University of Texas Cycling Team Blog

2011

2011-03-06T18:22:00.000-08:00

The 2011 season is here! The second race of the year at Texas A&M was this past weekend. Check back real real soon for up to date information from the previous to races.

Collegiate Nationals

2010-05-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

Texas Cycling wishes Whitney Schultz good luck at her last Collegiate Road Nationals (as an undergrad) this weekend! Good Luck!!!!

Check back for updates on her results.

Conference Championships

2010-04-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend the collegiate racers of the South congregate in Austin, Tx, perhaps one of the more populated cities on the SCCCCCCCCC racing schedule to slug it out in the 2010 Conference Championships. The weekend racing hosted by Texas Cycling consists of:

Saturday:
-Road Race in Manda, Texas

-Team Time Trial

Sunday:
-Criterium at the Prickle Research Campus

Bring the heat Texas!

Baylor Weekend

2010-04-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

Texas Cycling made its way to Baylor for a weekend of collegiate racing. Some highlights of the weekend are as follows:

Men's A highlights:
Road Race: Joseph Tokarski powered his way to a 2nd place in the road race after motoring 50 miles in a breakaway with MSU's Josh Carter in tow.

Crit: The UT men put in a solid effort several breakaway attempts with Alan Ting and Joseph Tokarski, but MSU wouldn't let anything get away, and Joseph was the best placed UT rider with a 5th place.

Notable Results:

Men's B Time Trial

Benjamin Ryan (3rd)

Kenneth Day (4th)

Men's B Crit

Benjamin Ryan (5th)

Men's A Road Race

Joseph Tokarski (2nd)

Men's A Crit

Joseph Tokarski (5th)

Ben Ryan riding to 5th Place in the Men's B crit

Holland Racing Driveway Recap

2010-04-09T15:43:00.000-07:00

Another great night of racing for Texas Cycling members at the Driveway Crit Series put on by Holland Racing. The following Texas Cycling riders placed in the top of their races:

P1/2/3:
2nd- Joseph Tokarski
5th- Alan Ting

Women's P1/2/3
2nd- Whitney Schultz

Cat 4/5
6th- Benjamin Ryan

Great job!

THURSDAY THURSDAY THURSDAY

2010-04-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Come join Texas Cycling and the rest of the Austin racing community at the Pure Austin Fitness Driveway Crit Series put on every Thursday evening by Holland Racing. Easily the best thing to happen to Austin since 6th Street.

The New Rides!

2010-04-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

New Sponsor for 2010, Gary Fisher, has made some smokin' hot custom Cronus' for the Texas Cycling Team! If you're looking for a fast, stiff bike, the Gary Fisher Cronus is just what you need! Try one out at Mellow Johnny's.

Gary Fisher himself was on hand at the team presentation to show his support. That's a fine looking suit there.

Be on the look out for these new rigs on a road near you....

2010 Collegiate Season

2010-04-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

The 2010 collegiate cycling season has been under way, and so far, the following Texas Cycling riders have participated in the hot 2010 collegiate action:

Men's A
Michael Carey
Joseph Gurrea
Sean Kearns
Joseph Tokarski

Men's B
Trent Boyd
Ken Day
Jacob Dodson
Josh Geisinger
Josh Hogan
Daniel Varela

Men's C
Benjamin Ryan
Matthew Stottlemyre

Men's D
Robbie Booth
Gene Dan
Marcus Granberry

Women's A
Whitney Schultz

Women's B
Danielle Botello

Cyclocross!

2010-01-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

In the cold dead of winter, when the typical roadies are spinning bikes on their trainers, eating holiday cookies and getting overweight in the revelry of their so-called 'off-season' some diehard cyclists are still training. Through snow, sleet, and temperatures which freeze the readings on their HRMs, these cyclists, the baddest of the bad, not only train, but thrive.

They are the cyclocrossers.

For the first time in several years, the SCCCC is crowning a cyclocross champion, and UT sends only it's steeliest of riders.

Jacob Dodson, cyclocross commandant, will lead the team in both spirit and pomp rhetoric. Veteran Matt Pahnke is a favorite to take the crown; he's never 'in shape' but when you have a base as large as he does, you never need to be. And young Matt Stottlemeyer, unproven on the public parks of combat, will be representing a new generation of cyclocross talent.

