On May 30th, we packed up the car and headed to Long Beach for the 2015 Wolfpack Hustle Shortline Crit. The team has had success in the Wolfpack Hustle Series in the past, so we were especially excited to kick off the 2015 series with this crit. Wolfpack Hustle awards series points for best Male, Female, and Team for the year and with points on the line, Team State Bicycle Co. was ready to ride.

The day started off with qualifiers, which also meant lots of waiting and lots of time on the trainers. Here you can see Reiley and Chanel in the Rider Signature Bibs and Chanel on the VeloVie Vecteur 100.

Scott and Addison warm up. Addison's bars are custom made by our rider Hern Montenegro (MMFG) who does carbon fabrication and repair.

Erica warms up. She participated in two races on the day, the women's Track and Road bike categories.

Not only did we have our Race Team out representing, but also some of our very own employees! Our CS / Sales manager Melissa is warming up with Erica in the photo above. Here's James, one of our customer service reps, in qualifying - click on the "Live Chat" at the bottom of your screen and ask him how the race was :)

Erica takes a turn during women's Track qualifiers on the 6061 Black Label frame with Essor Carbon fork.

Andrew hammers through qualifying. Since this was his first Wolfpack event, he had to qualify separately from the rest of the A team. He qualified mid-pack but eventually flatted out during the main event. We're excited for the rest of Andrew's season. He is coming off of a 3rd place Collegiate National finish and feeling fit!

Addison leads the charge for Men's qualifying. Addison and Scott put up the 1st and 3rd fastest times during the qualifying laps. The first race of the day was Women's Road. New addition to the team, Reiley Pankratz, ended up getting our first podium of the day too, finishing in 2nd Place!

Cody awaits the Men's Road Bike race.

We had an extra spot on the Men's Road team so we invited our friend Cheman to come ride with us. I think he was pretty stoked.

Thomas being Thomas. Michael being Michael.

The men's road field with Michael, Craig, and Thomas up front. Craig took the first prime lap.

Last year's winner, Brian Forbes, stole the Men's Road Bike show, taking 3 primes and the eventual race. He and Wolfpack rider Zach Morvant stayed away from the field in a two-man breakaway for over 10+ laps. State riders, Craig Streit and Michael Dziedzic, ended up taking 3rd and 4th place with team mates Rob Alvarez and Thomas Keating finishing 7th and 15th respectively. Needless to say, we were very happy with how the men did in the road race!

Erica was our sole representative in the Women's Track Bike race and had a strong performance gaining 14 points towards our Overall Team Standings.

The Men's Track race was definitely the "main event" of the evening with 85 of the fastest riders going head-to-head. Our goal was to stay at the front and be aggressive. Here Michael Dziedzic rounds the corner ahead of the field on one of our early attacks.

The attacks continued with Scott and Addison breaking away for 2 laps.

The guys showed awesome team work to extend their lead on the field but eventually got brought back. Their faces show the effort.

Scott provided some on board GoPro footage with commentary that is worth the watch! Gives you a genuine idea of how intense this race was.

According to Scott's Strava, the Men's field averaged about 28.4 mph with a top speed of 39.1 mph! Crazy fast!

The final sprint was won by Edgardo Richiez, from Puerto Rico, edging out State rider Addison Zawada (2nd place). The rest of the team landed high up in the points with Craig taking 5th, Scott - 7th, Michael 15th and Thomas 22nd; contributing to a BIG score in the Overall Team Standings.

Putting 4 riders on the podium in 1 night is definitely a reason to celebrate!





For the 5th year in a row, the coveted Dog Tags come back to Arizona!

The current standings

Craig and I shared some post-race thoughts after the cool-down lap. Couldn't be more proud of the team's performance and couldn't have any more praise for how smoothly, safely and well-organized the race was. Thank you Don aka Roadblock for putting this on! Next up, the Wolfpack Hustle Civic Center Crit August 15th!

Words by Team Director - Mehdi Farsi

Photos by Julio Bustamante , Rafael Hernandez , and Manny Hebron

Check out all of the members of the State Bicycle Co. Riding Team right here

Austin Esposito did a great recap video below: