Date: April 8, 2005
Race: Jacksonville Cycling Classic Twilight Criterium
Place: Jacksonville, FL
by the Aaron's Women's Cycling Team
The Jacksonville Cycling Classic Bank of America Women’s Pro-Am Twilight Criterium April 8th saw a strong field of women show up to contest the race in the heavy winds and lingering storms that would later pummel the men’s field. The race started off very aggressive with the Aaron’s Women’s squad sending off attack after attack with counters coming from Cycle Science’s Rebecca Larsen, JRC’s Katie DeGoursey, American Classic’s Jane Becker and Best of the Bay’s Sherri Stedje.
All day long weather reports had been calling for heavy thunderstorms and as the race went on the wind continued to pick up with very heavy gusts of wind hitting the riders as on the back stretch. About 20 minutes into the race Catherine Powers of Aaron’s countered one of Candice Blickem’s attacks straight into the wind that strung the field out to chase her down. Catherine gained an advantage of several seconds and held that gap for several laps as the field tried to gain on her. Mackenzie Dickie, Shannon Hutchison-Krupat and Candice kept a keen eye on the field and covered all of the attacks as Catherine started to extend her lead powering along into the strong winds and bringing her lead up to over 20 seconds.
As the laps wound down inside of 10 to go, Rebecca Larsen attacked and tried to bridge to Catherine. Candice was quick to respond and made her way up to Rebecca as the pair closed to within 8 seconds of Catherine who still held a 20 second gap on the field. Once Candice made contact with Rebecca, Rebecca stopped working and the field quickly swallowed the two of them up as they set themselves up for a field sprint for the remaining 2 podium spots with 4 laps to go. Catherine came down the final stretch in front of a cheering crowd with an arm in the air and a big smile on her face after a tiring 40 minutes away. 20 seconds later the field rounded the corner with Shannon handily putting herself at the front to win the field sprint with Rebecca taking the final podium spot.
1-Catherine Powers (Aaron’s) 2-Shannon Hutchison-Krupat (Aaron’s) 3-Rebecca Larsen (Cycle Science)
April 9, Penney Farms Road Race was
After a delayed start the women lined up for a 50 mile race that included 4 laps of a slightly rolling course through the Florida countryside. Once again the race started off very aggressive with attacks coming from all of the Aaron’s women. The field was not going to let any one of the Aaron’s women get off today although they were content to let many of the other teams roll off the front if their was not an Aaron’s woman in the mix. The Aaron’s women were content to keep the race fast and hard and did so with the exception of a good portion of the 3rd lap where a finishing crash in the Category 4 race forced the promoter to neutralize the women for quite a while to slow them down and allow time to clear the road and make sure they passed through the start/finish area safely. On the fourth and final lap of the race savvy local Katie DeGoursey took advantage of an opportunity and rolled off the front solo as the pack was rolling at a steady pace. She quickly put a healthy margin between herself and the field and the riders realized they had definitely made a mistake in letting this rider roll off the front. With a site line of roughly 1k from the Start/Finish area you could see a lone rider off the front by about 500m rocking on her saddle working to stay out front. As they came closer and Katie realized she had the win sewn up her smile appeared. As the field came closer Rebecca Larsen had snuck off with a slight gap on the field charging in for 2nd with the charging field about 100m behind her with Shannon Hutchison-Krupat taking the field sprint.
1-Katie DeGoursey (JRC) 2-Rebecca Larsen (Cycle Science) 3-Shannon Hutchison-Krupat (Aaron’s)