CU Cleans up at Nationals!
2012-05-10
Summer's finally here - and that means CU Short Track is back! Every Wednesday as usual at the Research Park. We have some good stuff planned for it this summer, as well as for the upcoming track and mountain season, so be sure to stay tuned. For now, lets revel in our glory at Road Nationals, shall we?!
The CU Team has been getting a lot of press coverage after a great weekend in Ogden, Utah. Collegiate teams from all over the country came to race their hearts out, but the powerhouses as usual, were Marian, Fort Lewis, Stanford and us. It all started with some great foreshadowing on the TTT course on Antelope Island. Several racers tweeted pictures of them practicing with the buffalo out roaming around, USA Cycling even commented on how we brought a ton of mascots with us.
In the TTT, the women were amazing on the rolling 35km course, taking 2nd only to Marian College. The men struggled a bit more but still had a great time to claim 7th place. This was just the beginning. Both men and women's teams worked really well together, chasing moves, claiming some prime points, and setting up a sprint. Heather Fischer took 4th and Christa Ghent 6th in the mass sprint. Claire Bensard was up there with an impressive 14th as well. Mac Cassin led out Josh Yeaton, who laid it all out and won by a few bike lenghts!
The final day was a long road race, mostly around a lake, with a huge hill following a fast descent at the end. Again, some great teamwork by Abby, Christa, Nicolle, Claire and Megan were able to drop Heather off for the final climb. She flew up, and took some risks coming down too, eventually winning with an amazing 2-minute margin! Claire, Abby and Christa continued to fight for points, taking 12th, 15th and 16th.
Teamwork continued to be the theme for the Men's road race, where Mac, Jeff and Will got into an early break. At some point, (no one is quite sure when or how, Josh decided to bridge up, no big deal. The guys then got him to the climb fast, where he worked his magic, and took another win, 30 seconds over 2nd place!. Jeff wasn't too far at 5th, Camillo at 14th, and Mac at 17th.
All scored and totaled, we were everywhere on the omnium standings:
| * Heather Fischer - 2nd | * Josh Yeaton - 1st |
| * Christa Ghent - 6th | * Jeff Perrin - 5th |
| * Claire Bensard - 11th | * Mac Cassin - 12th |
| * Abby Mickey - 20th |
This ammounted to the team taking 2nd place! Marian College took the overall by a mere 30 points, with a score of 570. You can read more about Nationals from CU Club Sports and at the Daily Camera. Everyone around the country knew we'd be competitive, but now they realize, we're a force to be reckoned with.
2012 RMCCC Road Champions!
2012-04-24
We took a huge team of 36 riders to Fort Lewis this weekend, everyone ready to race hard at the Conference Championships. And race hard they did! With more great results across the board, our fast 2-wheeled Buffalos have won the conference!
It started off a little hectic, with some running around with Avis and Enterprise. A big thanks to Rocky Mounts for lending us the trailer, but with how big our team was, we really had to pack the bikes in there tightly. If we keep on growing the way we have this season, we'll need to start getting bigger trailers.
After a long drive through beautiful scenery and some questionable music, the team got some tacos from Nini's Taqueria and a good night sleep at the Super 8. Saturday morning marked the Team Time Trial - a 13 mile rolling course south of town. Everyone was flying on it - The Men's C's team won, the Men's B's took 2nd by a mere 3 seconds, the Women's A's won by nearly 2 minutes, and the Men's A's flew through the course in under 25 minutes for another win.
The Men's C's went straight from the TTT to downtown Durango for their early crit, a 1/2-mile course with 6 turns with a short and steep kicker. Their races usually start off pretty relaxed for the first few laps, but as the men approached the starting line, an entertaining conversation could be overheard between Josh Garland and Jeremy Besmer:
| Jeremy: | I'm gonna light it up. Attacking right from the start. | |
| Josh: | Is that so? | |
| Jeremy: | Yep. I just want to make everyone hurt. | |
| Josh: | Oh really? | |
| Jeremy: | Yeah, man, I'm goin'. I'm gonna attack as soon as that ref says go. | |
| Josh: | Alright buddy... |
And then Jeremy took off, strung out the field for the first several laps, shattering most of the field. Josh barely hung on at the back, finishing 12th of the initial 22, and Jeremy ended up taking 4th. After the finish, Josh came up to Jeremy, and Jeremy just had one thing to say - "I told you I was going to attack!" National level mountain bikers Katie Sodergren and Jill Behlen (Wyoming) broke away from the rest of the Women's B field, until CU's Jess Bobeck got a burst of energy and caught up to them. Katie and Jess took 1st and 3rd for CU. Matt Hudson took 2nd in the crit for the Men's B's, and Josh Yeaton had a really strong sprint out of 5th for the win in the Men's A's. In the Women's A's, Heather Fischer and Sarah Sturm (FLC) broke away just like at Air Force, only this time Heather made sure to save a sprint for the end to beat Sarah. Abby Mickey, Christa Ghent and Claire Bensard took 3rd, 4th and 5th too. Gordon Thomson captured some great video of the Men's A's Crit.
