Judah Thompson’s face is covered in sweat. It drips from his hair to his forehead and straight down to the handlebars of his bike.
There’s no talking in the low-ceiling basement. The Hitachi 55-inch screen in the corner displays a broadcast of the 2025 Little 500 race. The pedaling is violent.
The 2026 edition is 84 days away. It may seem far. For Judah and the CUTTERS team, who have been training year-round, it’s almost nothing.
Judah drops his head and keeps driving his legs. He often goes nonverbal in intense workouts, whether it’s out on the streets or inside on the trainers.
The whirring of rollers cuts through the monotonous drum of the five fans. The basement’s air was once nippy. Now it’s heavy with perspiration, an unpleasant aroma.
CUTTERS is training in the “CUTTERS house,” the unofficial headquarters of the winningest team in Little 500 history. After close to five minutes of intense, breakneck pedaling, ragged breathing takes over. Only Judah, the team captain, says anything.
“Nice job, first set done!” he says to the other six riders.
The workout is meant to replicate the nature of a Little 500 race. Judah has raced in three of them, never finishing below third. He reached the mountaintop in 2023. He’s eying another ascent in 2026.
Judah still pedals, his mind a blank wash. There’s no thought of the pain in his legs. Or the insults he’s heard from CUTTERS’ haters. Or the previous Little 500 races.
All that’s in front of him is a wall — the one he’s determined to bike through.
•••
Judah, 21, refused to smile when he finished in third.
Standing atop the platform, holding the 2025 third-place trophy and dressed in the skin-tight pink and white kit, he didn’t even crack a grin. He felt no satisfaction.
He had placed one spot worse than last year. Two spots worse than the year before that.
Judah’s competitive drive has made him want to pursue biking professionally, and he’s already competed in the U23 Union Cycliste Internationale Road World Championships in fall 2025. It’s the reason why he wasn’t happy finishing third — it wasn’t first. And yet, it took him until his junior year of high school to start taking racing seriously, even though it enveloped his childhood.
Judah’s father, Paul Thompson, cycled in the Bloomington community. Jim Kirkham, CUTTERS’ head coach since 1997, knew Paul. In fact, Kirkham said everyone in the regional cycling community knew him.
Even though he loved biking, Paul never pushed Judah to bike competitively when he was younger. One of his first cycling memories was sitting on the back of Paul’s bike as his father rode through the hills of Indiana. Often, the rides would lull Judah to sleep. But swimming was Judah’s sport for 14 years, and he enjoyed it up through his senior year of high school.
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic quarantined people across the nation, Judah, then a junior in high school, picked up a bike. There was nothing for him to do other than be inside or be outside by himself, and the latter allowed for cycling.
Riding bikes quickly became Judah’s passion. He traveled the Midwest with a local team he helped start with a friend. He spent time with the Black Key Bulls squad his junior year, joining them for rides and hangouts. He also visited Phi Gamma Delta during a rush event before his first semester of college to inspect the setup of a fraternity team.
But Judah’s heart lay with CUTTERS. He met Torin Kray-Mawhorr, a veteran rider who led CUTTERS to victory in 2023, in summer 2020, and the two clicked right away. As a hometown Bloomington kid, one who swam in the quarries just like the characters in “Breaking Away,” Judah’s fit with CUTTERS seemed perfect to Kirkham.
There was no coaxing. There was no elevator pitch or intense recruitment. Kirkham needed people on the roster who wanted to be there.
That was Judah.
•••
Early on, Kirkham’s vets, including Kray-Mawhorr, identified Judah as a natural.
Judah was eager. He was strong. He had experience. But a successful Little 500 rider required more than that.
“Having that natural talent can disguise the fact that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing because you can just pedal hard,” Kirkham laughed. “So, Judah still had some stuff to learn because his natural reflex was just to pedal hard.”
Stress consumed Judah his freshman year. It grew partly from his need to prove himself.
During that time, he often awoke from night terrors, spotting a figure either in the corner of his room or standing over him. “Get the fuck off me,” he would scream before kicking, punching and sometimes running out of the room.
His heartbeat would intensify, pounding, but after a couple of minutes, he’d return to bed.
Judah doesn’t get the nightmares that often anymore. He attributed the change to numerous factors, including cutting out drinking and meeting his girlfriend, Sophie Boller.
After the 2023 qualifications, Judah’s night didn’t end until 3 or 4 a.m. The night of the 2026 qualifications was much different.
