Sunny King Criterium

By: Claire Abrey

Last weekend, while my teammates were crushing some gravel at the Rough Road 100, I went down to Anniston, Alabama to race the Sunny King Criterium. Sunny King is the first race of the USA Crit series. It features a 0.72-mile course with four left-hand turns and an uphill finish. The race atmosphere is super fun as the crit is part of an annual festival that brings lots of spectators and support from the Anniston community. With being part of the USA crits series, it typically has attendance from some of the bigger teams in the country. This year, the Women's Pro 1/2 field consisted of Kingdom Elite and Team Flicker with full squads, City Bikes and Milligan with teams of 3, and a number of solo riders like myself. 

With this being my first race of the season, my first ever Pro 1/2 crit, and having no teammates with me, there were definitely some pre-race nerves. I stayed near the back for the first few laps  to get a feel for the group and take corners at speed. Once I gained some confidence and started feeling more comfortable, I began getting involved in the action. Within the first 20 minutes, I followed some moves, tried to bridge up to a breakaway, and even attempted an attack of my own. After being a little too active, I was completely gassed. It was the hottest day of the year so far (88 degrees F while we were racing), so we were all feeling the heat. I settled back into the group to try and recover.

While recovering, I was missing out on a lot of the action. There were multiple attempts made by Kingdom Elite and other individuals to breakaway but I was too far back to follow. Luckily there were people in the group still willing to work and all these moves were brought back. Once I finally felt recovered, with roughly 10 laps to go, Ruth Allen from Team Flicker attacked up the hill and I followed along with Adonays Vera from City Bikes. The 3 of us got away and created a 5-6 second gap from the peloton. We were hitting the hill hard, and after a couple laps the group was reduced to 2 of us - me and Adonays. With a few laps to go we were caught by a chase group consisting of 2 Milligan riders, a SCAD rider, and a Winston-Salem rider who were all super strong. On the last lap, I got caught pulling on the front and was outsprinted, finishing 6th.

Overall, I had a great experience at Sunny King. Definitely taking away some lessons learned with tactics but also some confidence knowing that I’m capable of competing at this level. I can’t wait to start racing with my Apex teammates and seeing what we’re able to accomplish together this season!