Most of the team will be at training camp throughout the week and will return home exhausted and ready to hit the cookie tray. For these riders though, training camp is just a small stepping stone towards victory this coming weekend.

Mountain Bike Nationals 2009 (Part Three)

2009-11-06T10:08:00.001-08:00

Saturday. Short Track. I opted out of watching the womens race this time, so I could eat and warm up up and everything. We got down there in time to see their finish though, before warming up some. Then we headed over to call up, which had apparently been fixed. Nope. Just as bad as last time.

Then some guy on the front row crashed at the start of the race. So me, and everyone around me, got to stand there while everyone else went around first. Ten seconds into the race I was third from last. In a field of almost 70.

For whatever reason though, people decided to get out of my way again on the gravel climb (same one as the xc, we started at the bottom of it), and I was able to move up pretty quickly. It used up energy I didn't want to waste that early in the race, but, there wasn't really anything else I could do...

We turned onto a flatter jeep road section, and I went by some more people before we hit the big bottleneck section going into a singletrack section to head back down hill. There wasn't any passing through that, the last short downhill jeep road (it was too fast), or the downhill switchbacks back into the village. I got some more people on the short loop through the village around the gondola building, and then we headed up the hill again for another lap.

I passed some people, some people passed me, and then with four laps to go I go pulled. That might sound bad, but they pulled all but about the top ten before the end of the race. I ended up 31st, and was the top Texas finisher again. Chad flatted though, so its hard to say how how that would've turned out otherwise.

Now: picture time!

Cross country

Short Track Staging

Awesome start... At least I'm on my bike

Short Track

Short Track

Life as a UT Racer - The Day to Day Experience

2009-11-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

I made a chart to help explain exactly what it's like blending in with normal civilians as a member of the super-elite Texas Cycling Team. How do such tremendous beings cope with the stresses of living ordinary campus lives as well? How do we handle the celebrity of our positions? Observe:

So there you have it. It's not easy, but we keep on trying to live our normal lives in spite of our fame.

Mountain Bike Nationals 2009 (Part Two)

2009-10-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning we got up early and headed down to the village to watch the start of the girls races. We stuck around to watch them come through one of the most technical spots on the course and then headed back to the condo for some breakfast. And sitting around. And eventually getting ready to go race ourselves.

A little warm up, and we got into the staging area and waited for call up. Which they managed to really screw up. They called up all of the conference champions to the front row (Including Chad, from A+M). But then, instead of going through all of the schools in order of national rankings and having them send one person up and repeating until everyone was on the line, they just picked all the big name schools and went through them. Then called everyone else up. So, instead of getting a second row spot, I got a 6th row spot.

Somehow though, everyone got out of my way both on the start through the village and up the first gravel road climb. By time we hit the singletrack I was already top 30 or at least really close to it. And then I passed some more people. Suddenly, I saw Chad in front of me, and I was gaining pretty fast. On a climb. Don't ask me.

I went by Chad, but pretty soon he passed me back, and we settled into a little group that was going about the right pace. For the rest of the first lap and the second lap I went back and forth with Chad a few times, but we were always close to each other.

Starting the third lap though, two of the guys in our little group started picking up the pace. I was feeling good and went with them. It wasn't long before we couldn't see anyone else we had been with. Then they started slowing down, so I went around and started looking for more guys in front of me. But I couldn't find any of them. The whole fourth lap I might have seen three other people. But, I was still passing [most*] them, so, I'll take it.

*One of the maybe five people that passed me the whole race came by about two miles from the end...

I wasn't exactly sure of where I was sitting in the race, but I knew I was doing pretty good. My goal had been top 20, and I ended up 22nd. Not quite, but I'll take that too. Especially when we realized I was the first finisher from a school not located in a mountainous area!

Part 3: Short Track, pictures, and more coming soon!

Mountain Bike Nationals 2009 (Part One)

2009-10-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

About this time last year, I got an [unexpected] invitation to the 2008 collegiate mountain bike national championships. It was too short notice to put together travel plans to North Carolina for a weekend. So I decided I would just go this year.

So, last Monday I packed a bag and drove to Dallas. The next morning I met up with the A+M team, loaded my bag and bike into their van and tried to forget that I was going to be stuck in it for the next 34 hours as well...

Way too long of a car drive later, we made it to the Northstar at Tahoe resort in Truckee, California.