“Everybody was in bed by 10 p.m. that night,” Boller said. “Hung out with a couple of cyclists and stuff and stopped by the bars — no drinking involved.”
Judah doesn’t feel that stress anymore. The ego has separated from the confidence, he said, which came with both time and strong race results. Now, the internal pressure for results no longer weighs him down.
It doesn’t mean complacency has seeped in. Judah has been striving for the top spot ever since he tasted it, and he isn’t ready to stop now, ahead of his final Little 500 race. If anything, the confidence has only grown.
“When I get on the track, you’re gonna see the greatest Little Fiver of all time,” Judah said to his coaches recently.
Judah doesn’t need many motivators. The euphoric feeling of victory is something he couldn’t describe. It’s what he’s after this spring.
However, Judah isn’t sacrificing anything within himself to achieve that goal. He’s still the goofy friend off the bike who cracks jokes and keeps things light.
When freshman CUTTERS rider Leo Nelson crashed his bike on a practice qualification race, just four days before the real one, Kirkham raced to Nelson to make sure he was OK. Judah stood and watched with his other teammates, chiming in only seconds after the gasps subsided.
“I guess Leo found his speed limit,” Judah joked.
Nelson said Judah is fun to hang out with. He finds the fun in things, the freshman added. Jacob Koone, a CUTTERS teammate, considers him one of his best friends.
“He’s just all smiles from when we first met,” Koone said.
On the bike, Judah’s a different animal.
•••
Kirkham leans forward during a team breakfast Feb. 13 at The Inkwell Bakery & Cafe and looks at one of Judah’s teammates.
“Jake, I have a trick question,” Kirkham says. “How many laps is Little Five?”
“One,” senior Jake Zarov responds.
“Yes, that’s the answer,” Kirkham says. “One lap at a time.”
This mindset is part of what Kirkham has brought to CUTTERS since joining as a rider in 1990. He became the head coach ahead of the 1997 edition when the team held a modest four championships.
CUTTERS now have 15.
Kirkham’s teaching style is what he dubs the “CUTTERS process.” It starts the day after the Little 500 race each year. A summer circuit aims to get riders to grow or improve through unstructured training. The fall semester welcomes back old riders and new ones.
Then training intensifies around New Year’s. CUTTERS often takes a training trip to the Austin, Texas, area during winter break, which allows the riders to bond, train and focus on the Little 500.
It’s a different season entirely when the track opens in the spring, Kirkham said, one that requires remembering the basics of riding on a track for veterans or learning those basics for rookies.
Each year often features a different set of riders. Sometimes Kirkham has dealt with four rookies; other times, he’s fielded four senior riders. The CUTTERS process doesn’t change. It’s why Kirkham believes CUTTERS has found success, along with his consistent presence in Bloomington.
It’s not about the trophy for Kirkham, and he hopes his riders believe that, too. He wants his athletes to know the time spent during the season wasn’t wasted.
This isn’t to say Kirkham doesn’t care about winning. His new motivation tactic includes giving matchboxes with five matches inside to each CUTTERS rider. Each match represents a spring series — qualifications, Individual Time Trials, Miss N Out, Team Pursuit and the Little 500 race. The team burns one after every event.
But ultimately, it all comes back to the CUTTERS process.
Judah loves the process — the life skills he’s made, the friendships he’s fostered and the self-discovery he’s undergone.
Kray-Mawhorr could have predicted Judah would fit the CUTTERS mold very early on. He saw himself in Judah, a hard-working freshman with a “sponge” approach to learning. Judah sees the same now with Leo Nelson, a freshman rider also from Bloomington.
Judah had the talent in his first year, but he wanted to be better. He wanted to be the best. No CUTTERS rider had ever won four Little 500 races, and Judah knew that. It was a record he wanted to break. He wanted those four wins to cement his legacy.
CUTTERS didn’t win in 2024 or 2025. Judah can’t break the record or even tie it. But as a four-year rider, two-time captain and two-time All-Star Rider, Judah’s still hunting for another victory.
•••
Judah rounded turn four and spotted the white flag that signaled the final lap of the race. He reached the tough yet rational conclusion — CUTTERS wouldn’t be winning the 2024 Little 500.
