2021 Women's Road Nationals: A Clara Honsinger Appreciation Post, Mostly
Clara Honsinger had a standout day at Road Nationals while helping teammate Lauren Stephens win the Stars-and-Stripes
Anyone who follows the Bulletin or any of the myriad podcasts your humble author dabbles in knows he is not much of a ROAD GUY. Yes, I can pop in with HOT TAKES when the topic is Wout, Mathieu, and Pidders, but my proclivities have always been toward the dirt and off-road scenes.
However, one event I always get jazzed for is Road Nationals weekend.
Sometimes first impressions are wrong, but sometimes they can be long-lasting. The first-ever bike race I can remember attending was the 2013 U.S. Cyclocross Nationals in Verona, Wisconsin. That event got me hooked on cyclocross and established a certain mystique to winning a U.S. National Championship. If, for example, I had grown up watching the Tour de France like my brother, I would likely have been more intrigued by big Euro events, but as it is, IDK, I kind of like American racing.
As a corollary to that, one thing that is neat about U.S. Nationals is because 99% of our “pros” exist in some quasi not-really-professional status, we can count the heroes we see race at Nationals as athletes who have humbled us mere mortals in person. For example, I did a group ride with Pro Crit wide-angle podium finisher John Heinlein III just last week (!) and had the pleasure of getting my face smashed in by Road Race National Champion Lauren Stephens in a Zwift race over the winter.
All of this is to say, for me:
The 2021 Pro Road Nationals took place over the weekend in Knoxville, Tennessee. Friday’s Criterium drew a lot of attention thanks in large part to the work of Wide Angle Podium member Criterium Nation, and on Sunday, the Women and Men’s Road Races took place. Our good friend Rob over at Criterium Nation will be providing all the juice you need from the crit, and because reasons that will soon be clear, we will focus on Sunday’s road race here at the Bulletin.
Both races were excellent, and particularly on the Women’s side, some riders who are near and dear to our hearts, as well as Bulletin adjacent, helped steal the show.
Pro Women’s Road Race
The last time we saw Clara Honsinger the budding cyclocross star was finishing 4th at the Cyclocross World Championships in Oostende. Because of Clara’s breakout season, we have admittedly dissected her cyclocross game more than the humble Oregonian would likely want, and one of the conclusions we reached was a certain level of stoke that she would be racing on the road with Team Tibco - SVB this summer to add a little pop to her Lil’ Glowplugs diesel.
Honsinger comes from an off-road background, and per discussions with her former Team S&M managers, she had hoped to do some big things on the mountain bike, but with one of the top domestic Women’s road teams seeking her services on the tarmac, Honsinger opted to work on that road power this summer.
(For the record, as a sometimes-mountain-bike publication, we would also be totally okay seeing her race mountain bike World Cups as well!)
Prior to Sunday’s Road Nationals, Honsinger had a week-long stage race in Europe under her belt at the LOTTO Thuringen Ladies Tour in Germany a month ago. She also did some gravel earlier in the spring where she faced off against Becca Fahringer at the Gorge Gravel Grinder in Washington in April.
Although we here at the Bulletin love cyclocross and will fanboy all accomplishments from cyclocross riders, we still have journalistic standards and will thus not fanboy cyclocross riders unless they do things worthy of being fanned.
Well, folks, Honsinger did not fail in delivering.
A mere 10 minutes and 30 seconds into the Pro Women’s Road Race, with a good 8 climbs of the feared Sherrod Road left to go, Honsinger did what any good cyclocross racer would do—she attacked.
Maybe it was strategy (foreshadowing alert!) or maybe it was that thing where cyclocross racers are really bad at the whole “conserve energy to win races” road racing mantra; either way, Honsinger was ready to animate the race, solo off the front.
Honsinger’s attack brought out a small group that became her, Rally Cycling’s Holly Breck, LA Sweat’s Daphne Karagianis, DNA Cycling’s Margot Clyne, and Bulletin-adjacent Lauren De Crescenzo of Cinch Cycling, who won the 2021 Unbound Gravel Grinder just two weekends ago.
De Crescenzo is truly one of the great stories going right now in domestic racing. She was involved in a catastrophic crash at the 2016 San Dimas Stage Race that caused a traumatic brain injury that required months of intensive rehab to recover from. De Crescenzo was reborn, in a way, at the 2018 Crusher in the Tushar where she won the Utah gravel race in one of her first major races back following the injury.
