During the Dairy Festival weekend in Eatonton (June 3-4), the Georgia State Championship Cycling Festival also came to town.
It was especially exciting for the family of Dylan Lindsey who competed in both the criterium race and the road race. Lindsey is from Eatonton and attends Piedmont University in Demorest, where he’s a member of its collegiate cycling team.
The first race of the weekend was Saturday’s criterium, which is a closed, looped circuit held on public streets. In this case, the starting line was in front of The Plaza Arts Center. From there, the race circled from the front of The Plaza to West Harris Street, then turned right onto North Lafayette Avenue, then right onto Church Street, and back onto South Madison Avenue.
The race lasted nearly an hour, with Senoia’s Caleb Landgrebe taking first place in a time of 54:03.06. Jos Chalmers and Forrest Howard finished almost side by side with Chalmers finishing one second ahead. Lindsey finished in seventh place with a time of 54:24.0, just 21 seconds back of the winner.
The final race of the weekend took place the following day. The road race traveled from Rock Lane near Putnam County Middle School to Oconee Springs Road, to Pea Ridge Road, then Crooked Creek Road and Wilson Road before and eventually back to the middle school.
One lap equaled a grueling 14 miles with hills and slopes along the way adding to the difficulty. The road race lasted nearly an hour and a half for the top finishers, this time Chalmers took the top spot in a time of 3:22.35.1. Howard and Skyler Diacou rounded out the top three on the podium. Landgrebe placed fifth in the road race.
Lindsey and 11 other racers did not finish on Sunday, with Lindsey forced to drop out after about two hours and 15 minutes.
Overall, the 2023 Georgia State Championship Cycling Festival provided a great introduction to criterium and road race bicycling to the Eatonton-Putnam County community and with this being the first of a three-year commitment to the region by the Georgia Bicycle Racing Association there’s more to come.