Fergus Arthur managed to break away with Josh Burnett from the MitoQ New Zealand Cycling Project in the final laps of the technical course in the northern Chicago suburb. Saturday was not the first time the pair had made for a successful breakaway tandem this week as both riders also fought for the win on Wednesday night’s Chicago Grit race. Arthur took the win that night as well.
What’s more, Lucas Bourgoyne of the Austin Outlaws won the field sprint for third on both of the two days where the pair took the first two spots on the podium. Deja vu all over again.
In the women’s race, it was another showdown between the fastest finishers as Kendall Ryan squared off against Skylar Schneider of the Miami Blazers, Paola Muñoz of Goldman Sachs EFTs racing, and Rylee McMullen of DNA Pro Cycling.
The race was punchy, with all four of those teams bringing strong squads that fought for prime position at the front of the race throughout the 75-minute race. Nevertheless, the L39ion women have a formidable train and by the time the bell rang with one lap to go, the squad had a firm grip on the front of the peloton. Six turns later it was L39ion all over the front of the sprint with Ryan winning her third ACC race of the summer ahead of Skylar Schneider and her teammate and sister Alexis Magner in third.
For the third year in a row, Lake Bluff hosted the Chicago Grit’s stop on the ACC calendar with a course perfectly suited for dynamic racing and high levels of attrition. While it might not be the most highly touted course, Lake Bluff is certainly one of the more challenging in the nation.
The women started first with a large peloton full of strong teams vying for the win and points in the American Crit Cup. Chief among them were the two Williams Development teams and their top-flight sprinters: L39ion of Los Angeles with Kendall Ryan and the Miami Blazers with Skylar Schnieder.
This season when those two teams have turned up in full the races have followed a predictable pattern as both teams look for a sprint in most scenarios. Nevertheless, in Lake Bluff, the front of the peloton was a bit more crowded as Goldman Sachs EFTS and DNA Pro Cycling both showed their strength as well, showing up early and holding position at or around the front of the peloton. With six corners and two chicanes the fight for the front and the tentative attacks throughout the race, the stress of the race stayed high at both the front and the rear as riders kept dropping off the back almost every time an attack was fired off the front.
Ultimately, the race didn’t have any decisive action, with all the attacks ending as quickly as they had begun.
Beyond the final sprint, the ACC mid-race sprint point provided the other tangible action as Rylee McMullen was looking to defend the jersey she has held since ACC night one in Tulsa ahead of Skylar Schneider who had been taking lumps out of McMullen’s lead at the past few ACC races. The two squared off once again halfway through the race and it was Schneider who edged out McMullen for the full points on offer. McMullen’s second place was enough to stay even on points with Schneider.
In the finale, L39ion was the team that managed to wrestle control from the melee with five of their riders claiming the inside lines around the course during the final six laps. One by one the laps counted down and the result seemed increasingly inevitable, as Ryan has shown this year that when she has a team in front of her come the last lap she is virtually unstoppable. In the dash to the line, Schneider pushed her close, as she has in Tulsa and Salt Lake, but the finishing pace of Ryan was too much to be denied.
“Honestly I didn't have to do anything today,” Ryan said after the finish. “The team was so resilient and covered everything. I could just sit in the pack and save it for the end. It's all about having a good squad and keeping the morale of the squad high and having fun.”
Results from Lake Bluff
Kendall Ryan (L39ion of Los Angeles)
Skylar Schneider (Miami Blazers)
Alexis Magner (L39ion of Los Angeles)
Paola Muñoz (Goldman Sachs EFTS Racing)
Rylee McMullen (DNA Pro Cycling)
Shawna Powless (DNA Pro Cycling)
Andrea Cyr (Goldman Sachs EFTS Racing)
Gina Ricardo (Team Bridgelane)
Claudia Marcks (Fearless Femme Racing p/b Robertet)
Samantha Schneider (Miami Blazers)
ACC individual standings after Lake Bluff
Skylar Schneider (Miami Blazers) – 83 points
Rylee McMullen (DNA Pro Cycling) – 57 point
Kendall Ryan (L39ion of Los Angeles) – 45 points
Paola Muñoz (Goldman Sachs EFTS Racing) – 45 points
Makayla Macpherson (DNA Pro Cycling) – 37 points
Arielle Verhaaren (Austomatic-Abus Racing) – 35 points
Alexis Magner (L39ion of Los Angeles) – 34 points
Samantha Schneider (Miami Blazers) – 27 points
Marlies Mejias (Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty24) – 26 points
Coryn Labecki (EF Education-Cannondale) – 21 points
ACC team standings after Lake Bluff
DNA Pro Cycling – 128 points
Miami Blazers – 110 points
L39ion of Los Angeles – 79 points
Automatic-Abus Racing – 50 points
LA Sweat – 50 points
The men’s race, like the women’s, was set to be a selective affair. 135 riders took to the start but with the tight course and a stacked field the mood around the starting corral was tense as riders looked, and failed, to circumnavigate the crowd control that the official tried to institute to keep riders from jumping the queue before they were called to the line.
