4 podiums in 5 races: Maggie Coles-Lyster is just getting started
The Canadian taking the USA Cycling Pro Road Tour by storm
Photo by:
Catherine Kim/@cottonsox_photo
After a whirlwind two weeks, Maggie Coles-Lyster is back in Salt Lake City, Utah, where her team DNA Pro Cycling is based. Competing in five races over two weekends, the 22-year-old Canadian podiumed four times. It’s an impressive number, but it checks out—the young cyclist’s career has been tracking steadily upwards since 2017, when she became Canada’s first-ever junior world champion in track cycling in 2017, winning gold in the points race a day after winning silver in the omnium.
Following a year of pandemic race cancellations, Coles-Lyster moved down to the States last month where she has explosively returned to competition with the USA Cycling Pro Road Tour.
Armed Forces
Apart from one track race in Belgium, the opening race of the Arlington, Virginia Armed Forces Association Cycling Classic (the Crystal City Cup on June 5) was the first time Coles-Lyster had raced since Jan. 2020. It was also the first time the women on her team had competed together. “It was so fun racing with the team for the first time,” she says. “We executed a plan super well and it basically came down to missing the jump slightly in the last quarter.” Still, Coles-Lyster managed to sprint to second place, finishing just behind L39ion of Los Angeles’ Kendall Ryan.
Day two of the Armed Forces Cycling Classic, Coles-Lyster stepped it up and crossed the line first, winning the Clarendon Cup and the Women’s Omnium for the weekend. “Second place is awesome,” she said, “but it’s amazing the difference between second and winning. Suddenly everyone knows who you are.”
Three days in Tulsa
The following weekend involved three days of racing. “It was my first Tulsa Tough and I’d heard stories about it,” says Coles-Lyster, “but actually getting there and racing that…there’s nothing—I mean, in Canada we have BC Super Week and it’s kind of comparable—but it’s basically one big party for three days.”
Thousands of spectators, humid 40-degree temperatures and three back-t0-back days of racing made for an eventful weekend in Oklahoma. The first race, Blue Dome, was a fast Friday night criterium. Coles-Lyster came second, finishing behind Skylar Schneider of L39ion of Los Angeles. She says Schneider and Ryan are the strongest crit racers in North America: “they’re the two to beat.” Between the three of them, Coles-Lyster, Schneider and Ryan have had 12 podium results in the first five races of the USA Cycling Pro Road Tour.
On Saturday, the second Tulsa Arts District Criterium went a bit differently.
“We raced so amazingly,” says Coles-Lyster. “We had control of the race the entire time. We followed moves, we were just so ‘on’ and communicating everything. It was so good. Then, on the last two laps, one teammate crashed. She hit pretty hard but she’s okay.”
On the final lap, coming down the hill into the final corner, another teammate, Coles-Lyster’s leadout, crashed. “She crashed, like, right beside me. It really nasty crash. I still followed the plan and I was the first round that corner, but I came in a little too hot, hit a little bit of gravel on the outside and just lost traction and crashed.”
“It was a lot for racing such an incredible race and then the last two laps having that happen. Three of us hitting the deck was pretty traumatic. But, I mean, we’re all okay. All but one of us raced the next day. It could have been a lot worse, obviously.”
The final race of the series, the River Parks Criterium, features the infamous Crybaby Hill. The climb is filled with hundreds of enthusiastic spectators engaging in what the official Tulsa Tough website describes as “mostly SFW debauchery.”
“It’s one giant party, everyone’s drinking or drunk,” says Coles-Lyster. A mud fight was happening at the top of the hill causing mud to run down the road. “If you look at pictures we’re all covered head to toe in mud. It’s just things happening all around you, when you’re going up you’re kind of just in the zone, but people are throwing beer on you and throwing water.”
“It’s such a fast course, on the backside and going into that final corner, but I really liked it.”
Once again Coles-Lyster finished second just behind Schneider. “Skyler just got me in the sprint, but it was a pretty sweet way to come back after Saturday and finish off the weekend.”
American criteriums
Currently, DNA Pro Cycling is first in the USA Crit Series rankings. “Everyone on the team is racing so strong and so well,” says Coles-Lyster.” It gives me a lot of confidence moving forward into the rest of the season this way. You train for a year during the pandemic and you know you’re strong, your numbers show you’re strong or like improving, but you just have no idea where you’re actually up until you’re out there racing everyone again.”
“I think this past year was kind of a blessing in disguise for me because I’d never had a long endurance block between track and road. Coming out of junior I never really had a chance to build that up, because it was race after race after race. Having that past year to just work on my base and endurance was really good for me.”
For now, Coles-Lyster plans to keep a balance between focusing on racing track and criteriums, which she says compliment each other well. She’ll also be taking on some stage races later in the season. In the coming years, she hopes to race the Classics, which, as a sprinter, she says are a big goal for her. “I would love to see where I land in that kind of racing.”
