Skylar Schneider has been racing on the street for 13 years and her goal headed into the USA Cycling Pro Road National Championships stays easy and constant – “The targets are all the time the identical, and that is to win, in fact”.
Last 12 months, earlier than diving right into a criterium-heavy second half of the season, Schneider completed third within the elite girls’s street race on acquainted roads at US Pro’s sixth and remaining outing in Knoxville, Tennessee, the dash received by Chloe Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) and second place taken by Coryn Labecki (then with Jumbo-Visma). She was on prime kind for US Nationals, having received the street race title on the Pan-American Championships, plus three levels between Redlands Bicycle Classic and Joe Martin Stage Race.
“Nationals is all the time a very huge aim. I feel this 12 months it is larger than ever. And yeah, I undoubtedly have an enormous goal on each the crit and street race,” the 25-year-old now driving for the Miami Blazers instructed Cyclingnews. “Having such an excellent street race final 12 months gave me a variety of confidence that sooner or later I may probably win it. So, yeah, making an attempt to work as much as that.”
This 12 months was a revival of kinds for the Wisconsin rider, now on a brand new crew and heading to the brand new environment of Charleston, West Virginia, for the US Pro Championships, which began a five-year run this week, May 14-19.
“After so a few years of the identical programs in Knoxville, it is thrilling to have new programs that can require new methods and fewer predictability. The crit course is a bit longer than most crits within the US, however appears extra technical than Knoxville’s course, which I like,” Schneider famous concerning the 1-mile, six-corner course in downtown Charleston and no main elevation acquire like Knoxville.
“I’m desperate to see the climbs within the street race in particular person as they give the impression of being tremendous difficult on paper. We solely simply arrived to Charleston [Wednesday], so we’ve not had time to recon the programs but.”
Schneider received her first set of street nationals as a 12-year-old, taking victories within the street race and criterium. That sample repeated itself three extra instances and she or he final took the double wins in 2016 within the junior girls 17-18 occasions. Her finest finishes at nationals since then have been a silver within the professional criterium in 2022 and a silver in final 12 months’s street race, each outings with L39ION of Los Angeles. In 2022 Schneider was a part of the L39ION podium sweep within the crit, received by Kendall Ryan and Alexis Ryan (now Magner) taking third.
This time with the Blazers, the criterium on Friday evening and the street race on Sunday morning, Skylar Schneider will solely have one teammate, older sister Samantha Schneider. Both raced at Redlands and had excessive finishes in three rounds of USA Speed Week, together with a 3rd at Spartanburg Criterium and fourth at Athens Twilight for Skylar, however the Ryan sisters outdueled the Schneider sisters in these outings.
“It’s simply my sister and I out right here representing the Blazer’s girls as our two different teammates will not be American. Sometimes, you need to use the shortage of numbers to your benefit, because it should not be as much as us to regulate or chase when there are larger groups to do this, however then once more, generally, others race to lose. It’s really unimaginable to foretell each situation, so it comes all the way down to studying the race because it unfolds,” Skylar Schneider stated.
Other groups with few riders and unpredictability embrace L39ION of Los Angeles with Magner and Ryan and Human Powered Health with Ruth Edwards and Lily Williams. Larger groups that are on kind this season embrace DNA Pro Cycling with 5 riders and Fount Cycling Guild with seven riders, whereas EF Education-Cannondale will deliver two riders to help Labecki within the street race.
“It’s actually superb to see the unfold of expertise throughout many groups in girls’s biking, and I feel it makes it actually thrilling. It was actually fascinating to see the completely different dynamics and the way that will play out. I do know I made errors at Speed Week, however I additionally simply bought beat. I haven’t got any excuses, if something the expertise supplied additional motivation and assurance that it may be a extremely aggressive 12 months of crit racing with sturdy expertise unfold out on extra groups.
“I feel our largest lesson at Speed Week was to belief one another and race our personal race, not the race that the opposite groups need. So, we’ll race our personal race and belief one another 100%.“
