Joanna Millstein | MIT Cycling Team Blog

The blog returns! We’re back in action racing this fall, and there’s an entire season’s worth of recaps to read below. New friends, new racers, victories, dirty bikes… everything is here.

The first race of the season was simultaneously the first collegiate MTB race for all of our racers. Josephine, Kira, Sara, Devin, and Felix all arrived at some point between dusk and the morning’s race. There was plenty of confusion getting numbers and figuring out where and when the start was. However, our valiant captain, Devin, had everything under control despite never having raced a MTB. A seasoned high school racer, Josephine was astounded by the lackadaisical nature of ECCC MTB. Needless to say, we did not really pre-ride the course. XC began with bang when the 3 women’s A racers left the improvised start line. Josephine started behind, but, bemused by her competitors lack of pace, sprinted around one before entering the trails. Devin and Felix started equally cautiously at the back of a large Men’s C field and were caught in an absolute chaos. The start can best be described as a traffic jam. Devin followed Felix’s lead by running around droves of stranded cyclists floundering uphill. The MIT tag team efficiently worked their way up the field until Felix’s handlebars started to come loose and he fell off the pace. Devin pressed to claim 2nd, while Felix limped to the parking lot, tightened some bolts and finished with a strong second lap.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Kira started in Women’s B with very little prior experience on MTBs. It was only Sarah’s 8th time ever! Nevertheless, they both put the pedal to the metal on the uphills, when their fellow riders were often in their way. They took the downhills at an appropriately measured pace, getting more confident as they went. Sarah came flying out of the woods for 4th place and Kira followed not too far behind. The whole time, Josephine was quietly putting in a superb performance with no competitors in sight. Getting faster every lap, she cruised by the rest of the team cheering after lap three. This caused confusion as her race was originally supposed to be 3 laps. Due to a shortened course, it had been extended to 4, which let her build an incredible gap of 11 min on the 2nd place rider.

The whole group migrated up to the DS course for some fun with jumps and berms. Although several of us had no idea what dual slalom is, we had some time to kill and jumped in line to give the courses a shot! I (Sarah) found it hilariously challenging and completely different from any MTBing I’d done before – but it was inspirational to see some of the other riders really rip it! So many were even kind enough to give us some tips/coaching (shout-out to the UVM women!). Unfortunately the process of bracketing took so long that several of us had to leave before the bracketed rounds began, and then the entire thing got called off because it started getting dark and the EMTs had to leave. Devin stayed around for STXC and braved mud to again clinch 2nd and secure his promotion to B’s.

The second weekend of our condensed season brought weather that only the hardiest souls dared venture out into. With sunny Boston in the rear view mirror, Kai, Devin, Josephine, Bill, Felix, and Matthew set out for soggy Vermont, steeled for the persistent deluge that awaited them. The team awoke to the promise of wet skies and muddy trails but nonetheless hopped on their bikes for a slippery XC course. Out on the trail, the fun began with Felix taking second in Men’s C, Josephine notching another W, solid races for Matthew, Devin, and Kai. Bill ended with worse luck, wrangling his MITOC fat bike through the first mile only to fall victim to a broken chain. Fixing that, he returned to the course only to end up with a broken derailleur in the same spot! Afternoon dual slaloming brought the energy up with speedy runs on the sloppy surface by Kai and Josephine and a very solid “not last” by Bill who railed the berms on Kai’s XC bike.

Saturday night proved eerily quiet for the ECCC, dampened by the drizzle, but provided our hearty competitors with a good night’s rest. Sunday morning at Bolton Valley Resort saw the start of the most technical of the season’s short track XC courses, with a challenging steep descent in the middle. After a harrowing race, Felix, on his enduro steed, managed to just outsprint some guy on a fully rigid rockhopper from like 1995 to take the win. Devin’s race ended a little sooner and less fortunately with an up-close-and-personal encounter with a tree. Next up, Josephine enjoyed a chill ride with the only other person in the Women’s A field, before dropping her after a few companionable laps. Kai finished out the weekend with a solid ride on a slippery downhill course and the team skedaddled back to the city. When the points were tallied, MIT had come in a respectable third overall!

