Cycling team gets muddy and finds podiums in Iowa
The Killington Mountain School Cycling Team headed out to Iowa City, Iowa last weekend to participate in the Jingle Cross World Cup Weekend. Coach Brad Ramsay shared an overview of the trip: “The course was certainly worthy of a World Cup, especially Friday when rain turned the entire course into an awesome muddy mess! The mud made traction difficult at best, thus only the most skilled riders could traverse the climbs, descents, turns, and off-camber sections. It also took significant endurance to slog through the rutted muddy track for 45 minutes!
The team experienced some bad luck, in the form of broken derailleurs (two), rolled tubular tires, broken bike shoes, and crashes. Yet Tyler Clark was able to ride away from the field to win Friday’s non-UCI Cat ½ race, while Turner Ramsay finished in the top 15 of the UCI Elite Women’s race. These were awesome performances by both in difficult conditions. Aliza Tobias also looked good in her third-ever weekend of cyclocross racing.
Watching the World Cup Elite Men’s and Women’s races on Saturday was an incredible experience! Though the Europeans did well (as expected), the USA had a rider in the top ten of the men’s field, while the American women stole the show in their race, taking two podium spots!
Moving on to Sunday, only Turner managed to get through her race without equipment or other issues, and was able to take the top spot on the Women’s Cat 3 podium in what will likely be her last race before advancing to Cat 2.
Despite the mishaps, mud, and equipment issues, all had small successes in their races and came away better and more experienced riders!
Next up; the team heads to Thompson, CT this weekend for the always-epic KMC Festival of Cyclocross and the First UCI Junior race of the season!”
