In today’s time trial, the MIT women came in second to Whitman College, and the Engineer men placed fourth (probably—the scoring is being disputed).

Their great rides today sealed the team’s second place, with 373 poins, to the aforementioned Whitman’s suspiciously round (just kidding!) 500. The full D2 team omnium results are available here (all links PDF).

In the men’s individual omnia, Jose Soltren came in 24th and Tim Humpton 27th. On the women’s side Laura Ralston placed a great 7th at her first nationals, Yuri came in 8th, Martha Buckley 11th, and Zuzka Trnovcova was 17th. Few if any other teams can match MIT’s strength on both sides, which is how MIT was able to follow up a first place last year with a second place this time. That kind of consistency speaks volumes about the depth and quality of the team. And Whitman better watch out next year: as anybody who’s ever done a time trial knows, it’s better to have somebody in your sights to chase.

We’ll have race reports from the nationals heroes as soon as they get back, shower, change, and quite possibly (and understandably) hang up their bikes for a little while…and the journey of the Brotherhood of the Traveling Chamois is only half over!

Dear MIT Cycling,

If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember that today was the criterium in downtown Fort Collins.  The race was set up to make nearly a figure 8-shape, which meant more corners than a picture frame shop.  The women’s race was quiet: they kept a blistering pace, with Martha and Laura both contributing to the pain and nabbing a few prime points.  The group stayed together for the most part, allowing our own mini-godzilla clone, Yuri, to snag fourth place in the field sprint.  The rest of the women’s team also finished in the pack.

The men’s race maintained their own high intensity, with attacks being launched at various points.  Most of those got reeled in after a few laps, with our own men either covering, bridging, or leading the charge to chase down those measly pipsqueaks who thought they could get away.  In the end, a pair of riders did get away, and the rest of the field put in an incredible sprint — with Pretty Boy Sears nabbing 9th.  The rest of the gents pulled into field spots in the top 30.

One key result, from the team’s perspective, is that everyone who went to Nats was able to hang with the big dogs.  In the crit, everyone who rode stayed with the pack in both the men’s and women’s races.  It makes me proud to see that many amazing racers pushing pedals hard for MIT.

The remainder of the day involved lounging in the hallway, setting up TTT bikes, and dealing with Michael walking around shirtless again.  Makeshift test “jigs” were constructed from race flyers and dental floss, hacksaws were employed (sorry, Chewie), and Tim learned how to wrap bar tape.  I said something a little too loudly about the “crack pipe”, the angled valve extender used to inflate disc wheels, just as a three year old and her mother walked past; the look I got was a mix of “you said what in front of my kid?” and “thank goodness my kid doesn’t even know what that means.”  (Michael explained it to me on Day 2, so I at least knew what it meant.)

The team omnium is still up for contention, at least in my opinion, with MIT’s strongest event early tomorrow morning.  Whitman is currently leading the team points race, and we’re not helped by the fact that there are limited numbers of teams registered for tomorrow’s race.  Everyone around here is taking it seriously and are ready to ride a great Nats TTT… then leave for a triumphant return to the coast.

Oh, and Michael thinks he might be allergic to shellfish.  He found that out last night.  It probably wasn’t the steak, salmon, shrimp, baked potato, or beer that he also ingested during dinner.  Sally Struthers was in the back of the restaurant crying at how many African villages that could have fed.  (Answer: four villages for twelve days.)

Tomorrow: TTT, awards, then Tim and I start our epic return to The Right Coast.

Monkeys and cogs,

Loomis

Are up here thanks to USA Cycling. Yuri 4th, Martha 8th, Laura 10th, Zuzka 21st. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Pretty Boy Sears snuck into 9th in the men’s criterium.

Whitman College’s women took first, sixth, and sixteenth—which, although somebody should check my math, means they eked out an overall victory in that race.

It’ll all come down to tomorrow’s time trial—the D2 men go off at 8 a.m., followed by the D1 men and then the D2 women. Remember, you can watch it live here:

Also, VeloNews has good Day 1 (road race) coverage and photos, including of the spectacular solo win by Princeton’s Nick Frey.

Dear MIT Cycling,

Today was the road race.  As the automatic doors of the hotel lobby slowly buzzed upon at 7AM this morning, we were greeted with slightly colder temps than expected, and much higher winds.  The weather, and particularly the strong, gusty winds (which lasted all day) made it much more critical to ride with a pack.  The women stayed in their little group until the end, with all four of MIT’s ladies heading into the sprint and finishing in the top 12.  In the men’s race, the wind blew apart the field into smaller groups.  Tim and Jose managed to stay in the largest group, while John decided to strike out on his own to bridge (and pass) smaller groups later in the race.

Semi-official results: Laura, 5th; Martha, 9th; Yuri, 11th; Zuzka, 12th, Tim, 23rd; Jose, 29th; John, 54th

But that’s all boring race stuff.  (The kids can give you updates at some point.)  What you’re here for are the enthralling details of the race atmosphere, in which I give you four of my favorite moments from the day:

1. Race announcer, just at the start of the D2 Men’s race, referring to the gusting winds: “Gentlemen, prepare to get guttered!”

2. The pizza place where we went to dinner, where after parking the car I couldn’t find the other guys.  I saw a table where two guys were sitting with their back to me, talking to a cute girl, and walked right on past… “Our guys wouldn’t talk to a girl, they must be sitting on the other side,” I’m thinking.  It turns out I’ve never seen Coach Nicole without a hat or helmet, even in my dreams.  (Amy, it’s nothing weird, those dreams are always about ice cream.)

3. The feedzone was just a few yards down from The Mercantile, where Bob has reserved parking for himself and his truck.  Steve H from Union asked him if he owned the shop.  Bob’s response: “Son, I *own* this town.”  Yes, we quite possibly fed from Bob’s feedzone.  If we stayed too long, he would have run us out of His Town with an authentic gatling gun.  Even though I’m in the hotel right now, I still fear Bob.

4. The award for the best feed goes to the Air Force Academy (and yes, I saw some great feeds, all of them from MIT except this one).  Imagine if you will: a 3 inch diameter by 12 inch long summer sausage, wrapped in a porno magazine, stuffed down a Gatorade bottle.  “How’s he going to use that feed?” asks a teammate.  “Well, he can find a nice place along the side of the road and just enjoy life.”  John reports that the feed did get “picked up.”

Tomorrow: early morning crit-on-crit action, finalizing the TTT gear, running the final computational fluid dynamics codes to chose the appropriate height for gluing numbers for optimal aero advantage given the TT course and our measured wind patterns (after extrapolating using the National Weather Service’s 22:GMT predictions), and more cookies.  For other teams: we recommend using Javascript for TT-CFD simulation code for easier integration into the NWS server system.  You can then get results pushed to your iPhone without too much work.

Monkeys and cogs, and rambling because I’m tired,

Loomis

Emma Bast from Mount Holyoke College won in a mass sprint out of the leading group, which included all of the MIT riders. Laura Ralston got 5th, Martha Buckley 9th, and Yuri Matsumoto came in someplace around 12th 11th, right in front of 12th-placed Zuzka Trnovcova (unlike Loomis, I can spell her name without the MIT people search). Zuzka had to off-road to avoid a crash right before the sprint—not bad bike handling, for a sometime triathlete. Thanks to ZacH Attack, Seth Behrends, and Alex Chaleff for watching and keeping yours truly posted.