Illinois State Road Race

The Illinois State Road Race was disappointing on a lot of levels. First there were only 4 competitors for the elite women. I know that IL doesn't have that many elite women racers but come on, I know there were a bunch of you out there that could have raced but chose not to. I know it's late in the year and maybe some still had a bad taste in your mouth from last year. We still had a small field last year, I think it was 9 or so. It was a short loop and we were on the course at the same time as the 1/2 men. Our race kept getting neutralized, and at one point we had dropped some riders that were allowed to catch back on during one of the neutralizations--as if our racing is so lame that it just didn't matter. After multiple discussions throughout the year on how prize money would help draw a bigger field for the women, our prize money was still incredibly low compared to the men's even though we had to pay the same entry fee to race. Not that I am complaining after the fact--it was great that they stuck to the payout even though only 4 people showed up to race, it just makes it hard to recruit women to travel to race, especially this late the season, with such a low payout. On a positive note the course was very nice this year, a 10 mile loop around beautiful forest preserve tree lined smooth paved streets with a nice hill that was big enough to make a selection.

Even knowing that it could possibly be lame, Team BH USA felt it was important as residents of Illinois to do our part to support our state road race so we fielded 2 of the four racers. Anne doesn't even live in Illinois, but drove 5 hours down from Wisconsin to do her part for the team. The biggest bummer of the day came 5 miles into the 50 mile race when I got a flat tire. Anne gave me her wheel but instead of waiting for us to get it fixed, or even soft pedaling, one of the other riders took off and time trialed the 45 miles. It took us about 2 minutes to change it and I chased hard for 45 miles but couldn't close the gap. Anne rode the flat tire back to her car, changed it, and then continued on to finish the race. It was a gorgeous day and fortunately Anne and I like riding our bikes so at least we got in some nice hard riding. Anne was the ultimate teammate! Having a teammate there to give me her wheel was the kind of situation that I usually only can dream about, not to mention her driving all that way to ride with me, in what we knew would most likely be a pretty lame race. Thanks Anne! You are awesome.

On a personal level, I and the sponsors of Team BH USA are doing all we can to support women's cycling here in Illinois. As we are sending our own Devon Haskell to the ranks of a national level pro women's team, we now have a whole new bunch of women racers coming up through the ranks in Illinois and it is my hope that one day we will have a huge field for all of our IL state races!! It's our personal mission to be a part of the solution.

After the race we grilled out at the Cuttin Crew bus and helped celebrate their team's win in the men's cat 4 race. Congratuations Cuttin Crew!!

-Kristen