Lynn Wilson found her sprinting legs in the women’s Cat4 race, while Ryan Rochford grabbed Kansas hardware in the Cat3 crit at Tour of Lawrence.

Wilson was coming off a great ride in the circuit race on an extremely hot day Saturday, and in the Saturday’s crit, she worked with Velotek’s A’Laina Beckwith to create a gap with about three laps to go.”At about 3 laps to go, Rachel from University of Nebraska bridged up to us and the 3 of us worked together until the final lap. A’Laina and I gapped her before the last turn and going into the last turn A’laina rubbed my back wheel and went down. It came down to a sprint finish between me and Rachel with the field not far behind.” Wilson got edged at the line but held on to second place.

In the Men’s Cat3 Ryan Rochford came away with an unexpected third place in the Kansas crit championship despite having to gain some ground right from the start. Here is his race report:

“It was plenty hot with a little wind out of the South. Course is 8 turns and a whole lot of fun. I was rolling around warming up on the course and when I came around to the starting line, everybody else was already lined up. I rolled up and was unfortunately going to have to start at the back of a 65ish person field. James/Skittles was pretty much right in front of me. My goal was to not get dropped since my fitness was not the greatest and I generally suffer a lot in the heat compared to others. The whistle blew and off we went. James immediately started hammering it to move up the field and I followed as best I could. The pace was super high from the start so it wasn’t easy moving up that big of a strung out field. After about a lap and a half or so, we were in the middle of the pack and got separated. James kept moving up and I hung out for a lap or two then moved up into the top 3rd of the group. That’s basically where I sat for the rest of the race. I was constantly moving up and then getting swarmed and falling back…and repeating. There was one prime that I decided to poke my head out for, but I wasn’t going for the money. I thought the guys who were going for it had an ok gap and that there was a chance it would stay away so I went with them, but it didn’t last long. With 3 laps to go, I was doing what I could to stay very close to the front, but not on it, and so was everybody else. Things started getting sketchy, as usual at the end of a crowded crit.

On the last lap, I was sitting anywhere between around 7th and 20th position. We went around the 3rd corner and some idiot tried to dive bomb the inside and move up. Instead he touched wheels or something and went careening off toward the outside of the turn, through the entire group. This pushed people to the outside of the corner and carnage ensued. James was just behind me a spot or two and got sent straight into a hay bale, ending his race as he flipped over the handlebars and used his skin to slide to a halt on the burning hot asphalt. I was still up and feeling pretty decent, but I was too far back because I’d gotten swarmed shortly before corner 3. As we rounded the last 4 corners, I tried to move up a little and made up a couple spots. I rounded the last corner (where I crashed last year while sitting perfectly at 3rd wheel) and wound up for the sprint. I popped out of the saddle and sat in a draft for a couple seconds to build up speed and shot around about 3 or 4 guys and crossed the line with my heartrate pegged at 209. I was tired, but not as bad as I thought.

I guesstimated that I finished around 17th so I figured I was out of the money and headed to the car to change and cool down. As I walked around to watch the pro race, a friend came up and said “hey Ryan, congratulations!” I responded “for what, finishing 20th?” Little did I know that I was the 3rd place finisher from KS and since this was the KS State Championship crit, I got 3rd in state! So, I unfortunately missed my call up to the podium after the race, but I did collect a nice medal and celebrated with some Chipotle and beer. Tour of Lawrence is a great race. Can’t wait to do it again next year.”

The team did well in other racing too:

Circuit Race:
Women’s 4 – Lynn Wilson 12th
Masters 40+ – Paul Fancher 27th
Cat3 – Paul Aldeguer 26th
Ryan Kelley 28th
Kurt Wilson 29th
Cat4/5 Chip Zimmer 10th
Cat5 Tyler Staples 15th

Criterium:
Masters 40+ – Shawn Knight 26th
Ron Marney 27th
Kurt Wilson 30th
Paul Aldeguer 32nd
Cat5 – Dan Turner 14th
Chip Zimmer 15th
Tyler Staples 16th