By Thursday we were had made it to Northstar at Tahoe in Truckee, California!

Having nothing better to do, we headed out to pre-ride the course. It started pretty much straight uphill, and climbed 800 feet, broken up by a 3 second downhill section. It was a mix of wide singletrack and jeep road, with a few technical spots. There were very few spots where passing wouldn't be possible. At the top of the climb, we made a corner and started heading back down. The first section of descent was really flow-y with bermed corners and a few tabletop jumps. There was a short flat to slightly uphill section, then more of the same descent before we dumped out onto a ~40 mile an hour straight down dirt road with a right hand corner covered in loose gravel at the bottom to transition into the last short (read: maybe 100 vertical feet) climb on the course. Then it was downhill to the finish! This time though, there was some pretty technical rocky sections mixed in.

We headed back to the condo, showered, went through registration, and headed to the racers meeting, where they told us the trail was in such good condition they were bumping us up from 3 laps (22.5 miles) to 4 laps (30 miles) for the cross country the next day...

The Swimmin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour

2009-10-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, before leaving for Blanco, Texas, I checked the local weather report: 15% chance of rain and moderately cloudy. Perfect! I started out for Blanco knowing that this was going to be a great successful bike tour. Mother Nature might have had other plans.

Texas Cycling puts on The Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour, or SBOBT, every year to help pay for the spring race schedule. Putting on tours can sometimes be painful and stressful, but its worth it in the end because it pays for our racing! Miguel and Josh were the main directors this year, and I (K. Day) was helpful hand.

Saturday night we drove out to Blanco. The weather was moderate, with a feeling of crispness that is always evident in the Hill Country. We brought around 25 volunteers to help. As soon as we got there we started putting out signs for the tour and filling up water jugs for the morning. The signing is the most difficult job, and involves riding the course and putting signs up so hopefully no one will get lost! After putting out most of the signs, Sean, Joseph, Michael, and I stopped in Sisterdale at a local food place to have some of the best burgers of our lives. They had a live band going as well, and we wanted to stay all night. Soon, the responsibilities of the team got in the way and we had to put out the rest of the signs. That night we had a fire in the Blanco High School parking lot and sat and talked. Everyone soon retired to their tents or cars: it was going to be a long day tomorrow!

Sunday came too early for me, as we had to wake up at 6:00 am. I slowly emerged from my car and found that people were already arriving to ride. It was a cool morning but the air was still thick with humidity. Not a good sign. After eating a bagel, I quickly got to work making sure all the rest stops had water. Right before I got back to the start of the race, I saw the first couple of drops on my windshield. Whitney looked at me warily and something about how bad it would be if it started raining. I remember saying that it wasn't supposed to rain and that it wasn't raining on other parts of the course where I was. I soon ate my words.

Just as the lead vehicle pulled out of the parking lot with riders in tow, it started to rain more heavily. And then it started to pour. I drove to the first rest stop to see what could be done. The volunteers were huddled up underneath the awnings they had set up and were shivering. "Are they still coming?" one of them asked me. Oh yeah they're coming! As pouring turned to torrential downpour, Miguel decided that we needed to get people back to the start as soon as possible. I dumped everything I had out of my Jeep and started driving toward the group of riders, looking for people to pick up and SAG back to the start. By the end of the day, we quickly got everyone off the course, most by their own bike power. We set up the BBQ so the the riders could get dry and start eating.

Even though the rain didn't make the ride as good as we had hoped, I think it was still a success overall. No one was seriously injured. Everyone got BBQ and beverages. Everyone seemed happy. Josh and Miguel did a great job of organizing everyone to SAG and make the best of a rainy situation. I think that's the best you can do in any predicament. The whole team came together and completed their jobs successfully. If we race in the spring like we organize events in the fall, look out MSU!

As Miguel put it, it was the best Swimming Burnt Orange ever! Check out the great pics that Cameron took here.

Living in Comfort

2009-10-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

This last weekend of September saw the team take a wonderfully enlivening trip into the wilds of Comfort, TX (nestled snugly in the Hill Country between Fredericksburg and San Antonio, just off of I-10) for the SCCCC mountain bike race hosted by our cycling club, held at the delightful Flat Rock Ranch.