Thompson also got video of the Women's A's Road Race on Sunday. This featured their classic campus loop - 5.5 miles of false flat uphill, steep descents, and a 3/4 mile steep and winding climb up 8th Avenue to the finish, along which the FLC band was playing (trying to keep racer spirits high). In the Women's A's, Heather (donning a fantastic moustache), Sarah and Abby got away from the rest of the women. Heather played a late attack to draw out Sarah, hoping to save Abby for the climb and the win, but Heather's attack was simply too strong. Sarah settled for another 2nd with Abby taking 3rd. Alex Ranum unleashed a huge uphill sprint to win the Men's B's, with Matt Hudson taking 4th. The Mountain Biker Breakaway continued in the Women's B's, this time with Jill edging out Katie Sodergren. Josh Yeaton got away with Rotem Ishay in the Men's A's - but an unlucky Ishay had chain issues the last time up the climb. Josh, Jeffrey Perrin, Camilo Zambrano and Mac Cassin took 1st, 2nd, 4th and 6th to cap off a commanding conference winning season.Check out full results at USA Cycling. There is more coverage of our race weekend at 303cycling, and the Durango Harold had some nice recaps as well: Saturday's TTT and Crit, and Sunday's RR.
And don't forget to get some sweet CU Cycling Apparel!
Support CU Cycling with Awesome Clothing!
2012-04-17
As the Spring Racing Season wraps up, we're looking to Alumni and friends like you for financial support next year. 2011-2012 was a fantastic season for CU, with a great Summer Short Track series where we were able to donate a bike to the winning junior racer, strength at Track Nationals, 2nd at Mountain Nationals, and hosting the cyclocross conference championships in 2011. This Spring, we're not only crushing the conference on the road with a very strong team, but we've been able to emphasize recruitment, bringing in 16 new riders and meeting with several prospective high schoolers. On top of that, we brought back the Stazio Crit, which the community LOVED - 470 riders on the day vs 270 for the Research Park Crit of last year!.
We plan to continue making this team bigger and better. To help us, we have great cycling clothing provided by Panache Cyclewear, a great local company with close ties to CU. The benefits of all clothing sales go directly to the team. In addition to the amazing quality of Panache's kits, we have 3 further donation levels:
All Gold level donors also get special recognition from us on our website, and shout-outs at our races. So please check out the Team Store, and spread the word to all the CU supporters and cyclists you know!
An Interview with Andrew Murphy
2012-03-07
The Collegiate Racing Season is finally starting in the Rocky Mountain Conference. We're very excited for this season, and are kicking it off with a team pasta dinner, and hosting our crit at the Stazio Ball Fields. One dedicated CU racer was gracious to discuss his outlook for this season: Andrew Murphy
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How many years have you been on the CU Cycling Team?
What do you think of the different course this year? Are you going to miss the Research Park Crit?
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Preparation
2012-02-28
The offseason is coming to an end, as racing is just around the corner. We've been training hard outdoors when the winds allow (we're getting sick of cold weather though), and more workouts at our Rec Center spin classes as well as with our coaches at FasCat if the weather forces us indoors. It feels like it's been a long winter, and we're itching to get racing.
In addition to riding, we've held some clinics on bike handling, and educational team meetings. We've discussed race tactics and logistics with the large number of new members who will race for the first time this season. We had the amazing pleasure of Dr. Allen Lim of Skratch Labs (also a CU alum) discussing anything and everything - bike racing, nutrition, life with Levi, managing collegiate racing with Grad School, and a lot of entertaining stories. Check out some more entertaining talks from him at TEDxMileHigh, over at 303cycling.
A lot of our time has also gone into preparing the first race of the season - our crit at the Stazio ball fields! We're really excited to be bringing back such an excellent course - a race that was formerly on the National Racing Calendar. Share our Race Flyer with everyone.
Welcome Back!
2012-01-23
FIRST MEETING is tonight, Monday, Jan 23, 7pm, Benson 185. We've been enjoying the warm weather around Boulder biking a lot, enjoying relatively dry mountain bike trails, and secretly hoping for good snow to ski at some point this winter. Tonight we have some Spring plans to go over - including total domination this upcoming season with the coaching help of FasCat Coaching. We're working on getting our Spring race organized, and have spin classes in the Rec Center starting up tonight - now Mondays and Wednesday evenings.
On an administrative note, to join the club, you need to sign the Club Sports Waiver Forms (Page 1, Page 2) and pay dues. We're making dues more convenient, so you can head over to PreRace.com, register for an account there, activate it through the email they send you, and then going back to that link, register for the CU Team. Let us know if you have any questions or issues. See you tonight!
Muddy and Awesome 2nd place at Mountain Bike Nationals
2011-11-10
The CU Cycling Team has been getting a lot of press lately about our awesome riding in Angel Fire over Halloween Weekend. Our 14 racers kicked butt all weekend to take 2nd place, just 8 points shy of 5-time champs Fort Lewis. This included a lot of podium finishes, including 2 omnium athletes with Deidre York and Claire Bensard, and 2 National Champion jerseys for Joey Schusler.
