Race Report: Tour of America’s Dairyland Clocktower Classic

Race Report: Tour of America’s Dairyland (ToAD) Clocktower Classic

Date: June 25, 2025

AVRT racers: Robin Betz

Top Result: Robin 36/54 overall, 24/37 in Cat 2/3 omnium, DNP/65 in the P12 race

Course: Four corner, 0.55 mile loop with left turns. Featuring some bricks at pedestrian crossings on the corners and lap times around one minute.

Strava:
https://www.strava.com/activities/14915379235 (W23 race)
https://www.strava.com/activities/14916544850 (WP12 race)

Race Recap:

I continue to be humbled. But it’s good for me.

Knowing that staging at the start line is critical, I line up early and linger near the sides of the course with some other riders instead of doing a practice lap. Unfortunately it was too early and the refs make me take a free lap, which puts me at the back of the pack again. There’s immediately a crash in the first corner which I dodge but end up losing even more spots, but after 2 laps we are neutralized and the race restarted. Unfortunately I’m in basically the same spot at the line.

It’s impossible to move up: the corners were too slow and the field too big, and I just lack the big accelerations to pass people on the straightaways and tend to lose spots there too. I don’t really know why this happens because I think I have good power numbers for repeated accelerations, but clearly that’s not the case at national level criteriums.

One time I take a glorious wide exit from corner 1 but get my wheel stuck in a narrow gap between the brickwork and pavement. I bobble a bit and hear spectators being alarmed, but I refuse to fall off and things work out okay. I saw many crashes today in this exact spot and avoid it from then on.

After 8 minutes of barely hanging on to the field, I lose contact and am pulled out by the ref. I go back to my car and cry a bit (nothing like going to a race with the goal of getting primes, upgrade points or a leaders’ jersey and instead getting dropped less than 20% of the way in). But since I’m here for four more days I need to get into a better headspace, so I go to the reg tent and sign up for the P12 race in an hour.

I eat a banana and some of the fused gummy bear creature that has created itself in my hot car. I warm up on some nice paths in nature, and listen to Enya (okay WHEN am I going to get a new Enya album??? maybe this is why I’m not winning). I start to feel better, and get hissed at by a goose near the path which reminds me I do have power in the legs and it’s time to use it.

Staging is a bit better for the P12 race although they call up the top 10 to the front and I end up third row in a larger field. The corners are much better, I know the bad pavement spots, and I commit to standing and sprinting a bit out of each one. The group is also much better at cornering and doesn’t slow as much which helps me maintain speed. I do feel myself start to tire, but the goal for the second race was to last more than 8 minutes and I beat it by almost 50%.

Somehow this turns things around in my head and I manage to switch goals again from getting results to just getting better. My new goal is to figure out how to not mess up staging, as starting in the front row would have made a big difference each day.