The 2018 Intelligentsia Cup road cycling series, now in its seventh edition, was a rousing success featuring 10 days of competitive road cycling in and around Chicago. Participants lauded the variety of courses and challenging competition as highlights of the event.
“Great event, [I’m] spreading the word in NorCal that this is how to do it!” said one post-event survey respondent. “We have a great calendar and only a few events compare to this atmosphere. I will be back for the 10 days next year and would consider prioritizing it over nationals if I had to.”
This year saw the addition of the Autobahn Country Club Road Race, racing on a private auto racing track. This gave the series three road races run on distances to pair with seven criteriums and giving all types of road racers something to enjoy. As well a new junior omnium was added to help foster development of youth racing.
“We are extremely happy with how the seventh edition of the Intelligentsia Cup turned out,” said managing partner Tom Schuler. “Thanks to our partners, especially Intelligentsia Coffee, we are able to offer high-quality bike racing for the road cycling community – for those in the Midwest as well as around the country and even the world.”
This year 38 states and 12 countries we represented. Italian Valentina Scandolara (Roxsolt Attaquer) took a convincing overall win on the women’s side with six wins and never finishing worse than third. The men’s omnium was much closer as Kiwi Cameron Stultz (GPM-Stultz) pulled off a narrow overall victory, finishing tied on points with previous winner Brandon Feehery (So Chicago Wheelmen) but breaking the tie on number of individual wins.
The 2019 series dates will be July 19-28.