Guest Riding With Stkd! at Gateway Cup

Written by Gabby Allong

The Universe Moving in Mysterious Ways
I was originally registered to race at both Gateway Cup (St Louis, MO) and Tour of Sommerville (Sommerville, NJ) the first weekend in September. While I wasn’t sure which race I was going to attend, I was leaning towards Tour of Sommerville since I was already spending the summer on the east coast with my family in Queens, NY. When Anna reached out saying she had seen my name on the registration roster for Gateway and wanted to know if I wanted to guest ride with Stkd! Racing Squad, I was stoked (pun intended). Shortly after, I booked my flight to St. Louis and set off to meet the team. Later on, I will share how I believe this opportunity was a divine result of the universe moving in a fluid motion to align me with a phenomenal group of people and captivate my spirit in ways I will always cherish.

Race Series Support
Since I was traveling during Day 1 of the series, the second day of racing was my first. Being a guest rider on a new team was nerve-racking, but as soon as I got on-site and met the team (even as they were warming up and getting in the zone), they assured me I was in good hands. As we toed-the-line as a team, I did not feel alone. The first day of racing was tough because of the rain. The roads were slick and I could not seem to find my race bearings. The PSI in my rear tire was too high, so my wheel was skidding in every turn. When I heard Anna sneak up behind me and encourage me to move up to the front of the pack, I began to relax. Knowing that I was racing with someone who cared about my well-being meant a lot. Thankfully, we all crossed the finish line in one piece and called it a day. We tore down the tents, loaded up the van, and moved on ready to take on the next couple of days of racing.

Moments to Remember
The entire experience elevated my spirit to a new level of emotional stardom. Not only was it fantastic to be in great company with other racers, it was also nice to have my dad come out and support me and the team. Being the chatterbox that he is, my dad got along well with the team and their families. Having him at races is extra special because when I get into my “zone” and go into my introverted self, he's off being a social butterfly and makes me seem much cooler than I am.

My most memorable moment of the series was when my teammates and I controlled the race dynamics of Benton Park Classic's 10-corner course. On the final day of racing, it was the first time in my entire race career that I learned what it truly means to race as a team. We stuck to each other's wheels like glue. We stayed out of trouble by communicating about when to move up in the pack. After the race, I gained great clarity that this opportunity was destined for all of us, and all of us needed to be open enough to receive it.

Upon completing the race series, my dad told me that the Tour of Sommerville had been canceled due to the storms and flooding on the east coast. While it was tragic to hear, it strangely all worked out in our favor.

Remember when I said I’d tie it all back to the universe? Well, if Anna had not chosen to reach out to me about the guest rider opportunity on Stkd! Racing Squad, I would not have booked my ticket to St. Louis, and therefore, I would not have raced at all on Labor Day weekend. I am incredibly grateful that she DID reach out, because now I know a woman who crafts wonderful opportunities one moment at a time.

Austin’s Reflections of Tour of America’s Dairyland (ToAD)

Written by Austin Killips

A race series to remember
Tour of America's Dairyland was a block of racing that seemed to hit every possible note and feeling over the course of two weeks. Even when you're not in the midst of an intense high or low odds are someone on your team or in your orbit is. The experience is a physical and emotional rollercoaster.

Race day support
One of the key takeaways that stuck with me after racing the Tour of America's Dairyland with STKD! is what a difference it makes to race with the support and infrastructure of a team and how that support system can and should extend beyond just teammates.

Our manager showed up everyday to ensure that there was a tent setup with all the resources we needed to succeed. We had food, tools, water, ice socks and an endless amount of emotional support for the pre race jitters and post race feels.

I'm grateful for all the work STKD! has done to get our team equipment, sponsors, and much needed financial support but there was something particularly special about Day 1 when I rolled up to the race after a long workday and saw that all I needed to do was warmup and perform on the course. To lift the burden and added stress of coordinating logistics is such a vital part of setting athletes up for success and STKD! is delivering on that.

The power and value of creating a safe, inclusive space
The team didn't just do it for our racers, they held a space for privateers and athletes there without the full presence of their team. As the series progressed our tent space became a place where people who are underrepresented in sport, trans and queer folks, the BIPOC women racing with Thee Abundance Summit and many other friendly faces seemed to find comfort and solace.

This kind of attitude is how we grow cycling and build it into a sport that welcomes and empowers everyone.

