Road Races 2011

Road races seem to be a dirty word around the Midwest, where anything that requires a hard effort for more than the last 200 yards is seen as a fool's game. But there are still a few fools out there who know that within road racing the essence of cycling may be found.

Here's the list of upcoming road races for the first half of the season. Slim pickings for the second half, so plan your RR fixes now.

Sat Apr 2     Hillsboro Roubaix    Hillsboro, IL                    
Sun Apr 10    Tour of Hermann RR   Hermann, MO
Sat Apr 16    Leland Kermesse      Leland, IL
Sat Apr 30    Iowa City Road Race  Iowa City, IA   
Sat May 14    Leland Grand Prix    Leland, WI
Sat Jun 4     O'Fallon RR (IL State Champs)    O'Fallon, IL   
Sun Jun 5     WI State Road Champs Spring Prairie, WI
Sat Jun 11    Tour of Galena RR    Galena, IL              
Sun Jun 12    MO State RR          Ste Genevieve, MO   
Sun Jun 19    Hellbender RR        Newburg, MO  
Sun Jul 3    UWW RR               Whitewater, WI   

You can take your choice between windy and rolling, windy and flat and windy and hilly.

More info can be found on the IL, WI, MO and IA cycling websites, as well as google and USA Cycling. Good calendars at prerace.com and chicagobikeracing.com.
Links:
Illinois Racing
Wisconsin Racing
Missouri Racing
Iowa Racing
USA Cycling - Find a Race

In my completely biased ranking opinion:
(1) Ste Genevieve is by far the best and hardest RR in the midwest.
(2) Leland Grand Prix is another tough, hilly course.
(3) The Hermann RR is a challenging but doable course and is very well-organised.

Hillsboro will be fun especially since the road is in 'interesting' condition.

O'Fallon is very well organised, lots of corners but requires the racers to actually race for it to be any good.

If 60 second hill sprints followed by 15 minutes recovery, repeated ad nauseam, is your thing then Spring Prairie is for you.

Iowa City is reputed to be fun, but has never resulted in anything other than a sprint from a reduced bunch, so legend says.

Leland Kermesse is flat, WINDY and gravelly. No bunch sprints in this one. Closest RR to Peoria.

Dan Hill beat the Mackdaddy at Hellbender a couple of years ago - that means it's got to be good.

Galena is a new race, should have some great terrain, well worth marking on your calendar

Not much info on Whitewater. It got cancelled last year.