Felix, you may be muddy but you have nothing on Devin!

The final weekend of ECCC came all too soon, hosted for the first time in Claremont, NH. In an unfortunate start to the weekend, the well-known-to-be-extremely-calm-and-quiet ECCC was remarkably silent on Friday night at Running Bear Campground yet still managed to be told not to return for Saturday night. Nevertheless, the four riders, Kai, Josephine, Devin, and Matthew, turned to racing. Saturday brought the flowiest XC course of the season with a no-brakes downhill full of berms and optional jumps bringing smiles to their faces. Following a successful morning, the team headed over to the enduro course, in search of another points haul. Josephine stunned the conference again, winning Women’s B on her XC hardtail, and putting down faster times than any of the Women’s A riders. Fresh off a day of racing, the team enjoyed an unusual night involving a crowd of hang gliding afficicianados, a professional pyrotechnics crew, and a colorful bonfire.

Sunday started off strong with an exciting win in the short track XC team relay! The day then shifted back to Arrowhead Recreation Area for the Downhill. Kai pulled out a solid 7th in Men’s A, which saw him off to Durango for Nationals. Meanwhile, Josephine turned heads with her flannel, full face helmet, and signature XC hardtail, charging down the hill before an unfortunate crash below a rocky chute but still managing to salvage a second place. When all the dust had settled, the team walked away with a stellar second place overall in the weekend points competition and the best place for the season of any team that skipped the Pennsylvania race.

With 10 inches of snow the week before, the Nationals downhill course was shifted to the muddy and pedally XC track descent. While his dual-crown downhill bike may not have been the ideal steed for the task, Kai finished off the season with a solid 30th in the country. Although USA Cycling listed him as a competitor from Michigan Technical University, we knew he was reppin’ the ECCC as he wished to ride the wet, snowy DH course.

Perfect mountain biking conditions in Durango

Thanks for following along through the epic return to racing Fall 2021 had to offer. We’re so proud of our new racers, seasoned riders, and sponsors who helped make the racing come to life this fall. Next up: ECCC Cyclocross, Fall Training Camp, and a whole lot of Zwift & Trainer Road. Keep up the great work everyone!

Berk and alum Tobi show off their dirt at Quad ‘Cross season opener!

This past fall the team competed in a handful of cyclocross races around New England for both ECCC triumphs and team camaraderie. The cyclocross season introduced dozens of MIT riders to the joys of riding on dirt, the concept of a hand-up, and really showcased the weather extremes of fall in New England.

First up, Lee recounts his introduction to cyclocross:

“My first season of cyclocross with the MIT cycling team was, first and foremost, totally unexpected. Before this past fall, I had only a vague idea of what cyclocross even was, and hardly any interest in trying it out. All I knew about cyclocross was that it involved racing bikes off the road, and having only ever owned and ridden a road bike, that little bit of information was enough to keep me away. I couldn’t understand why anyone would go out of their way to ride on the unpaved roads and trails that I tried to avoid at all costs with my road bike. To me, riding anything but smooth asphalt meant a guarantee of a bumpy, uncomfortable ride and the constant threat of a mechanical.

But once fall came around, I began to think differently. Shorter days and cooler temperatures made long rides out on the road seem less practical and enjoyable than they did over the summer. So, in late September, I showed up with my road bike to the cx clinic. With help from Adam Myerson, a cyclocross pro, I learned how to dismount and remount my bike on the move, and got a lot more comfortable riding on dirt and grass (at least as comfortable as I could get riding my skinny road tires). A couple of weeks later, I jumped into my first race.

Adam Myerson briefs the team on the history of cyclocross!

