A normal week for riders

For the riders, this is just a normal week. There will be no mourning of a race-to-be like last year, when the race was canceled altogether.

“It would be another story if there would have been a race and there’s no race at all,” senior Jazz Briggs, a rider for Chi Alpha, said. “I’m sure we would be all together crying.”

When the race was canceled last year, teams found ways to commemorate the race and its history. RideOn, for example, biked a century, one mile for each lap in the women’s race.

But Jess Hamilton, a senior rider for Alpha Xi Delta, said teams won’t want to do that this year. The race is still happening, just being pushed back a month, and any excessive work would throw off bikers’ training regimes.

“Last year was more upsetting, and I think most people would agree with that,” Hamilton said. “We spent the whole year training, and we were under the impression that we would have a normal race for the whole year, and then it was kinda last minute that it was pulled out from under us.”

Instead, April 24 and the week leading up to it will not be treated as anything other than another week of training.

Briggs said normally he’d spend the week focusing on eating right and getting sleep.

“I feel a little bit less stressed,” Briggs said. “It probably would be a little more stressful. Our team would be meeting much more.”

Although Briggs is a senior, he’s also a rookie. Last year would’ve been his first race, so he’s still trying to determine what a normal race week routine would look like.

At most, a group of riders will spend Friday taking the same action as normal — the donut ride, a social ride where teams can interact and eat pastries.

“This week is just kind of insignificant for riders,” Hamilton said. “It’s just turning into another normal week of training, another week before the real race.”

Hamilton said her team will be at the track twice a week until the race comes.

Students’ adjusted expectations

Many students said they were disappointed the race has been postponed until May when they will be home for the summer. Especially with IU’s increase in vaccinations, some were hoping they could attend the race in person.

This year’s race has been moved to a virtual broadcast format, but some students said they were still hoping IU would’ve allowed in-person attendance, as more of the community received vaccinations.

“If students are fully vaccinated, they should be able to go to the race,” IU sophomore Leon Good said.

The race was canceled last year due to initial shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic. Because students were required to remain home for the rest of the previous spring semester, Good, like other sophomore students, has not attended a Little 500 race yet.

“I feel like I’m missing out on a huge part of being here,” Good said.

The Little 500 race is an IU tradition, with more than 25,000 fans coming out in years past, according to the IUSF website.

“I think why a lot of students go is also for the experience, to talk to people and be involved with the student community,” IU sophomore Ismael Garcia said.

Like Good, Garcia has never attended a Little 500 race. Garcia said he heard how popular this event is to IU students and the Bloomington community even before coming to IU. He was hoping that with the roll-out of vaccinations at IU, he could still possibly attend the race this year.

“I’m definitely going to go if they have an in-person race next year,” Garcia said.

Expected partying rates

The Little 500 race has been widely called “the greatest college week in America.”

“A much more common mindset during Little 500 is to party Monday-Sunday as much as you can,” Rachel Hartog, a writer for We Are IU, wrote in 2018.

Many students are expected to still party, IU Police Department Deputy Chief Shannon Bunger said.

“If the weather is nice, we would expect an uptick in parties and we are preparing for that scenario with extra officers patrolling all weekend to help ensure the safety of all of our students, faculty, staff and visitors,” Bunger said.

Students have been having parties at similar rates as they were prior to the pandemic, Bunger said. Bunger said IUPD usually receives about five or six reports about partying each weekend. This has not changed since the start of the pandemic, he said.

[Related: IU students party, violate Bloomington 15-person limit on gatherings]

It’s likely students will continue having parties like they would normally during the Little 500 weekend, Bunger said.