That didn’t stop Judah from using every last bit of energy left in the tank. He was about seven seconds behind Will Wagner of BKB, who was in the lead, when he finished the 199th lap. When Judah crossed the finish line past the checkered flag, he was only three seconds behind, securing a second-place finish for CUTTERS.
It didn’t make it any better.
“I remember coming around turn four and seeing Wagner put his hands up,” Judah said. “And then you come across the finish line, and you’re like, ‘fuck.’”
He slowly pedaled back to the pit, tears already forming in his eyes. Sadness and disappointment floated within him, but guilt was the emotion that consumed him.
Guilt because it was his job to finish the race. Guilt because he had the capabilities and control to win the race. Guilt because he finished second, so close to doing so.
CUTTERS wasn't the top team that year, nor the favorites, and Judah knew that. It didn’t make the result feel any better.
The season was the definition of a learning experience. In only one year, Judah went from soaking up Kray-Mawhorr’s expertise to becoming the rider everyone relied on. It was scary, he admitted, and it wasn’t something he wanted.
But it didn’t matter whether he wanted it or not. It was his role all the same. He just needed some self-belief and the help of his teammates to fulfill the honor.
“It's nice to see other people look at you that way,” Judah said. “Like having Leo, Jake and Jacob have that belief that I had in Torin put on me — that gives me confidence and self-belief.”
Judah attacked his summer training hard with the taste of defeat still in his mouth. He returned to his bike the day after his race. There was no time for dwelling on the disappointment.
But no matter the amount of training, the hours spent on the bicycle and the thoughts dedicated to the Little 500, the disappointment of another failed success story came all the same. CUTTERS finished third in 2025 — good for some, but not this team.
From the outside, pressure is higher for CUTTERS than for most other teams. Competing for titles is an expectation.
Opposing fans frequently jeer and boo Judah and his teammates. He said he’s received “rage bait” comments on Little 500 Instagram posts and faced his fair share of insults from CUTTERS’ haters. He doesn’t care about them. If anything, it brings him an extra ounce of motivation.
But Judah’s pressure is only internal. He knows his teammates, coaches and alumni want him to win the race. He wants to do the same for them.
Over the course of his four years at IU, this sentiment hasn’t changed. Yet, Judah has matured in that time, and his mentality surrounding the race has too.
“There's life after victory — or life after victory and life after defeat,” Kirkham said, “and Judah’s kind of learning those things, you know?”
When he got on stage to accept the 2025 third-place trophy, Judah didn’t smile. He still isn’t satisfied with the result, but he regrets not handling that situation differently.
“The sun comes up the next day, and it’s not that deep,” Judah said. “I fought as hard as I can to get back up, and it didn’t happen. Whatever. And there’s a lot of teams that would gladly take third place.”
It’s now about more than wins and losses. Yes, Judah intends to secure CUTTERS’ 16th victory April 25. But he also wants to cement his legacy as someone who left a positive impact within CUTTERS and the broader Little 500 community.
He wants to be remembered.
•••
Little 500 qualifications are high stakes. Failure leads to tears; success to unrestrained jubilation.
Anxiety fills the air, only cut out by the frequent chants and cheers from fraternities and sororities. Riders often look tense and rigid as they walk around Jerry Yeagley Field at Bill Armstrong Stadium on March 28 to pass through the several checkpoints before their qualifications run.
Judah couldn’t be more different.
He jumps up and down a couple of times as he walks with his team to the start line, his CUTTERS parka billowing in the wind. He skips back and forth across a 10-yard distance, waving to some friends and family in the stands. Through it all, a smile is etched across his face.
It doesn’t leave, even as he hops on his bike and races around the track to kick off CUTTERS' qualification run. As he hops off the bike, his smile remains. He sticks out his tongue and bends over, visibly panting. It’s his last qualification trial; he might as well leave it all out there.
But when Zarov gets off the bike half a minute later, Judah is upright, ready to hype him up with two big high fives. He congratulates Koone when his run is done. As Nelson sprints through the finish line, securing first place and pole position, Judah jumps up and down, laughing and cheering.
After the commotion dies down, almost half an hour after the triumph, the four riders and Kirkham retreat to their alcove between Bill Armstrong Stadium and the Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex.
As they huddle together, Kirkham gives each rider a matchbox. There’s a message on both sides, specially printed for this moment. One side lists the five events in black font on yellow paper. The other side says:
“We are not here to play it safe. We are here to burn the place down.”
Judah lights his match. He watches his flame flicker in the sun.
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