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Fans returning to Little 500 for first time since 2019

Cyclists practice for the Little 500 bicycle race.

(Devan Ridgway/WTIU)

Pablo Fierst Garcia is a Bloomington kid, but he never attended a men’s Little 500 race until his freshman year at Indiana University.

“I had a friend in elementary school, middle school, high school whose sister actually rode,” Fierst Garcia said. “So, I went, I think starting in the sixth grade to the women’s race for a couple of years.”

After graduating from Bloomington North in 2018, Fierst Garcia joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, and went to his first men’s race.

And he was hooked.

He joined the team as a sophomore and trained all year for the 2020 race. Then COVID hit, and the university canceled the Little 500 for the first time since its inception in 1951.

“We had a senior on that team who was devastated,” Fierst Garcia said. “And, you know, it meant a lot to him, and for everyone out here. It was really sad for them.”

Last year, the men’s and women’s races were back on, but they took place in late May after school had ended. And had no fans.

“That was definitely weird,” said Olivia Rogers, a senior on the Alpha Chi Omega team that qualified second. “It felt like we were just at practice.”

So, for the first time since 2019, there will be fans in the stands for the Little 500 bicycle races. The women’s race is scheduled for Friday at 4 p.m., with the men racing Saturday at 2 p.m. The women’s race is 100 laps and 25 miles, half the distance of the men’s race.

“There will be a lot more adrenaline, a lot more energy,” Rogers said. “Quals were like a sample of what the actual race is going to be like, so I’m excited for that.”

Training for the race is an almost year-round effort. Fierst Garcia said his team averages around 150 to 200 hundred miles a week on bikes.

“We go on long rides in the summer and fall, enjoy the back roads around Bloomington,” the senior said. “Come winter and spring, we start seriously training. We get our Little 5 bikes and do some intervals.

“Some teams will travel down to Florida or somewhere warm and do some long rides, then get back here and head to the track. So, the intensity doesn’t really start until like January, February.”

READ MORE: History Through Headlines: The Inaugural Little 500

Those long rides around Bloomington are reminiscent of scenes from the movie Breaking Away. The Oscar-winning 1979 film focuses on four working-class kids from Bloomington who end up riding in – and winning – the Little 500.

It’s a film Fierst Garcia said he’s seen many times.

“I can I picture my head myself in that movie sometimes like riding around town,” he said.

Now, Fierst Garcia is picturing what it will be like to finally race in front of a crowd. Sigma Phi Epsilon finished third last year behind Jetblach and the Cutters. Sig Ep will start this year’s race from the fifth spot.

“I think I’ll get probably a little too excited at first and then settle in. Just hearing people in the stands, last year was silent, I could hear the teams across the track. But now I feel it’ll be like a coliseum.”

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