We closed out the summer of 2022 with an amazing opportunity by attending the Maryland Cycling Classic over Labor Day Weekend! This was the only UCI Pro-Series race hosted in the United States. Four of the 16 teams participating were world tour teams– Team BikeExchange-Jayco, EF Education-EasyPost, Israel-Premier Tech, and Trek-Segafredo! The weekend kicked off with team presentations on Friday night. Cheering our loudest, we wanted all teams to feel welcomed and excited about this race. Saturday morning, we traveled a little north of Baltimore with the hopes of meeting some of the teams. Veloccino Bike and Coffee hosted an amazing gathering for the teams. The coffee was delicious, but meeting some of the cyclists was one of the highlights of our weekend. Right away we saw the Team BikeExchange-Jayco cyclists. This afforded the opportunity for us to chat with Michael Matthews and Dylan Groenewegen (check out our pics with them!). While sipping on our coffee, we had the privilege to see Evopro Racing and Human Powered Health teams. Graciously, the cyclists smiled for pics with us and Kyle Murphy (current USA road cycling champion) let us “ooh and aah” over his stars and stripes bike! In addition to coffee, conversation, and cameras, our best souvenirs came in the form of autographs from many of these amazing cyclists! Saturday night, we headed to Camden Yards to enjoy an Orioles game, but we weren’t the only ones. Mom and Dad ran into some of the Evopro team at the game and enjoyed more conversation with them.
With pre-race festivities behind us, we were ready for Sunday’s race! Considering this may be the closest Mom gets to a Tour de France experience, she did not want to miss an opportunity to be as close to the finish line as possible! She and Dad scoped out the Inner Harbor race course shortly after breakfast. Although the race began at 1:30pm in northern Baltimore County, Mom wanted to head to the finish line around 12:30. The sun blasted us with heat for hours, but it was worth it (at least Mom thought so!) to be right next to the finish line. We also had a great time creating friendships with fellow cycling fans around us. Since the cyclists had a four lap circuit within the city of Baltimore, we enjoyed multiple opportunities to cheer for the racers! Pounding the barriers and screaming at the top of our lungs were experiences we will never forget! At the close of the race, the preparation for the podium standing afforded us more opportunities to collect autographs from the racers. The entire weekend kept us floating on cloud nine! Dad– the brilliant manager and planner behind our ventures– has begun working on travel plans for next year!
Team AFR 