When they call it a ranch, they're not just borrowing the title as an affection of rusticity; as they do legitimately raise goats and cattle on the property, the sounds of which made us feel very close to nature the entire weekend. The owners of the ranch are very friendly to cyclists like us and genuinely concerned themselves with our well-being, and also took time to look into the races and how they were proceeding. They struck us as being genuinely interested in the race and are true patrons of the sport. Their ranch fits these ideals, has a lot of well-planned facilities for cyclists, and hosts many other non-collegiate races throughout the year. The ranch heads are very hospitable, and spared no effort in making us feel at home. They personally found firewood for us and brought it to the fire pits at our campgrounds, as well as starting the fires in the early evening before sunset. All in all, it's the most I've ever felt at home so far from what this Austin native has grown up around; and it set the stage nicely for a very relaxing break from academia, traffic, and the city hustle.

On Saturday after we arrived and made camp, The Mountain guys got down to racing the first stages of their Omnium (beginning with a Time Trial and the a Short Track stage); and we roadies headed out on what ended up being a fairly exhausting road ride, with a bunch of hills placed so well after a good 30 miles or so of initial effort. We came home to Comfort tired and ready to celebrate our survival, and to catch up with the mountain team and see their results. Unsurprisingly, we had a lot of success for our team that weekend! Our C-Team Superstar, Kenneth Day, finished First in the Time Trial and thereby secured the Omnium lead! He had a competitive placing and was holding position in the Short Track race later that day, but unfortunately got on the bad side of a stray piece of bailing wire mid-race and flatted out.

Ken Day vs. Bailing Wire: SHOWDOWN!

In the long run, this didn't end up hurting his standings too badly, even though he was initially upset about it. He managed to recover from a DNF in the Short Track stage and still come in Third overall in the Omnium standings! We're all very proud of his success in his first mountain bike race. He's written his own race report on his blog that bears reading if one wanted the real dirt on what the race was like.

While the mountain bike squad did their business, the road racers went out on what ended up becoming an exhausting 50 mile excursion through parts of the scenic Texas Hill Country. Needless to say, by the end of the day, everyone was beat. We all looked forward to the evening's meal and wandered into nearby Fredericksburg to find it. Myself and a few of the road guys ended up at a small local brew house and sampled the traditional German cuisine that Fredericksburg is renowned for. I ended up having a Reuben made with the strongest sauerkraut I have ever eaten in my life (feeling very authentic to me), and I got to sample some of the House Porter that's exclusive to that establishment, and found it to be very pleasant!

Afterwards, we all meandered back to camp in Comfort and began to unwind for the evening and make camp. We pitched out tents, sat around telling stories and talking about nothing and then got down to serious business around the campfire: S'mores!

Toasty!

We all began to wind down and get to bed around Midnight or so, but I personally stayed up a bit and perfected my marshmallow technique, drinking in the stars with my eyes. They're so overwhelming that far away from the cities without any artificial light to drown them out. It's breathtaking if you've forgotten what it looks like to see the heavens in full force.

After a while I, too, had to retire. We all slept very well, despite the best efforts of a certain cow in the pasture that had some sort of bizarre problem with it's throat. It would start mooing and then have that turn into some sort of screech that was quite reminiscent of a whale call. Rest assured, that was quite unsettling to hear late at night in the pitch black.

Whale-cow aside, we found our sleep restful and awoke the next morning ready to roll. The mountain bike team woke up, ate, and prepared for a grueling day of cross-country racing. We, the road group, planned our ride for the day. Most of us were still exhausted from the hard ride the day before, so we decided to make our Sunday short & sweet. We decided to take it to a well-known restaurant in the area halfway between Comfort and Fredericksburg, the Alamo Springs Café. This little place is in a scenic location and apparently was rated the No. 3 Cheeseburger in the state by Texas Monthly! Having eaten said cheeseburger, I can say that title makes sense. It was juicy, perfectly cooked, and well-matched with its bun and toppings. Seasonings were creative and livened up what was already a near-perfect burger. I'm not really sure how to compare it with the best works of Austin, but the same publication's No. 2 burger is apparently local to 6th & Lamar, so I may have to do some investigative journalism for fact-checking purposes on my own sooner than later.

Aside from the delicious meal, the staff were friendly and very welcoming of a bunch of sweaty cyclists still in Lycra at their establishment.

Stephen and Our Fearless Leader, Sean Kearns

Trent and Robbie are winning the Smugathon!

It was Kaitlin's Birthday! Yaaay!

