Team Get A Grip Cycles Descends on Winfield, Podiums, Podiums, and Podiums (and Wins a National Championship).

Those of us who race in Illinois are blessed with American Bicycle Racing, a rapidly expanding cycle-racing organization with roots in Illinois and Wisconsin. Their races are fun and affordable, and their administrative staff and officials seem free of politics and posturing. Their races are also safer than most with proof coming in the form of decreasing insurance rates over the years (that means less cost to you, the riders).

Among all of the great ABR venues, the Winfield Criterium Weekend, hosted by Athletes by Design, is certainly the best. With one national championship jersey up for grabs, and knowing that Winfield is the home town of someone dear to our sponsor; the entirety of Team Get A Grip Cycles descended on the town like a green and black wave.


Winfield Twilight Criterium: Too many passengers can't stop the little engine that could.

We did not plan it, but the team's performance at this race served as an early summer warning shot across the bow of the local scene. The one mile loop was simple and entertaining: you go up a hill, wind down the hill through the lovely local neighborhood, and cross the finish line, and repeat for just under an hour.

We do not mind going around and around on the flat crits; but when the road tilts up even a little, and the strong men must come to the fore, all of Team Get A Grip Cycles plan on being there to turn the screws. Somewhere during the race, our attacks led to the formation of a small group which grew to a break of twelve with four of our riders making the cut. It was a sloppy and generally unmotivated group, and it never would have stayed away had Seth Meyer not pulled all of its passengers up the hill every time and sometimes doing lap after lap on the front (with assistance by a very strong Mike Jones of Met Cycling). In the final run-in to the finish, the team netted 3rd (Vandeven), 5th (Wiecek), and 11th (Meyer) in the break, and went 1-2 (and nearly 3) in the field sprint.

The women all placed in the top-10 in a somewhat confusing race that saw them catching and mixing with the master's men. Wong and Myrick did excellent work controlling the field when Haskell made a move with Susan Peithman (ABD Cycling). Alas, Haskell did not have the oomph to follow Peithman near the end of the race and was left pulling a master's rider around on her wheel like a lamprey.


Men's Cat 2/3 - TGAGC Photos - link courtesy of Luke Seemann



ABR National Criterium Championships: A national championship followed by the laziest race known to mankind.


Sunday's race was the premier event of the weekend, with a national championship up for grabs for the female squad, and pride and prestige for the cat 3 males. Held next to a lovely park in the center of Winfield, the square course featured one unselective hill and a long, bumpy, decline to the finish.

Partway through the women's open, Myrick called it a day and decided that it would be more fun to spends hours cooling down in the rain. Haskell stayed in the race and snagged the championship and an enormous stars and striped jersey (size men's large).

The men did their best to establish a race-winning break, but the long downhill and the seeming lack of interest in teams other than TGAGC and TCBM in establishing a breakaway, doomed the field to the usual long and crowded sprint finish. Confusion and poor choices disrupted most of the team during the last lap, but it was the big-ring speed of Angelo DiGiovine, flown-in special for this event, that salvaged the team's efforts with a second place.


Special Note: Team Personal Trainer Emily Hutchins, in her first bicycle race, won the category 4 women's race. Congratulations Emily!

Two Get A Grip riders rode the Pro/1/2 race right after finishing the 3s. Jon Tenney, the old-man that he is, lasted only a few laps before feeling dizzy; but Seth Meyer hung tough for a solid placing in the final sprint.

Photos courtesy of Lisa Heaton, Angelo DiGiovine, and the always lovely Lola Chavez.