When the race started, it was easy to see why as the race was immediately strung out into a line that was over 20 seconds long. For the first 20 minutes riders were stretched out from the exit of the final bend to the entrance to turn one. Fractures turned to splits and riders were dropped in fits in starts as attacks rolled from the riders and teams without a rock-solid sprint option.
Central to all of this were the teams of Reign Storm Racing and the MitoQ New Zealand Cycling Project. Reign Storm has been the standout team in the ACC this season, as the team in orange has already clinched the top spot in the team classification, and was looking to add another win to their tally. MitoQ on the other hand, came on strong at the Chicago Grit series after a summer of American crit racing.
MitoQ was coming fresh off a win on Friday in Northbrook where the team took the first two steps on the podium after a late two-up attack. Furthermore, to celebrate their last American race, the team donned special tiger-print kits for the night, a special flare that only added to their visibility at the front of affairs. Mixing it in with those two teams were attacks from L39ion and the Miami Blazers as those teams have lacked sprint wins this season, especially since Noah Granigan crashed in the final lap of Boise Twilight.
Nevertheless, even with the aggressive racing, there were enough eager riders to weld things back together. In the twists and turns of the Lake Bluff course, the race was hard enough to jettison over 80 riders from the race but lacked some of the elements to cause a selection when there were two very strong teams marking the other throughout the entire event. With ten laps to, a field sprint seemed certain. Until, suddenly, it didn’t.
With three laps to go Josh Burnett took off from the front of the field. The Kiwi from MitoQ has been an attacker throughout his time in the US and looked to replicate his ride from Indianapolis two weeks ago where he managed to go solo from the start of the race all the way until two laps to go.
This time, with just a pair of laps remaining, his fate was flipped as he was joined in the attack by Fergus Arthur. Arthur, who was flashed a thumbs up by his director to continue the attack, set about working with Burnett, and the two were gone, quickly building an advantage of over fifteen seconds as the bell rang for one lap to go.
“I can't believe it I was having some flashbacks to a couple of days ago, I was just happy he worked with me,” Arthur said of having the same breakaway buddy as Wednesday night in Burnett. “Once we had some separation I thought at the very least we'd have people chasing for our guys behind.
“I had a little bit of a scare on the last corner there. I clipped a pedal and I thought I was going down. He heard it and took off and I thought it was over at that point, but I put my head down and took off.”
All things considered, it was a great night for Reign Storm as the team took the win, extended their top three riders lead in the individual standings, and essentially wrapped up the ACC green sprint jersey with Danny Summerhill taking the maximum points in that classification to give him 26 total points, 13 points higher than the second place rider.
Results from Lake Bluff
Fergus Arthur (Reign Storm Racing)
Josh Burnett (MitoQ New Zealand Cycling Project)
Lucas Bourgoyne (Austin Outlaws)
Jordan Parra (Reign Storm Racing)
Alfredo Rodriguez (Reign Storm Racing)
Ben Oliver (Above and Beyond Cancer)
Danny Summerhill (Reign Storm Racing)
Noah Granigan (Miami Blazers)
David Domonoske (Alto Velo)
Marshall Erwood (MitoQ New Zealand Cycling Project)
ACC individual standings after Lake Bluff
Jordan Parra (Reign Storm Racing) – 68 points
Alfredo Rodriguez (Reign Storm Racing) – 57 points
Danny Summerhill (Reign Storm Racing) – 51 points
Lucas Bourgoyne (Austin Outlaws) – 43 points
Clever Martinez (Rockland Development) – 41 points
Bryan Gomez (Reign Storm Racing) – 29 points
Ben Oliver (Above and Beyond Cancer) – 29 points
Luke Lamperti (Soudal Quick-Step) – 28 points
Noah Granigan (Miami Blazer) – 28 points
Cade Bickmore (Project Echelon) – 23 points
ACC team standings after Lake Bluff
Reign Storm Racing – 211 points
Austin Outlaws – 52 points
Miami Blazers – 39 points
Above and Beyond Cancer – 31 points
Soudal Quick-Step – 28 points
Photos courtesy of Ethan Glading
