
Brad Adams and Austin Horse stare down Marc Marino on the downhill heading into the turn 3 whip. photo by Warren Kommers


Walton Brush on the turn 3 whip. Well ahead of the peloton. photo by Samson Hatae

The Angelopes and Squirrel Scouts showed up to conduct a freak bike race. What a treat to see these elaborate custom hand build frankensteind creations and Todd Lyons. Photo by Hal Bergman

Kelli Samuelson #BEASTMODE photo by Serena Grace

Chas Christian and Walton Brush sharing a few words just before the Men's Finale.

- Veronika Volok, Jo Celso, Martha Mauricio, and Kelli Samuelsson are some of the most skilled brakeless track bike operators on the west coast. photo by sean Denny..
INSPIRING WINS

Sean McElroy age 14 talks to the media after defeating a field of 50 littered with elites and pros. Photo by Ivan Therrien


Pro women's rider Kathryn Donovan found out about the event just in time to give it a shot... she stomped the field and let 2 and 3 battle out of the kindness of her heart. We hope to see more ladies come out and ride!

The Spring St. Market place had some uniquely awesome displays. We are looking forward to growing this next year.

Walton Brush dominated his way to a set of Dog Tags and the Endo Customs champion jersey. First time the Tags have headed north and a well deserved trip. This was a blow out. Congratulations. 2nd and 3rd went to Edgar Willow Juarez and NYC's Austin Horse.
THE YOUNG BLOOD
The Civic Center Crit brought out incredible story lines beginning with the decisive win by 14 year old prodigy Sean McElroy of a field of 50 littered with elites and pro-level men. UNBELIEVABLE. This win proved what my instincts had told me all along... that athletes need not be categorized by age... We hope for Sean this is only the beginning of a long successful career. How RAD would it be if 20 years from now we can all look back and see that it all begin with a set of humble Dog Tags? I cant wait. His sweet move to shake the break away on the uphill was described by veterans as expertly tactical. We can all thank Rich "the Butcher" Bartlett a bit for bringing Sean out. ..
Sean McElroy looks for the perfect moment to attack Evan Stade and Bryan Forbes photo by warren Kommers
THE ELITE
Another surprise was the arrival of pro rider Kathryn Donovan. Less surprising was her stomping of the women's road bike field, lapping everyone but 2nd and 3rd. You can read her write up in Cycling Illustrated here. This was our first time meeting her and we hope it is not our last. We hope her win will inspire even more women to participate. In the track category we saw two less surprising break away wins with Red Hook top 5 regular and Mash SF giant, Walton Brush and Wolfpack Hustle Track Team A's Jo Celso in the women's division both collecting a set of Dog Tags.
JTR enjoys an unfortunately brief but triumphant return to the big stage.
He and fellow Dog Tag holder Craig Streit crashed out early with mechanicals. photo by Hal Bergman

Samson Hatae captures the spoils of the battle a coveted Chrome Jersey and the Wolfpack Hustle Dog Tags.

Chas Christiansen, Walton Brush and Willo Juarez raging through the turn 3 whip in pursuit of Austin Horse who had a 4+ second break away for about 5 laps.

We know Rich Bartlett is a thinker because once upon a time he lead a very legendary Wolfpack A team from the east to the beach to handily defeat a field of 180 by 5 minutes. This time around we caught wind of his diabolical scheme to create static in the peloton.

- Best we can tell, this is the first ever criterium race that has ever surrounded City Hall.