Nationals started off driving through a snowstorm in Colorado, and it only got worse the closer to Angel Fire we got. We played in the snow Thursday morning, with a big snowball fight and building a snow-buffalo - good team bodning. For Thursday's course pre-ride, the snow and ice and mud made for a lot of fun, and a big mess. For cross country on Friday, and Short Track on Saturday, the courses were mainly frozen mud for the women, which actually provided a decent amount of traction. After getting ridden by so many racers, and the sun warming things up, it was a soupy mess, peanut butter mud conditions for the men. The downhill 2000 feet up started with a bobsled run - seriously ice and snow, and racers sliding down on their butts. It was a test of survival. The 5-hour dual slalom (some technical difficulties mid-day) allowed the course to cover every type of mud and dirt and snow possible.
The CU team did great though, handling all of it like pros (with the mechanic James busy all day every day, the support crew scraping of 3 to 4 pounds of mud after every DS run, and the laundry machines being a complete mess. All the results are posted at
USA Cycling, and we'll have some pictures up soon, more than what we have on facebook.
girlbikelove has an expose on Nationals rider Katie Sodergren, and our coach Jason included entertaining details in his blog at FasCat. Our former teammate and now coach of Western State Eszter Horanyi summarizes our awesome racing at 303cycling; and we also got a press release in the CU Independent.
We've been pretty busy following Nationals too! We're looking to get some CU Cycling streetwear for our members as well as alums and other fans of us. With so many local high school talents, plus some connections to junior teams around the country, we're looking to start actively recruiting (still an entirely volunteer-based effort. The biggest thing coming up is the cyclocross race we're hosting on the 19th. We've been busy finalizing the details, planning the awesome course, and amassing a great prize list from local businesses.
The cross race counts as the RMCCC cyclocross conference race, but we have categories for non-collegiate racers as well. Check out the details and schedule on our flyer. And be sure to hold on to your bib number! All racers get a FREE week of yoga at Little Yoga Studio. We also have some prizes from Hapa, Full Cycle, The Cup, Foolish Craig's, and more! We'll see you at the Research Park on Saturday, the 19th!
Getting Ready for Nationals
2011-10-21
The season has gotten busy the past few weeks, getting ready for Nationals as well as hosting a cyclocross race. (We'll be hosting our cross race Saturday, Nov 19 at the research park - more details to come soon.) Here's a brief update on how our conference season ended.
October 8 and 9, the team traveled to Grand Junction for Mesa State's rocky racing - XC, Short Track and Dual Slolom. Former CU racer and now Western State Coach Eszter Horanyi captured the entire weekend in detail on 303cycling. On the gravity side of things, Clayton Haskins won the Men's B's, and Brian O'Leary got 6th in the A's. Ashlee Wilson won the Women's B's too! Clayton and Brian decided to give pedaling a try, finishing 6th and 9th in the Men's C cross-country. Cameron Brown finished 8th there too. Brad Berger decided to race with gears instead of his single speed, and he continued to improve in the A's. Peter O'Donnell got a top 10 finish in the A's cross-country race. Ashlee Wilson upgraded to the Women's A's and finished 8th. Claire Bensard finished 4th, and Katie Sodergren won! Katie also took 2nd in the Short Track, with Claire in 5th. Cameron Brown podiumed in the Men's C's short track as well. Full results can be found at USA Cycling website.
Fort Lewis hosted the last conference race of the season, again covered in detail by Eszter at 303cycling. Since the weekend lacked a downhill race, most of the gravity team drove to Angelfire to check out the Nationals Course (a little chilly and soggy with some snow). At Durango, James Ontiveros took 6th in the Men's A's Dual Slalom, while Clayton Haskins won the Men's B's. Clayton will be a rider to watch next year for sure. Ashlee Wilson also won the Women's B's. Mitchell Kasyon got 2nd in both the C's Short Track and Cross Country. FLC did some effective blocking to hold Katie Sodergren to 4th, Abby Mickey in 6th and Claire Bensard in 7th in Short Track, and 2nd, 6th and 7th in the Cross Country. Check out the full results here.
Overall on the season, CU finished 2nd behind Fort Lewis. Individually, Deidre York was 2nd in Women's A gravity, behind Wyoming's Jill Behlen, and Joey Schusler was 3rd. In Endurance, the Women's A's podium was AWESOME - Katie Sodergren (CU), Jill Behlen (WY), and Abby Mickey (CU). It was a solid season -- we just didn't quite have the numbers to compete with FLC. We do have a powerful nationals team, looking to improve on last year's 2nd place. On the Gravity Side, we have Joey Schusler (3 time national champ), Michael Larsen (4th the last 2 years), Andrew Dean, Nick Caron, Deidre York and Claire Bensard (both going for ominum titles). For Endurance we're sending Peter O'Donnel, Brad Berger, Samuel Morrison, Kevin Kane, Deidre, Clare, Katie Sodergren, Abby Mickey, Ashlee Wilson, and Ellie Atkins.
Nationals is Oct 28th-30th in Angelfire, NM. Follow us at Twitter or Facebook for updates on the scene! Go Buffs!