesville, where we opted to stay for the night. First stop was the Days Inn (or something like that.) They only had smoking rooms. We considered our options:
1. Move on to the next place, where they might be out of rooms.
2. Open the doors and windows and try to air out the room.
3. Pick up a couple packs of smokes and just go with it.
After almost getting lung cancer when we went to investigate one of the rooms, we opted for option 1.
The next place was the Microtel, where we were told we could get a room with a queen-size bed for 69 smacks. But we would not be able to get a cot, because they were all in use. Paula offered to sleep on the floor, but Shana and I wouldn’t allow that. We decided to head to the Holiday Inn Express, and the Microtel guy informed us that it would be about 1.8 times more expensive.

So we checked into the Holiday and it was awesome. We got our act together in the morning by 9:00, and made our way to Downer’s Grove. The women’s 3/4 race was scheduled to start at 1:15, and the women’s 1/2/3 race was at 5:30. I planned on doing both of them, but they wouldn’t let me register for the 1/2/3 race at first because my license still says I’m a cat 4. So I got Matt Anderson (our local official) on the phone and he straightened things out for me.


The 3/4 race – probably 40+ women started this race, so that was a good-sized field, but overall the race was pretty darn boring. The course was awesome – 8 corners, a couple gradual rises, a short power climb, and then a non-sketchy downhill. People pretty much did nothing until Paula attacked going up the hill about halfway through the race. That was awesome, and she stayed off the front for almost a lap. Endeavor chased her down though. There were a couple primes – one for a bike tune, one for a bike fit – which would be great, except that I wasn’t from the area. So finally they rang the bell for a cash prime, and I decided I wanted that one. It was easy to move up on the downhill, and I came around corners 7 and 8 in the lead and sprinted up to the finish line for the cash. Only then did I notice that the lap counter was at 2 to go. Oops. So I didn’t have much time to recover. I got boxed in on the top of the course on the last lap and I never could quite get into a good position for the final sprint, so I ended up 9th.


The 1/2/3 race – wow. I was racing against Tina Pic, Laura Van Gilder, Sarah Uhl, and a bunch of other big names in women’s racing. Before the race I chatted with a couple of the women riding for Colavita – Kele, a Bella that was guest riding for them, and Allison Powers, who’s been doing amazing this year. I finally put two and two together and realized that Allison Powers is the same woman I raced against last year at the Williams Crit (out east, when I was at Dartmouth). We were both cat 4s at the time and broke away from the field together. She’s awesome – super friendly, supportive, and a great rider! Staging for the race was nuts – people were pretty aggressive with getting a starting position, and I somehow managed to end up way at the back of the pack. There were probably almost 100 starters, so it was definitely the biggest and fastest field I’ve ever raced with. It was hard. I’d never quite understood before when people have told me that it’s so much harder to race at the back of a crit, because you often have to practically sprint out of the corners just to stay on the pack. Well, now I totally understand. I started at the back and it was really hard to move up. I hung on for quite a while, more than half the race, but when the field took the initiative to chase a break that had been hanging off the front, I got shelled. Ouch. It was so awesome though, and now I definitely have something to work towards.

Saturday night, Shana, Paula, and I got some take-out to eat in our room, while Sarah joined us with a couple bottles of wine. Nice. Shana was racing on Sunday, along with all the GP guys, but Sarah, Paula, and I saw no reason not to enjoy the wine.

We got up way too early for me on Sunday to get ready to head to the course for the day. Shana’s race, the Elite women national crit championship, was going to start at 10:00 and then all the GP guys were racing in the men’s elite national crit at 11:30. The women’s race was fun to watch, just being able to see how these women’s teams work together. In the end, Tina Pic and Laura van Gilder were coming around the final corner together, and somehow Tina ended up going down. Teresa Cliff-Ryan came around Laura in the end. Read about the race at cycling news.

The men's race was next, and it was pretty amazing to watch as well. Sarah has a good report on their race.