With Jo Celso beginning to lap the field, it became a race for 2nd and 3rd between Kelli and Martha as seen in this photo by Warren Kommers.
THANK YOU
First and foremost we thank ALL of the athletes for putting their trust in our event. The event drew out not only some of the biggest names in urban cycling from around the country but titans from the sanctioned racing showed up in force as well. We were honored to host a good supply of Cat 1/2 and pro riders (both men and women) in the mix. With our unique qualifying format we believe we successfully integrated riders of varying experience together into a fun experience for all. Our complete thank you list appears below, but as usual the short list begins once again with Officer Gordon Helper of the LAPD who volunteered his time and seemed to have a bit too much fun this round clearing the course in his LAPD cruiser full sirens a blaze. This gave our race a huge element of safety whilst giving the crowd a wake up call that the races were about to begin. We thank Councilmember Jose Huizar for once again supporting us and providing his excellent staff including Miguel Vargas to help move this titanic operation through city process. A big HUGE hug and thank you to our producer / spotlight writer Sara Bond who spent hours and hours and hours investigating the lives of all these fine athletes and crafting words to bring their stories to us. We found out through her voice what we always knew, that these are not your typical "sports jocks"... The lives of these athletes entail so much more than kicking ass on bikes. Among them, artists and creatives, family people, world travelers and conscious souls. Cycling attracts critical thinking minds to it's ranks and we are proud to be a part of this movement. We thank Gern Trowbridge and John Laharr who accomplished the seemingly impossible task of managing course set-up within a 2 hour window. We thank Keiron Menzies of Ride The Black Line our racing spiritual adviser who knows the field and helped us separate the qualifying heats into compatible groups. We thank Dorothy Wong and Jeff Herring of SoCal Cross for their expertise in conducting race events. We thank David Trimble of Red Hook Crit for advice and routing ideas (you can thank him for the hairpins.) We thank 2 time cycling Olympian Adam Duvendeck for bringing out the panoscan camera and capturing the photo finish which itself is a work of art that will be framed on the HQ studio wall ASAP. We thank Donnie Walker for yet again providing excellent driving skills for camera and pace car maneuvering. Patrick Trickmills Miller for providing the sounds. Norma and Lauren for merch duties and all of our vendors on vendor row for providing food and entertainment to the audience. Dennis "the Coach" Gonzalez for the traditional Vespa Scooter duties. ..
Stunt driver and official pace car2go operator Donnie Walker with Ace Carretero getting read for the start. photo by Samson Hatae

WE STILL HAVE T-SHIRTS!!



