Many American bike races appear to observe a regular script. There’s a blistering begin, a token breakaway and a well-calibrated chase, establishing the chaotic spectacle of the dash. All of us love that story, and even after watching dozens of crit finales, I nonetheless get goosebumps because the bell rings for the ultimate lap. Nonetheless, the Clarendon Cup on the Armed Forces Biking Traditional (AFCC) is one race on the calendar that defies that narrative and gives wall-to-wall motion, with the race final result hanging within the stability by each lap. For the lads’s discipline, it’s 100 laps, 100 kilometers and 5 hundred corners, making for one the toughest days in American highway racing interval.
There is no such thing as a “sit in and dash” sport plan for Clarendon. In final 12 months’s version, the ultimate sprints featured simply 4 ladies and 6 males of their respective races. Solely the strongest riders, backed by deep and well-drilled groups, have an opportunity at victory right here. It’s not sufficient to simply be quick at Clarendon. When you don’t have a excessive stage of health to go along with your dash velocity, a couple of dozen sprints out of the tight remaining nook will drain tons of of watts out of your legs and depart you grovelling in the back of the pack.
In 2024, Clarendon will crown its twenty-sixth set of champions. The checklist of previous winners through the years reads like a piece within the Corridor of Fame {of professional} racing in North America, studded with nationwide champions and World Tour Monument winners. Riders like Allison Jackson, Lauren Stephens, and Coryn Riviera are on the ladies’s facet, and Hilton Clarke, Eric Marcotte, and Eric Younger are for the lads. As Clarendon’s tagline signifies, this can be a race “the place champions come to compete.” As all the time, the fields are stacked with expertise for this weekend’s racing. High riders from around the globe will journey to Arlington to take the beginning. Who will come out on high?
The Males
Whereas Sunday’s Clarendon Cup is essentially the most coveted prize on the AFCC, the riders get their probability at glory in Saturday’s Crystal Metropolis race. Crystal Metropolis is far nearer to a extra conventional criterium format. It’s comparatively flat, has 4 actual corners and shorter durations of sixty and ninety minutes, respectively, for the ladies and the lads. Cory Williams is again to defend his title for the Miami Blazers staff and has a full complement of help riders. The opposite podium finishers, Dusan Kalaba of Butcher Field and Danny Summerhill of REIGN Storm Racing/JLL, might be in powerful to enhance on their 2023 positions. Legion has a considerably modified roster this 12 months, however they nonetheless know methods to management a course like this with scientific precision. Williams and his fast teammates should be favorites to take the weekend’s first win, with many others primed to create an upset if Legion falters.
On Sunday, every little thing modifications, and a complete new set of contenders will come to the fore together with a depth of worldwide expertise. Defending Clarendon champion Andreas Mayr will return from his native Germany with a loaded DCC/Alpecin squad as backup. New Zealand’s MioQ-NZ Biking Challenge, led by present New Zealand nationwide champion James Gardner, can even have a victory of their sights after success on the American circuit already this 12 months.
The U.Ok.-based Ribble Rebel staff has proven that they’re able to compete with America’s quickest after mounting a British invasion this Spring. They’ve taken a number of victories in early-season races, together with a mountain stage in Redlands which proved their depth. Whether or not it’s a high-speed bunch gallop or an eighty-lap breakaway effort, the boys from Britain might be a drive to be reckoned with all weekend. Their sprinter Matt Bostock, the 2022 Nice Britain Nationwide Champion, could even have what it takes to spoil Legion’s occasion on day one.
Look ahead to customized version Ribble racing at Clarendon, in particular WWII Spitfire livery. (Learn extra on this and their P-51 Mustang coloured bike right here.)
Among the many American groups, Challenge Echelon could have the strongest, deepest roster for this weekend’s racing. Echelon’s Brendan Rhim took a commanding victory in Clarendon in 2022, and his teammate Scott McGill mixed successes at each Clarendon and Crystal Metropolis to take the general omnium title the identical 12 months. Each single Echelon rider packs a ending punch together with highway racing health, so it’s laborious to think about a state of affairs the place they aren’t within the profitable transfer on Sunday.
Williams Racing Improvement fields each its Legion and Miami Blazers squads. Though they’re separate groups with their very own aspirations, it’s all the time an fascinating dynamic to observe on race day. Legion, by itself, has a assassin’s row of contenders, together with 2018 Nationwide Champion and former AFCC winner Ty Magner, Robin Carpenter, Alec Cowan and former US highway race winner Kyle Murphy.
With so many riders able to profitable, it may take some time for the profitable transfer to go away on Sunday. Groups must keep sharp tactically and observe the precise strikes lap after lap. Happily, Clarendon gives ample time and alternative for that elite choice to kind. Whether or not it takes ten laps or ninety, one factor is for certain: the eventual winner could have earned his place within the race’s elite winner’s membership.
The Girls
If there may be anybody who “owns” the Crystal Metropolis race, it’s Legion’s Kendall Ryan. She might be aiming for her fifth victory on Saturday after a near-miss in final 12 months’s version to Marlies Mejias of the Virgina’s Blue Ridge 2024 staff. Mejias is again with a robust staff this 12 months although, together with high sprinters Skylar and Samantha Schnieder from the Miami Blazers and 2023 podium finisher Sara Van Dam of the DNA/Blue Halo squad. Whereas it’s usually seen because the appetizer to Clarendon’s important course, this 12 months’s Crystal Metropolis may flip into the dash of the 12 months for the ladies’s discipline.
Final 12 months, the ladies’s podium in Clarendon was an identical to the rostrum for day one’s Crystal Metropolis, with Mejias taking the win from Ryan and Van Dam. That doesn’t imply the racing was the identical, nevertheless. The trio of elite sprinters gained from a breakaway virtually a minute forward of the sector as Clarendon’s further distance and extra exacting course tore the race aside.
Veteran groups like DNA/Blue Halo, Virginia’s Blue Ridge, and Legion all have at the very least 4 riders on the beginning checklist. They may every be trying to outmaneuver the others in forming a good breakaway choice. The Cynisca/Appian staff, with an enormous spring of European racing of their legs, will try to outlast all of them and lean on freshly minted U23 Nationwide Crit Champion Chloe Patrick for the finale. The CCB/NT Ideas provides their very own stars and stripes winner to the combo with Junior Nationwide Champ Ella Brenneman, who might be searching for her breakthrough consequence on the skilled stage. Maybe the last word wildcard on Sunday might be three-time Clarendon champion Laura Van Gilder, who returns twenty-one years after her first victory. I’m certain Laura would be the folks’s favorite on Sunday, and nobody could be shocked if she teaches the youthful racers a lesson or two on the end line.
Not like the lads’s race, there’s a respectable probability Clarendon will lead to a discipline dash for the ladies, though will probably be a extra gritty, fatigued model than Crystal Metropolis. Kendall Ryan and the Schnieder sisters, with their respective Legion and Blazers squads, will like their odds in both state of affairs with numerous highway and crit victories between them. Whether or not it’s 4 riders sprinting for the win of forty, the finale of Clarendon might be as scintillating as ever.
** Tune in to ListenLive protection of the races this weekend, and see extra data on the AFCC official web site.
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