Weekend Successes

Bloomington riders had success all across the Midwest this past weekend. Mike Sherer was at the top of an Alderfer Bergen-NUVO sandwich in the Parkview Cycling Festival in Fort Wayne. Sherer was in a break with Eric 'Poulidor*' Hamilton and team-mate Issac Neff and was able to pull out the sprint win! Rounding out the top 5 were recent Bloomington ex-plants David Caughlin (NUVO) and Chris Chartier (Alderfer) both of whom's riding has improved greatly in the past year. The Cat 4/5 race Adam Mercer was victorious with Kaleb Naegeli (IC3) finishing in 6th. The expected Alderfer Bergen benefit womens race was upset by Christy Keely (Team Kenda) so Katie weber, Louise Turner and Bri Kovac had t be content with 2nd- 4th instead!

The Tour de Champaign featured two crits on UI campus and in downtown Champaign. On Saturday Ryan Knapp added another second place to the RGF-Panther squad's long list of such positions (shouldn't they sign Eric Hamilton?). On Sunday the aforementioned Hamilton took 5th place in the Pro/1/2 whilst Matt Kiel and John Herrel took top ten positions in the Cat3 and Cat4 races respectively.

At the much-vaulted Superweek in various points around Chicago-land there were significant Bloomington successes in the arguably the biggest Midwestern races of the weekend. Taylor Gaines found the winning break in each of the first three Cat3 races finishing up with a 5th and two 2nd places. Taylor will depart Superweek in the overall lead in the Cat3 standings to concentrate on UCI junior races in Canada and Belize. Tom Cox is also racing a full Superweek Masters program and has started well with a 9th at Blue Island and a 2nd place at Richton Park.
First impressions of a Superweek neophyte are that the courses are well designed, the race lengths are excellent (30+ miles in a Cat3 crit) but the tardiness is annoying. However the Elgin race is a must for all riders. Essentially it is a 5-mile crit course (20+ corners) on completely closed roads with excellent city and community involvement. A few years ago this course hosted a UCI U23 race and surely again has great prospects!
*- The eternal second

If anyone had a link to any photos please add in the comments.