Peloton Star: Road Course Review

As we get into the downhill side of the season, let's take some time and look at the various road courses used here in the midwest. Perhaps make some comparisons, or entice you to try a new race. Today's race:

Whitnall Park Road Race. Used by Superweek in the past and again most recently, this is a rider favorite. The course is smack dab in the middle of picturesque Whitnall Park on Milwaukee's southwest side where riders cross several small creeks and pass several frog ponds. Traffic is easy to exclude ensuring a safe race, parking is ample, and the pavement is smooth. This course was used back in the '80s but the road surface was really rough in sections, literally rattling your teeth, and making it somewhat dangerous. More recently, the road has been improved (thank goodness for the demise of pea-gravel) and once again Superweek has picked it up as one of the premier road courses in the area. At 2.1 miles long, it could be called either a circuit race or a road race, I suppose, and features three climbs (riding counter-clockwise), none of which are brutal in themselves (all can be climbed in the big chainring), but the steepest one is less than a km from the finish, and just out far enough from the line that a move here doesn't necessarily mean easy victory, but certainly a big factor in the races outcome.

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In the springtime, a shorter version of this loop is used for the Whitnall Park Criterium, using just the 1.1 mile western loop of this course, and in the opposite direction (clockwise). This version is brutal in that there isn't much rest, you're either climbing or descending at a high speed, with one of the climbs beginning right out of a hairpin type turn, so it's a real torque-fest.