My favorite highlight from the Road Circuit Training day: These wonderful racers from Australia, Japan, Estonia, and Poland agreeing to take Snapchat selfies with me! Thanks guys!!

It’s definitely an exciting week in RVA as the worlds have literally come together smack-dab in the middle of VCU campus. Today was the last training day for the UCI Road World Championships before the races officially begin on Friday at 10am with the Women’s Junior Road Circuit. If you haven’t made it out to see these bicyclists in action yet, this weekend is the time to finally do so! History is being made in Richmond this week and it’s certainly an event you don’t want to miss! Be sure to follow Richmond2015.com for event details, times, and courses.

Here are some pictures from today’s UCI Road Circuit Training

Photo credit: Me and my trusty iPhone 4s

Name: Antonio Pingitore

Hometown: Buena Vista, Colorado

Occupation: Retired/“Trying to maintain my 14 year old body”

Antonio Pingitore traveled approximately 1,746 miles by RV to Richmond Virginia solely for the UCI Road World Championships. He’s of Italian descent, born and raised in Chicago but is currently from Buena Vista Colorado, and has a passion for bicycle racing. He’s followed racing for the past 40 years and at 74.5 years young, that’s over half his life. He raced for a long time, but now only rides for fitness. Not only is Antonio an avid bicyclist, but for 25 years he had also competed in Nordic Ski racing competitions. When asked what his occupation is, he responded, “trying to maintain my 14-year-old body.” And with his intense bicycling and fitness habits, I’d say he’s definitely doing the job! But before retiring, Antonio lived a life of service as a firefighter and in the U.S. Navy. Furthermore, he was also a master electrician for 45 years. Even though we only spoke for a moment, I had the greatest pleasure meeting Antonio and hearing about his love for bicycling. He’s excited to explore Richmond, but is of course even more excited for the week ahead.

Women’s Elite Time Trial at the UCI Road World Championships #TheWorldsAtVCU #Richmond2015

Hi! I’m Lauren, an RVA native and senior at VCU studying Strategic Advertising in the Mass Communications department. I signed up for this course as a way to dip my toes in journalism a bit, and with the world coming to RVA for the bike race, it seemed like an exciting time to take this class!

Outside of academics, I’m heavily involved with my sorority on campus, have a deep love for theater and the arts, volunteer with a local nonprofit, and work as a nanny after school during the week. Fairly recently, I was a social media intern for a non-profit and scholarship program called Project Yellow Light and am excited to dive into the social networking portion of this course!

I’m definitely not a bicyclist and haven’t owned a bike since the 10th grade. So with that said, my bicycling knowledge is next to none, but I’m looking forward to learning about the culture of it as the UCI Road World Championships come to good old RVA.

As far as social media goes: I use Instagram and Facebook on the regular, I use Twitter to lurk on various accounts, have dabbled on Tumblr, wasted many hours on Pinterest, and use Snapchat to send my friends generally embarrassing and rather unimportant pictures.

Cheers to a fun semester with Crowdsourcing the Worlds in RVA!