After that, we made the return trip to camp so that we could shower, pack, and get back to Austin. Despite some initial car trouble, we all made it back safe and sound. Weekend Accomplished!

The Beginning of a New Year

2009-10-02T11:04:00.001-07:00

Things have been pretty darn busy on the UT Austin campus since school started. We got a later start this year with Party on the Plaza, the main student organization recruiting day, being later than normal. It's all fine and dandy though. At our first official meeting we had 60 people join! Maybe another 10-20 are still planning on joining or have joined since then. Very exciting.

Super speedy Peter ready to roll before Party on the Plaza

Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour is coming up quite quickly! The big day is October 11th in Blanco. Go here for more information: http://www.texascycling.org/sbobt/. We hope you'll support us by joining us!!

Season's Beginnings, Season's End.

2009-06-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

The 2009 Collegiate Cycling season has come and gone, and this year served to once again showcase the determination and hard work of the student athletes making up our conference, the SCCCC.

Several of the bigger schools in the conference host races in which the entire conference may compete. In the past, there have been five race weekends, but due to unfortunate circumstances, Texas Tech had to cancel their race this year, leaving us with four full weekends of bracing competition:

Texas A&M - Tunis-Roubaix
Texas State - Bobcat Spring Classic
Midwestern State - MSU Stage Race
University of Texas - Conference Championships

Each one of these weekend-long events would prove to have its own unique challenges for all of the riders and for our own team, all of whom juggle the time commitment to race and train with their demanding studies.

UT really performed quite remarkably this semester, considering how new the majority of the of the team was to racing and how many of our veteran racers had graduated after the 2008 season. Our team saw Victory through strong leadership in the Men's C team by Texas 4000 veterans Miguel Corona and Clay Dalton, both of whom mentored less experienced members of the team throughout the course of the season and used their tremendous athletic ability to place well in several of the season's events.

All of the other schools in our conference have their own teams with fantastic athletes and wonderful people, and we are all grateful to have had the opportunity to meet them all and compete with them in such a unique sport. Thanks so much for a wonderful season, SCCCC!

We'll have some more specific race reports in the days to come, but for now, this is it. See you all out there!

Fashionably Late Sweatin' Burnt Orange Wrap-Up! Oh, and Happy New Year!

2009-01-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

We hope the end of 2008 and the first taste of 2009 has treated you as well as it has us! We held our very successful fourth annual edition of our Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour on November 2 of 2008, despite a lower-than-expected turnout. After many long months of planning and promotion, it all began to come together with packet pick-up at Bicycle Sport Shop's South Lamar location on Halloween and the following Saturday. That Saturday night, we headed out to Blanco to get the course set up for the following day. We had nearly the whole team out, working hard to put out signs, set up registration tables, sort food for rest stops, fill water coolers, and of course have a little fun in the process. We camped at Blanco High School, where the staging took place and while it is traditionally quite frigid that night, we were treated to a much temperate weather!

After a long night of marking the course with signs, we were excited to go into Fredricksburg for some dinner!

The morning of the ride, we had nearly ideal weather. Any jackets were shed soon after the sun made its appearance and I heard from most riders that the same went for any warm-weather gear they were wearing when the ride began. The weather remained beautiful for the entire ride with temperatures in the 70s, clear skies, and very little wind. Not bad for the first weekend in November!

The ride itself went very smoothly, with everyone enjoying themselves out in the scenic Texas Hill Country, not to mention the perfect weather. We owe a HUGE thank you to the San Antonio chapter of the Tour de Cure who came out in force to run our first and largest rest stop, as well as having some of their riders ride the tour! Their rest stop was fantastic with fun music and smiling faces to greet all the riders! In addition, we had our own team members providing support at the remaining 7 rest stops and various corners throughout the course, and they all did a wonderful job! Thanks so much to everyone who came out to donate their time!

Happy volunteers with a happy rider after finishing the tour!

Another post-ride shot. This one a bit more... festive.

Following the ride, in the Blanco town square, we had a wonderful BBQ lunch provided by Riley's BBQ, a local BBQ joint in Blanco, right on the square. There was plenty of food for everyone to enjoy while sharing stories from the ride and relaxing after a long morning.

Hungry volunteers awaiting delicious BBQ.

Senor Petz, last year's Sweatin' Burnt Orange director, happy to have food.

