Track Success while Mountain Season Continues Strong
2012-09-24
The new collegiate season has been off to a busy and great start. We've had a ton of new cyclists join the team, and turnout for the mountain bike races has been high. The Colorado Fall weather has been great for our usual camping and riding. A few bonfires, some team bonding...and tons of awesome results. Katie and Deidre have been crushing the XC, on top of Deidre getting top 20 at Worlds! A bunch of ladies have stepped up to the challenge of Downhill, leading to a bunch more omnium contenders at Nationals.
Nick, Joey, Tanner and Kevin have been working the downhill scene, and Joey's been trying his hand at XC too, holding his own with Sam and Jakub. There have been some entertaining races as well - chain issues popped up for one rider, who ditched it and did just fine without pedaling. In Mountain Cross at Crested Butte, Nick and Joey actually faced each other in the finals, where they decided to get rid of their chains to make things interesting. (Nick desparately used his feet pushing against the ground to speed up, but Joey's was goofier and more effective, leading to his victory.) You can check out a plethora of pictures on our facebook page, and the entire set of results on the Conference Website.
We also sent strong representation to track nationals in Frisco, Texas this past weekend. Mac Cassin had some medals to defend from last year. Christa Ghent and Danny Hiller were looking for a little improvement, and they had the support of Nicolle Bruderer, Colt Peterson, and Bill Golembieski. Mac was able to improve on his pursuit time, but unfortunately got bested by two-tenths of a second from a Marian rider. Colt took silver in the very fast scratch race, and Christa came in 4th (following a rough crash too - she's tough), with Nicolle in 9th. The men took 2nd in the Men's Team Pursuit, and the full team took 5th in the mixed Sprint. All things added up to one incredible podium picture. Amongst 4 other teams of 13-16 racers, our team was 3rd overall with 6 very powerful racers! You can check out all the results on USACycling.org.