De Crescenzo has thrived amid the pandemic uncertainty. She set a women’s Everesting time record last year and then returned to gravel racing this summer with a monumental win at the 2021 Unbound Gravel Grinder.
Undaunted by the 200 miles of GRVL GRNDNG in her legs from just two weeks ago, De Crescenzo upped the pace in the break on the course’s biggest climb inside four to go and got a brief split that only Honsinger and Breck could follow. The break was now down to three, with Karagianis residing in the dreaded DANGLERLAND.
The Sherrod Road climb has become a mainstay on the Nationals course in recent years as the event has returned to Tennessee for several years running. The climb is not too long—only 0.4 miles in length [sub-em-dash] props to FloBikes using AMERICAN UNITS during the broadcast [/ sub-em-dash]—but it tops out at 18% in grade and averages 11%.
Attacks on the hill happened quickly, and inside three laps to go, De Crescenzo attacked again and made her bid to go solo for the win as she did at Unbound. For the next lap, Honsinger gave chase, again up the climb and through the back two-thirds of the course that loops back toward downtown Knoxville.
Honsinger no doubt gave cyclocross fans something to cheer about all afternoon, but it was in the stretch from the penultimate Sherrod Road climb to the ultimate Sherrod Road climb that she turned this into a Clara Honsinger Appreciation Post, mostly.
Still stuck in no-women’s land behind De Crescenzo coming up on the final 8-mile lap, Honsinger calmly sat up with 11 miles left to go in the race. For the viewing public, it appeared Honsinger was the only rider left with a shot at catching De Crescenzo, but a few minutes later, the team strategy became clear. Suddenly, the blue kit of Lauren Stephens came streaking into view. Honsinger was not going to be the one to catch De Crescenzo, but she still had a shot to empty the tank in service of her teammate with Stars-and-Stripes aspirations.
For the next 4-ish miles, Honsinger absolutely buried herself in service of Stephens. What was a decent time gap a few miles earlier was down to 20 seconds as the Team Tibco - SVB duo got the bell in downtown Knoxville.
With the climb early in the lap, Honsinger only had another mile or so left of work to do. When the two reached the bottom of the climb, De Crescenzo was in sight. Honsinger put in one more dig to deliver Stephens to within a few meters of De Crescenzo and her impressive day of work was done. She pulled off the to side and let her teammate go to work.
Ready to go, Stephens emptied her bidon and did what any rider ready to make a winning attack would do—she chucked it at the moto ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The extra weight from the bidon probably would not have mattered, as Stephens unleashed an attack as furious as the mid-June day in Tenneessee was. She exploded past the one remaining rider in front of her and accelerated to the top of the climb. While there was still a good 6 miles of racing left to go, what remained of the peloton had been largely unorganized throughout the race, and with Stephens on her way, a Stars-and-Stripes jersey was all but fait accompli.
(This is not cyclocross, after all, where we all know ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN)
Winning the jersey was certainly a goal for the 34-year-old who has been flourishing in recent years on both the road and gravel, but she had hoped to be selected for the Tokyo Olympic team, so a laser focus on winning in Knoxville was a bit bittersweet.
After the race, a post made the rounds on social media of Honsinger making a young fan’s day by giving her one of her water bottles during the race. Honsinger no doubt earned a lot of fans this past cyclocross season, and it appears she is on her way to doing so on the road as well.
It is also worth noting that like Ian Boswell during his winning ride at Unbound, Honsinger was wearing a RIDE Transgender Pride sweatband that was created by the group RIDE Group founded by Molly Cameron to raise awareness surrounding transgender rights. The issue of anti-transgender legislation has been particularly salient for the cyclocross community with Arkansas, host of the 2022 Cyclocross Worlds, being among the first states to pass regressive anti-transgender legislation this legislative session.
While Bill and I have admittedly struggled with how to handle the issue editorially, we are both supportive of transgender athletes and the work Molly is doing, and against a backdrop of cyclists being criticized for not speaking out more about social issues, it definitely makes us proud to cover athletes such as Honsinger who are willing to step outside their comfort zone, in whatever way, and speak out about issues that are far more important than just a bike race.