Another happy volunteer, food in hand.

All in all, the ride was a great success, and we can only hope next year will be even better. The tour brought in just under $5,000 for the team to help us pay for transportation to races, lodging at weekend races, team equipment, and other team activities. Now it is time to look forward to this year's ride and see how we can improve on our success and continue to grow as a team. We hope you will join us for the 2009 Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour!

Ride safely, and if you're driving, please be kind to cyclists!

2008 Mountain Bike Season

2008-11-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

We actually finished up this years mountain bike season a couple weeks ago, but school keeps me busy enough that I haven't had time to type this up until now...

Amongst all of the activities of the first weekend of school, we had a fair showing at our first race of the season, The Camp Eagle Classic. There were super-D, short track, and cross country races throughout the weekend, and although we didn't have the largest collegiate team of the weekend, we still managed to hold our own in each of the races. The A+M team pulled ahead in the team overall competition by shear numbers alone, but we weren't too far behind in second.

Notable results:
- Joseph Tokarski, 2nd, Mens B Super-D
- Bennett Brown, 2nd, Mens A Short Track
- Kyle Johnson, 3rd, Mens A Short Track
- Brenna Wozniak, 1st, Womens B Short Track
- Bennett Brown, 1st, Mens A Cross Country

Our second race, Texas State's Rocky Hill Ranch race, was canceled because of Hurricane Ike, which gave us a few extra weeks to prepare for the rest of the series.

The next race on our schedule was supposed to be the Dave Boyd Huntsville Classic, but again, because of Ike, the state park was closed. Luckily the University of Houston team was able to get a last minute venue change, and the race was moved to Rocky Hill Ranch. This was a good change for us, because it was much closer to home, and we had our biggest turnout of the season. This weekend was our only non-stage race of the year, with only a cross country race on Sunday. Rocky Hill is a brutal course though, so one race was plenty for a weekend.

We maintained our second place in the team competition, but Texas State had a turnout to rival A+M's and began to catch up to us.

Notable Results:
-Tommy Beales, Mens C, 3rd

Two more weeks went by, and then it was time for our third race, at Cameron Park in Waco. First off, I want to thank the quite small Baylor team for putting on what I heard several people calling the best collegiate race of the season!

Saturday there was a tough short track that was about half loose single track and half open field with a head wind. It was good fun. Sunday had in store one of the most fun cross country courses I have ever ridden, though (as anyone who has ridden at Cameron park should know) the large amounts of elevation change provided the second tough race of the weekend.

We had a pretty good turnout both days, and though A+M continued to increase their lead on us, we stayed ahead of Texas State, though it was getting close.

Notable Results:
- Brandon Barber, 2nd, Mens B Short Track
- Kyle Johnson, 3rd, Mens A Short Track
- Brenna Wozniak, 2nd, Womens B Cross Country

Just one week and we were at the Lake Bryan Power Pedal for A+Ms race. Unfortunately, this was also OU weekend, so a few people opted for the football game instead of the race...

Saturday there was a short track and night time trial. I won the award for best crash in the short track, and chose to opt out on the time trial, but when Sunday and the cross country rolled around, I was feeling better, and the team was ready to go. Everyone that made it out had a good race, but sadly Texas State was still able to overtake us and we were pushed back into third in the team competition.

Notable Results:
- Whitney Schultz, 3rd, Womens A Cross Country
- Kristen Robertson, 3rd, Womens B Cross Country

One more week, and it was time for the final race of the season, the Conference Championships! Saturday there were time trial and cross country races. We didn't have a big showing, but everyone that was there had good races. Sunday there was a short track before the overall awards for the season. A few more people drove out just for this race, and they ended up having the best results of the weekend!

We weren't able to catch back up to Texas State, but the team still got third overall for the season!

Notable Results:
Brenna Wozniak, 1st, Womens B Short Track
Kristen Robertson, 2nd, Womens B Short Track

Brenna Wozniak, 3rd, Womens B Season Overall
Kyle Johnson, 4th, Mens A Season Overall
Whitney Schultz, 4th, Womens A Season Overall

Overall, this was a great mountain bike season. We had good results at every race (if I had listed all of the top fives this post would be twice as long), but more importantly, everyone had a good time.

I suppose it's time to start getting ready for road racing now.

Collegiate Road Cycling Nationals...from a woman's point of view!