My time at ToAD set a precedent for what a "team tent" should be, it's not an exclusive place for people wearing the same colors. It's a hub where kindred spirits can connect, feel safe, and have space to feel all off the feelings that bike racing brings up.

The Story of STKD (!!!)

Lisa H takes a cruise on her first ever road bike

I’ve always felt very fortunate to have found bike racing in Chicago. We have a large and extremely supportive community of folks who have made a dedicated effort to making bike racing both approachable and fun for everyone. Many of the Chicago women I’ve spoken to started bike racing because someone asked them to try it out. We have a strong community that calls people in and makes sure they’re ready to be successful and supported in their first season. As I started my own journey from “I’m never going to race bicycles” to “oh my god I love road racing” Anna was right there with me, showing up to races, racing hard, and getting better. Anna upgraded to category 3 the season before me, but I was not long after. What happened next was a shared experience that drew us closer together and lit the same fire underneath us.

Being completely spit out of your first 1/2/3 race seems to be a rite of passage. While most of us had raced 3/4 races before and were already comfortable in that space, racing your first big crit as a category 3 rider, or your first 1/2/3 tends to be the same experience: there are brand new rules to this and you have to relearn how to not get completely destroyed every race, only this time there are fewer people to mentor you. The longer I spent as a cat 3 cyclist, the more sure I became that there were steps and pieces that I was missing about how to get to the next step. I knew if I could get to cat 2, there were development opportunities available, but after my first season as a category 3 rider, cat 2 felt like it may as well have been on the other side of the galaxy and I had no clear plan or steps to take to get there.

These were the conversations Anna and I shared. We both had a strong desire to keep progressing, but faced similar barriers in not having a clear path to do that. It seemed that people upgraded to category 3 and either had raw talent to propel them forward or eventually started racing less and less until life eventually led them down other paths. While we definitely sought input locally, we faced the same reality that most women cyclists face: extremely limited funding for support and development. Going into the 2019 season, it was still pretty clear we’d be mostly on our own.

Suddenly, the most amazing thing happened. Through a lot of hard work leveraging connections, Anna was able to start the seeds of what would eventually become STKD! In 2019 we put together an all start Midwestern squad to take on one of the most exciting crit series in the region: Tour of America’s Dairyland (ToAD ). We gathered our resources, created our kits, landed amazing host housing, and secured race planning advising from an amazing team of current and former pro women riders. We started out as 8 women who had never raced on a team together and in some cases barely knew each other and ended the 11 day series as the overall victors with several different riders getting a turn on the podium. We may have come out of nowhere, but we left Wisconsin a force to be reckoned with. Needless to say, we were hooked.

That fall brought on going conversations with Anna about how we could make this amazing experience we’d just had bigger. After all, we’d set our sights on ToAD to “be competitive” and ended up with the grand prize and one of our riders as a freshly minted cat 2. If we had managed to put that together in a matter of months, what could we do if we committed to a full season? It finally felt like we had a clear path forward. Race together, get stronger, execute progressively more advanced tactics, be ready for cat 2. Unfortunately, by the time we were fully committed, we were already behind the ball on seeking sponsorship. Nonetheless, we managed to find some amazing partners willing to work with us for the 2020 season. We set our race calendar, vetted our riders, and got down to business on the trainer all winter long, ready to make it happen in 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic soon had other ideas.

While we can definitely say that COVID-19 completely derailed everything we thought we were going to do in 2020, it also provided us with an opportunity to take time we hadn’t had leading into the 2020 season to set intentions and think very carefully about who we wanted to partner with to help us meet our goals of putting together a super strong and intimidating cat 3 women’s road team that actually had the resources to support all of their riders to success at some of the US’s biggest races. We were careful in selecting brands that had a commitment to showing up for women’s cycling. In these discussions, we eventually came to our biggest partner for 2021 and something I honestly never thought would happen to me.

STKD Racing Squad is now sponsored by Schwinn Bicycles who have set our team up with team color matched custom Fastbacks for 2021. Having the opportunity to ride one over the summer has made me super pumped for my racing future on my Schwinn. Anna and I often joke about being the best sponsored cat 3 team in the US (and we almost certainly are) but we certainly hope that this is the future for women’s cycling. We’re so excited to see brands stepping up to invest in women’s cycling to help take down some of those barriers that have kept more women from progressing to the pro level. Schwinn has bet on women in a big way and we are sure this is just the start of more amazing things to come.