The American Criterium Cup returns for its fourth season next weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the opening night of the three-day Saint Francis Tulsa Tough omnium. Beyond the Blue Dome District of stop number one, the ACC calendar will include five additional stops across the country as America’s fastest cyclist will battle for points, prize money, and bragging rights at some of the most prestigious events in the United States. As the ACC begins in earnest, here is a full preview of what to expect from the races, the series, and who will be lining up along the way:
The American Criterium Cup was originally conceived in 2022 as the premier criterium series in the United States. The series, which has partnered with USA Cycling to serve as part of the Criterium National Series, will see a total prize purse of half a million dollars divided equally between genders across the series races with $40,000 of winnings awarded to the top team and riders in the final ACC standings.
Most of the events on the calendar are multi-day omniums, with the three days in Tulsa and three days in St. Louis at the Bommarito Audi West County Gateway Cup on Labor Day weekend bookending the season. However, only one race day at each stop will be designated as an ACC event. For some events, like the Bailey & Glasser LLP Twilight Criterium, all the action will focus on the one standalone night of competition. For other stops along the way, namely the two multi-week omniums of the Kwik Trip Tour of America’s Dairyland and the Chicago Grit, plus the two day LHM | CC Utah Crits weekend, the ACC competition is just one of several thrilling races.
Nevertheless, the American Criterium Cup which runs as a partnership with the USA Cycling Criterium National Series functions as the backbone for the summer road calendar. And while the series is important, the American Criterium Cup is about bringing professionalism, competitive racing, and community engagement to six of the most historic races in the United States.
The ACC is a season-long competition that will award a final cash prize to the top individual riders and teams throughout the eight races. All the events have equal points up for grabs, and there will be no races dropped from a rider’s season totals. Points run 15 places deep in both the men’s and women’s fields, which means consistency and competing in each of the eight stops will be vital for anyone with the hopes of securing the final prize. In the end, the series will be decided simply by the sum total of each rider’s and team’s total points at the end of the Giro Della Montagna.
In addition to the overall standings, there is also the fight for the mid-race sprint classification, which awards points for the top three riders crossing the line on the lap specified by the event. Those individual sprint points are weighted towards the latter races, with the races later in the season having more sprint points up for grabs at the events in the back half of the season.
This season, the big change to the ACC structure is an increased emphasis on the prizes per event, with $8,000 per gender guaranteed at the six respective races. This minimum purse may be broken down any way a promoter sees fit or split between placings and primes, yet that purse is built to bring increased stakes to the more contained calendar.
The ACC kicks off with the opening criterium of the infamous Saint Francis Tulsa Tough Omnium in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While the race’s marquee event is Sunday on “Cry Baby Hill,” Friday night’s Blue Dome criterium offers a similarly stacked race with the teams and riders hitting their summer peak as the temperature turns up both literally and figuratively. What’s more, with huge crowds that come out for the Friday night festivities, the atmosphere is as electric as any race in the US.
The race, which is centered in Tulsa’s revitalized downtown “Blue Dome” district, is a fast twilight criterium defined by its eight turns set up as two separate rectangles over a 0.7-mile, flat course. With the energy from the crowd and the inertia of massive pelotons, the racing is flat out with crashes, attacks, and a likely sprint crescendo under the lights in Oklahoma.
Utah Crits is the newest of the top criteriums in the United States, at just six years of operation; however, the race has made its impression on the racing scene with exciting venues in a great cycling city. The Salt Lake area race is one of three events weekends on the ACC calendar, with two professional criteriums, including the Saturday ACC race in the Salt Lake suburb of Sandy.
The ACC course is new this year with a flat, “L” shaped lap around the Promenade Mall in Sandy, Utah, with last year’s ACC venue around the Real Salt Lake stadium following on Sunday. The ACC course looks set to be a flat-out, fast course for the sprinters with six bends, a long finishing straight, and just 30 feet of elevation change along the 1.2-mile course.
The Tour of America’s Dairyland is the first of the two multi-week criterium series in the summer, with 11 races across southeast Wisconsin around the Milwaukee area. The race series has been going strong, but the crown jewel of the race – the Downer Avenue Criterium – has been running for 45 years and is the perfect platform for a flat-out race in one of Milwaukee’s historic neighborhoods.
The course is straightforward, with a lap that is essentially a triangle with two back-to-back turns coming right before the finish line, but it will be hotly contested as ACC points begin to establish a pecking order in the hunt for the overall series standings. Additionally, the race will be filled with mid-race cash prizes totalling $10,000 up for grabs and split evenly between the men’s and women’s races.