2008-05-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

Hi, for those you who don't know me, I'm Whitney. This past year was my second year at UT and my second season with the UT Cycling Team! Here's my recap of the road race and crit at Nationals. I'm the one with the ridiculously pink sunglasses in the pictures. Enjoy!

2007 was my first year to go to Nationals...actually it was my first to race and ride too! Going to Nationals and having to race with 80 other girls was terrifying to me. I'd never seen so many women on bikes before. But with one Nationals and a whole additional season under my belt, this year I was more excited than terrified. I'll recount my tale of the road race and the crit. Nationals this year was in Ft. Collins, Colorado.

The women's Division 1 road race started on a chilly, 30-ish degree day at 8am. Oh! And it was super windy with gusts up to 60mph apparently too! Brenna, Cat, and I reluctantly got out of the warm car, hopped on our trainers, and got ready to roll. Cat ears were cold so she decided to put on a hat to keep warm...you can see Cat's hat to the right. Lovely, eh?

Well the 50-mile race started off insanely fast. It was more or less a sprint to the first climb, 3/4 of a mile into the race. This was no baby climb by Texas standards, either. I'm not sure of the gradient, but it was steep and long enough to tear our race apart. I ended up in the third group of about 15+ riders. We kept hammering and some girls would attack and try to catch up to the second group, but we never really caught the second group of riders until we started working somewhat together. I definitely tried to bridge, hoping someone strong would go with me, but it never really happened. Evenually we caught the second group on the popsicle of the popsicle stick-shaped loop. We were now a group of 30.

Our now large group was only 90 seconds behind the lead group. Had we formulated a proper chase group, we may have been able to catch them, but, of course, that didn't happen. Actually, quite the contrary happened, people got frustrated and we more or less came to a halt and dilly-dallied long enough over the course of about 10 miles to make that gap go from 90 seconds to over 9 minutes! A lot of the girls in our group had multiple teammates with them, so they got to do a majority of the work. I did some work earlier, but once we neared the stick of the popsicle stick and the 4 or 5 big climbs to come, I decided I'd better sit in if I wanted to be okay for any attacks on the climbs.

Well the rest of the race was pretty dull. The climbs were hard but there were no attacks uphill and no other groups caught us. The wind was an attrocious head-crosswind which caused a few sketchy moments decending. There was also a super sketchy girl who almost took everyone out no less than dozen times. The picture to the left is of my group climbing one of the final climbs. We came from that tiny road way down there.

The finish came after several miles on a flat road with a wicked-strong tailwind. A little before the turn to the sprint, I moved up close to the front and found a girl to hopefully lead me out. We turned and she indeed led me to the front of the pack! I ended up third or fourth in the sprint and 29th overall. Not too bad compared to last year (about 40 places lower)! To the right is me sprinting...at least I'm in my drops!

The crit Sunday also started at 8am. The upside to 8am start: since we were first we got to warm up on the course. The downside: it was 32 degrees, cold by Austin standards! The course was figure-8 shaped. Most of the corners were wide and smooth. The first corner, however, was narrow with large and dangerous cracks in the road- sketchy! Amy led us around wearing the longhorn hat and a Texas flag as a cape, all on her cruiser. She looked lovely. To the right is a picture of Cat, Brenna, and I following crazy-Amy around like little ducklings.

The pace started out super-fast for the first three or so laps before things got settled. Last year I was definitely on the verge of being dropped the whole crit, so I was pleasantly surprised when I could not only stay in the pack, but move around too! I tried staying up in the front of the group, which was really hard sometimes if you were on the wrong side of the pack in the turns. Eventually I figured out where I needed to stay to be safe and efficient. I tried bridging up to the break of two with two other girls, but it didn't happen. I did get a prime point though! To the left is a picture of the start.

I didn't move up to the front soon enough and got caught behind two wrecks on the last lap. Luckily I didn't wreck, but it definitely slowed me down plenty. I came in 38th, which put me at 32nd overall. Still a nice improvement!