Ghosts of Gloucester was not only my first off-road race, but also my first real off-road ride. It did not go well for me. I crashed so many times during the race that I ended up having to cross the finish line on foot, carrying a non-functioning bike. Fortunately I improved just enough after the first race to not completely embarrass myself at two ECCC races, Orchard Cross and Northampton CX. Orchard featured a pleasant, winding course through an apple orchard in New Hampshire, and was the first race (road or cyclocross) where I genuinely felt like I was having fun from beginning to end. NoHo—where the course twisted through a grassy field, entered a wooded area, and remerged again out onto the field—was a lot more challenging for me. A layer of frost had formed on the grass over night and was just beginning to melt as the sun rose over the course for my race that morning. Consequently, I had to deal with quite a bit of slipping and sliding around while trying to maneuver in a field of over 130 racers. My efforts were well worth it though, as I got to relax afterwards while watching the day’s remaining races and hanging out with my teammates that weekend.

Racing cyclocross this fall taught me something that I never would have learned racing road, and it is that bike racing can be so much more fun when you take it a little bit less seriously. This point was underlined for me in the extreme at Ice Weasels, which was my fourth and final race of the season. The single speed race at Ice Weasels is something that should be experienced rather than described, but it involves riding around the grounds of an abandoned state hospital outside Boston without being allowed to shift gears. For most of us, it also involved dressing in some crazy outfit or costume, and deciding just how many handups we could take during the race. I could not imagine a more fitting end to my first cx season than the combination of outright silliness and unbridled joy that I experienced at Ice Weasels.

A huge thanks to all the teammates who came out this fall and made cyclocross so much fun, and to our cx captain Joanna for making it all happen! It’s back to the grind of the road season for me now, but you can bet I’ll be back racing on the dirt next fall.”

Emma, Joanna, and alum Anne take on the mud at OrchardCX!

Next, Kate reflects on her season of dirt:

Seeing as I had never raced bikes before, I got asked many times this season a) why I started doing stuff with MIT Cycling and b) how in the world I ended up doing cyclocross. Well, Joanna is cool, and I went on a women’s dirt ride she led at the Fells. I struggled on some of the rocky parts on my clunky sort of a cyclocross bike that I had from Spokes. “When you think you’re going to fall, just give it one hard pedal stroke and keep going!” she coached, or something along those lines. I was a little too on the verge of falling on rocks at the time to remember exactly what she said, but I liked it. Later, watching her demonstrate the funny cyclocross mount and dismount and describe the weird sport, I was intrigued. When she said that the technical components would be easier in a cyclocross race than what we had just ridden, I figured I should just give it a shot!

I went to Adam Myerson’s CX skills clinic, and that helped me feel way more prepared and excited – and like I actually knew the basic components of the sport. I definitely tripped on a barrier or two, and I enjoyed the look of confusion on nearby track kids’ faces as we ran along the side of the hill with bikes on our shoulders. I’m super glad I decided to go for it and sign up for a race after that. Orchard Cross was a cold, rainy, and muddy affair, but I loved navigating through the apple trees and wiggling around on the pump track – also chasing Devin around to try to give him a wheel after his epic flat in his race. The race was tiring and a bit scary and also super fun! It’s been a blast getting to meet the cast of characters that make up the MIT Cycling team. I traveled there with Berk, who had lots of cycling insights to share, and it was fun dragging some adventurous friends along (Devin to the first race, Alejandro to the second).

After that first race, I practiced some CX skills with Joanna, Carolyn, Alejandro, and Sarah in a park. While I only got to two races this season, the second one (NoHo) was also super fun. It was great driving up with Emma and Alejandro, and it was exciting to see so many enthusiastic CX people at the race. I definitely lost some ground by being afraid to bike through the banked hairpin around a tree, opting for running straight through that and the run-up instead. I still maybe regret declining the cookie offered to me by heckling teammates on the run-up during the race, but at least I ate a cookie right before my race to “fuel up.” So far, I seem to be more confident running with my bike than actually biking in cross races, so that’s maybe something to work on for next year 🙂 Thanks to everyone for the fun, tips, and encouragement in my first CX season! What a weird and awesome sport!

Dylan delivers a heartfelt acceptance speech for his most-aggressive rider jersey win (see beige garment) with adoring teammates Nic and Lee by his side.

Thanks for an awesome season to all our riders! Now the fun is over and it’s back to the trainer until spring arrives!

All posts by Joanna Millstein

Racing is Back! Mountain Bike Season Recap 2021

Cyclocross Season Recap

To glory in the wind tunnel and beyond