Boise Twilight is a standalone event on the calendar as it offers one night of racing around the Idaho Capitol. Nevertheless, only having one night of racing consolidates all the excitement and energy into one evening in Idaho. What’s more, the race always sets the bar in terms of speed, as the race is historically the fastest on the professional calendar.
That speed, which comes from the thin, dry air of Boise paired with the wide sweeping turns of the course, makes Boise one of the most difficult courses to create a breakaway that will stick. This makes the race the ultimate sprinters' classic among the ACC events. While it isn’t a guarantee, the final sprint and battle between the leadout trains is one of the standout spectacles of the entire series.
Chicago GRIT is the new name for one of the most well-established criterium series in the country (formerly known as the Intelligentsia Cup). With 10 races around the greater Chicago area, the series offers a second of two big race opportunities in the Midwest to race for over a week around one centralized city. To add to the charm, Chicago serves as the largest city on the ACC circuit, which gives the racing trip the ability to be more with opportunities to explore the city during off-hours over the ten days of racing around the city.
The main event at Chicago GRIT will be the American Criterium Cup stop on the final day in downtown Chicago at the Fulton Market Grand Prix. This four-corner crit provides a blazing fast course flying through the bustling corner of downtown Chicago and chasing the famous ‘L’ train underneath its tracks. Expect full engagement from the local businesses and residents to bring their own energy to the Windy City. While on paper the course seems fit for a sprint, don’t doubt the breakaway’s chances to slip away amongst all the hectic action.
The ACC season finale might be the last of the eight races, but it is worthy of its status as the curtain closer on the season with “The Hill” of the Giro Della Motagna the Sunday before Labor Day. The four-day event’s flagship race on Sunday calls one of the city’s historically Italian neighborhoods home, delivering an intense sense of Italian heritage, gorgeous brick home architecture, and vibrant crowds.
On paper, the course is like several other races on the ACC calendar, with the lap featuring four corners over one mile. Nevertheless, as the name suggests, the race is defined by the hill that takes riders to the top of the course around turn three, before they plunge back down to the long finish straight. The Gateway Cup’s Giro Della Motagna is a great example of how not all four-corner criteriums are created the same and should provide a fascinating cap to a great summer season of racing in the American Criterium Cup.
The American Crit Cup will welcome full pelotons of international riders this summer from across the country and around the world as criterium specialists will look for opportunities across the six races to notch high-level wins, win money, and compete for the overall titles in the ACC and at the different series along the way. While not all who will compete for the overall title are known yet, we have some idea of who the biggest characters might be.
First and foremost are the two new national champions: Kendall Ryan and Lucas Bourgoyne.
Last season, every time Ryan seemed to start an ACC race, it ended with her hands in the air at the end of the day. Tulsa, Utah and Chicago all went the way of the L39ion sprinter. Bourgoyne of Team Cadence Cyclery PB Encore Wire was not as successful, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. Even if he missed an ACC win, Bourgoyne finished on the podium in Chicago and St. Louis. This season, both Bourgoyne and Ryan are clearly on form and will be main characters throughout the summer of racing.
In the men’s field, competition for the title will look much different from 2024. Reign Storm Racing was the dominant team in the ACC, taking the first three places in the final individual standings and dominating the team classification. That team folded after the season and no team has yet to take their place at the top of the crit landscape.
Robin Carpenter and Ty Magner will be heading up the L39ion of Los Angeles men’s line-up, with the young Alfredo Bueno a new exciting addition to the line-up. A team that looks set to elevate its game is CRCA/Foundation. The team from New York has both Fergus Arthur, who had a breakthrough win in Chicago last year, and Clever Martinez, who was the best of the rest in the final ACC individual standings. Above and Beyond Cancer, MitoQ - NZ Cycling Project, and the Golden State Blazers are a few other teams that could add to the drama of the ACC summer.
On the women’s side, the number one rival to Ryan is likely to be the Cuban sprinter Marlies Mejias, who rides for the Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY28 squad. Mejias won in St. Louis last year and will be backed by a strong team when she does race in the ACC with Rylee McMullen and Sofia Arreola in the mix to support their sprinter and chase their own results. The same can be said about the Fount Cycling Guild with the always aggressive Andrea Cyr, Cynisca Cycling with Chloe Patrick and Alexis Ryan, the Golden State Blazers, and LA Sweat Racing.
Nevertheless, the ACC is a historically unpredictable series. Who will be this year’s Kimberly Stoveld, for instance, who stole a march on the whole peloton at a soaking wet edition of the Downer Avenue Classic in Wisconsin, or Juan Arango taking the final win of the ACC season with a last-minute breakaway at “The Hill” on Labor Day? It is all to come in this exciting six-race instalment of summer cycling in the United States at the American Crit Cup.
Photo Credit: Saint Francis Tulsa Tough