I'd say I learned a lot this year at Nationals both about racing in large fields and also about myself as a cyclist. It was very motivating to see my improvement from last year to this year and I hope I can make the same improvement next year for my team! I hope my teammates are going to post their experiences as well. I'll close with a picture of Cat, Brenna, and I before the road race. We look...special :)

Getting ready for Nationals

2008-05-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

We've qualified a full team for Collegiate Nationals for the second year in a row, and several of our riders are hard at work preparing themselves for their toughest race of the season. It is no small feat to compete at the division I nationals level, and in addition to training, planning, packing, and preparing themselves for the rigorous of racing at altitude, our nationals team also has to deal with taking their finals early since nationals happens to fall exactly in the middle of the UT finals week. The following riders are headed to Fort Collins this year, and we wish them all good luck!

Men's team:
Team Time Trial: Alex Gilliam, John Hatlelid, Frank Palmieri, Jordan Smothermon
Road Race: Michael Carey, Alex Gilliam, John Hatlelid, Frank Palmieri, Jordan Smothermon, Scott Veggeberg
Criterium: Alex Gilliam, Frank Palmieri, Jordan Smothermon, Scott Veggeberg

Women's team:
Team Time Trial: Cat Newsom, Amy Mullin, Whitney Schultz, Brenna Wozniak
Road Race: Cat Newsom, Whitney Schultz, Brenna Wozniak
Criterium: Cat Newsom, Whitney Schultz, Brenna Wozniak

Texas Wins Conference!

2008-05-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

We've done it again! Texas Cycling has won the South Central Collegiate Cycling Conference, upsetting the traditionally dominant Midwestern State for the second year in a row! I admit our margin of victory was smaller this year than we would have liked, but after a brutal weekend of racing in Midwestern State's home turf of Wichita Falls, we've managed to hold on to enough of our lead to seal the victory.

The weekend started out with an early morning road race 20 miles outside of the city proper. It was an awesome course, made all the more pleasant by clear skies and a peculiar lack of wind (which is the norm for that part of the state). All of the races except the Men's and Women's A's events resolved themselves in a brutal sprint finish. The long, straight, and slightly downhill final stretch definitely favoured sprinters, and unfortunately for us MSU's team is traditionally stacked with talented sprinters. This was no more apparent than in the Men's B race, where MSU claimed 1st, 2nd, and 4th place with UT's Matt Vaughn placing 3rd. Katie Forrest finished 1st in the Women's A race, and Jordan Smothermon came in 2nd in the Men's A race. Amy Mullin destroyed the Women's B field for 1st place.

The team time trial took place later that same day, and our Men's A squad put in a phenomenal effort and took 1st by almost 30 seconds in the rolling 20k course. The Women's A and Men's B teams both took 2nd.

The criteriums took place the following day and unfortunately for everyone, the weather took quite a turn for the worst. It was cold, it was raining, and the tight four corner crit course came complete with freshly painted lane markers and cobblestones in the corners. Needless to say there were a lot of crashes, and several of our riders went down. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. Best crash goes to Chris Collins (face plant) with a close second for Scott Veggeberg (for taking out half of the A's field). Everyone raced their hearts out, and we sealed the deal on the conference championship.

In closing, we'd like to extend a huge thank you to all of our sponsors, without whose support our team wouldn't have the resources to compete at this level. So thank you Bicycle Sport Shop, Dr. Gregg Ueckert, D.D.S, Rec Sports, and the University Co-Op. It wouldn't be possible without you, and this is your victory as well as ours.

Texas State race report

2008-04-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Quite a few of us made it out to Texas State race this past weekend. The weather held up (allergen count notwithstanding) and the team put in a great effort. We've managed to hold on to our lead in the Conference championship! Only one more race to go.

Congratulations to Alex Gilliam on his victory in the road race on Sunday- he broke away early in the race, bringing a single MSU rider with him (Francis Hamre), and the two managed to stay away from the peloton for the duration of the race. The uphill sprint finish made for interesting end to all of the races of the day, with great finishes by Brenna Wozniak in the Women's A's race, and a powerful showing in the Men's B's as well.

Saturday's individual time trial was a beast of an entirely different sort. With it's distance of 0.7 miles, the average finishing time was less than 4 minutes. The catch? The race course went straight up the biggest hill within 30 miles of San Marcos (see picture). The race definitely favored climbers. I enjoyed it, but I figure I'm in the minority on this one. :)

Ladies and Gentlemen, We have a post!!

2008-04-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

Well, there will eventually be a race report from the Tx. State race, sometime...

As for now, we're sitting in a hotel in Wichita Falls getting ready for the conference championships this weekend. Hopefully the trophy will be coming back to Austin!