THE ARTISTS / PHOTOGRAPHERS / FILMMAKERS
We thank all of the talented artists and photographers who came out with their cameras and recorders to document this race with compelling photos and video. We saw familiars like Mr. Warren Kommers, Mr. Ace Carretero, Mr. Hal Bergman and Mikey Wally.... but I got dizzy posting the barrage of photo galleries posted by all kind of talented people such as Samson Hatae, Rafael Hernandez, Macaframa Colin and so many more. Check our FaceBook page for a full list. Here are a few highlight galleries:PHOTOGRAPHY
Warren Kommers - flickr.com/photos... Hal Bergman: halbergman.com/projects/cvcctrcrit... Samson Hatae: samsonkhatae.com/wolfpack-criterium-2013... Rafael Hernandez: flickr.com/photos.... Rob Rovira: flickr.com/photos.... Sean Denny: flickr.com/photos.... Serena Grace: flickr.com/photos.... Nicolas Gonzalez: flickr.com/photos.... SWRVE: facebook.com/media... Pingbong: http://www.flickr.com/photos...
..VIDEOS:
from TRAFIK Timothy Hayes: Richard Agcamaran: Rafael Hernandez Victor Hernandez: State Bicycle Co. Team: GSS Qualifying Lap: ..THE VOLUNTEERS
We especially thank the many many many volunteers who spent the day care-taking, sweeping, route marshaling, cleaning, picking trash and whatever else needed to get done to make this event go off and come to a close. Once again, the place was left spot-less. Without the volunteers, we are nothing... What makes these events so fun and successful is that the people who are working the event are people from the community who have a passion for this and WANT to help further the community and sport of cycling. We have a full list of all the volunteers who worked on this in the credits after the jump, if you volunteered and did not get a shirt or are not in the credits PLEASE contact us immediately and I will correct. THANK YOU.OUR PARTNERS
A huge thank you goes out to our presentation partners Chrome and Red Bull. Both brands have been extremely supportive and were the ones who've made all of this possible. When we work with brand partners, we look for ways to implement their services into our event to provide value to the athletes and the audience. Our newest partner car2go provided unbelievable value as our official pace car2go. Those little electric smart cars were eco-friendly and made a huge impact in getting lapped riders safely off the course and out of the way of the steam rolling pelotons and break a-ways. Not to mention it was DAMN fun to ride in those itty biddy cars. Surprisingly roomy for a big guy like myself! We thank Aventón bikes for supplementing additional trainers and shade structures to compliment the water, fruit and warm up equipment provided by the City Grounds Athlete Zone in shady grassy City Hall South lawn.... Thanks to these key partners the athletes got a good bit of pampering as they so deserve. Last but not least we thank Mr. Thomas Forsyth for his un-waivering support of the bicycle community and our organization. We gave away all 1000 of his commemorative spoke cards with the collision commandments right on the back. Thank you to Bobby Endo for making the beautiful champion kits for the winners and the Wolfpack Hustle kits for 2nd place. Who of you out there actually read all the way to this point? You are warrior. Now things are REALLY going to get interesting... This is the point in the series where the namesake Unified Title comes into play and we see both road and track series points merge into one FINALE battle, the Midnight Drag Race. This year it will be held on the historic 6th St. Bridge. Join us September 7th.CREDITS and THANK YOU LIST
(this list is INCOMPLETE please contact us with your name/duty if it's not listed here apologies in advance) Race Director: Don "Roadblock" Ward Producer / Spotlight writer: Sara Bond Course Director: Gern Trowbridge Special Spiritual Advisor / Scoring / Qualifier Official: Kieron Menzies at Ride the Black Line Timing: Dorothy Wong and Jeff Herring at SoCal Cross Course Production: John "Laharr" Aunedi / Gern Trowbridge LAPD Volunteer: Senior Lead Officer Gordon Helper Los Angeles City Sponsor: Councilman Jose Huizar Councilman Staff liaison: Miguel Vargas Steve Kelty, Mike Tunney, Pat Stahl at Red Bull Kenny Arimoto, Steve McCallion and the crew at Chrome Industries Mr. Thomas Forsyth Jianwei, Gus and Mike at Aventón Bikes Paul Ku at City Grounds William and Mike and the crew at car2go Bobby at Endo Customs Casey and Kei at The Seventh Letter Muriel and Matt at SWRVE Clothing Ace Carretero - Documentary Paige De Velo Chicken LEATHER Mikey Wally Norma Herrera and Lauren Robison / Merch DJ TrickMills DJ Alaska DJ JennyGirl - Soundbike Rick Johnson - Treatz N Beatz Nona Varnado - LA Bike Trains Donnie Walker - Stunt Driver Momma Hanako Moondance - registration Edson Palucha - registrationWarriors / Clean up / Set up / Marshals
Edwardo Jimenez Luis Herrera Stephen Tith Michael Winford Andrew Kim Eddie Palucha David Ortega Harold Duran Chris Freire Samson Hydar Kat Bear Manuel Hebron Carlos Sapon Steve Dominguez Daniel Romero Raul Rodriguez Kevin Romero Wesley Whiteman Kevin Alfaro Carlos Alfaro Tim Hayes Adrian Cruz Matt Chittun Jackson H. Gio Aguirre Bob Hydar Kevin Castillo Enrique Olvera Russell Smeall Hiroshi Omori Steve Blackburn John Farrell Paul Luna Brian Moreno Gerard White Omolara Abode Clarke Miranda Joaquin Morales Joseph Santos David Daghita Henry Mendez Jessica Caraballo Steve Carrasco Javier Chavez Anthony McNeal Nikko Garcia Francisco Gomez Stosha Hiroshi Omori Matthew Lopez Eric Torres Jonathan Nunez Nhorma Chacon Vicky Barboza Gibby Moran John Clark (Osnap) Greg Heining Gilbert Gutierrez Clarke Miranda Bev Weiss Albert Soto Greg Heining Cat Walshak Kelly Thompson Rosie Fatemi Jack Rabbit Sheena Bonner Squirrel Scouts The Angelopes
See you at the the Series FINALE: The Midnight Drag Race on the 6th St. Bridge Sign up for the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/120706148119820/



Todd Lyons competing in the only category that would accept him... freakbikes.

Warren Kommers captures a spectacular podium shot of men's road.

Women's road podium. Kathryn Donovan is reunited with Priscilla Calderon and introduced to Wolfpack Hustle Team A member and 3 time Dog Tag Champ Jo Celso.




Walton Brush wins the final race of the day with no one in sight.

The pace car2go was quite roomy actually thank you for asking every... single... lap... hahah photo by Matt Lingo
What’s the best time 0n the drag race?
Very Nice, very good, great job RoadBlock.
Thank You Bob. I really appreciate the support you are giving to these athletes.
I have placed an order for a t-shirt a week before the criterium and I have never revived it. How would I go about getting that shirt.
Hi John VERY sorry about the delay we had a computer crash and were not able to track orders while it was in the shop. The shirts are going out today.
Thank you Roadblock I apreciate it, do you need mailing information?
nope I have your order. Address in Ontario right?