VIRGINIA TECH CYCLING ROAD SEASON, FEBRUARY RECAP

111

Issue #1

Road Season, February Recap

(Douglas Graham / WLP) RECAPS FROM OUR COLLEGIATE ROAD SEASON (SO FAR!) RECAPS, SPONSORS, HOW TO DONATE!

Virginia Tech Cycling

William & Mary Season Opener

After the Snowpocalypse of 2014 cancelled the NC State weekend, we all piled into the vans a week later for our first race at William and Mary. A record 24 people raced the Saturday road race and we had some stellar results! Mens D and Womens C were the first categories to race, bright and early at 8am. The flat, 21 mile course was a great introduction to racing for our new riders, and returning rider Neil Singh grabbed a top ten finish in Mens D, as did Taylor Everson in Womens C (after using her cyclocross skills to avoid a crash in the finishing sprint). The next race of the day was Mens C, where our two triathlete friends Wyatt Lowdermilk and Quinn Giroux finished with style! Sean Gardner used the one hill on course to his advantage and worked together with his teammates to win the Mens B race!! His fellow B racer Gavin Kline summed up the race perfectly: A hard hitting double paceline instantly formed with about 8 in the rotation we cranked the pace up to something ridiculous. Someone shouted "We've got a gap GO! GO! GO!" and what did we do? We went for it! Two Navy riders, Sean Gardner (VT) and Dylan Lawson (NCSU) bridged up. Once I saw Sean in the rotation I knew what I had to do, we had to make this stick and boom 2 out of the top 10 for Tech! Half way into the (last) turn I kicked it with all I hadWith everyone hard to the left I attacked on the downhill hard to the right in hopes to mess up everyone's sprint plans and open up the road for Sean I was caught with 200m to go. Totally gassed I easy pedaled to the line and gave my best wheelie for the crowd and 8th place! Teammates watching the finish quickly informed me that Sean made it happen in the sprint taking the coveted W! This caused an over flow of stoke and prompt celebrations! Having/helping a teammate winning feels just as good as winning itself. More amazing teamwork was seen in the Mens A race, where four of our veteran racers were joined by Taylor Pearman for his first ever Mens A race. At the end of his race, Taylor P. broke away from the pack with a VCU rider and took the W after an intense uphill finishing sprint! I would say our first weekend was a success, after multiple top 10s and a win in Mens B and A by Sean and Taylor! -Rebecca Stimson (Linda Craney)

Lend our team a helping hand!

It takes a lot of money to get a team of 20 collegiate cyclists racing every weekend! Although we pay dues, receive some funding through the school, and have an amazing group of sponsors, sometimes we need money from outside sources to keep the team running. This year, to offset the costs associated with collegiate racing, and to send our athletes to Nationals in Richmond, we are asking for your help! More information on how to donate can be found on page 3 of the newsletter, after some race recaps highlighting the accomplishments of our team so far.

Donations will be used to fund team race weekends, which includes booking hotel rooms when host housing isnt available (even though, like Ollie here, we arent picky about where we sleep!)

VIRGINIA TECH CYCLING ROAD SEASON, FEBRUARY RECAP | Issue #1

UNC RR and Crit

Weekend #2 took us to Wilmington for a road race on Saturday. We were hoping for some sunny beach weather but instead got drizzles. However, this didnt deter our fearless cyclists, and once again our Mens D and Womens C categories braved the cold and wind to put out some massive watts! TJ Kenny, with freshly shaved legs and perhaps only four road rides ever under his belt, pulled the Mens D field around and th sprinted it out for an impressive 7 place. Meanwhile, Sarah Oertel was struggling with a mechanical in the Womens C race. Undeterred, she caught back up to the pack and sprinted to the finish with Sarah ChaseWalsh, a fellow VT rider. Both Sarahs finished in the top 10! In the Mens C race, there were some freshly upgraded VT racers (a result of last weekends great finishes) ready to tear it up. Unfortunately there were a few minor crashes, some near misses, and some asthma troubles , but all our Mens C racers (new and old) finished, and Wyatt Lowdermilk showed th some serious strength when he placed 6 ! The combined Mens B and Womens A field meant Becca Stimson briefly had a teammate to work with, however Gavin Kline was feeling strong and put in attacks that were popping riders off the back left and th right, so Becca wound up TTing to an 8 place finish. Gavins attacks paid off though, and even as the sole Mens B rider for VT, he nd grabbed 2 place in the RR! The last race of the day was Mens A race. As usual, the pace was ridiculously fast, averaging 25 mph for 60 miles, but in the words of (recently upgraded) Sean Gardner it was by far the best time I have had on a bike!!! With good results and even better spirits, we drove to Apex, NC, to spend the night at teammate Luke Woodards house, to rest up before our Sunday crit. Unfortunately Stephen Jordan and Sarah Chase Walsh didnt get much sleep due to some bad avocado at Subway, and got to take an nice trip to Urgent Care the next morning, while the rest of the team headed to UNC Chapel Hill for the first criterium of the season.

Jacob Aber and Will Massey during the UNC Mens A Crit And the first crit was a great one! With turns in both directions and a chicane, everyones handling skills were challenged. In Mens Ds, TJs mountain experience paid off and he nabbed a top 10, and while Brian Doyle was looking strong, he wasnt able to recover from a flat in the final quarter of his race. In the next race, Quinn Giroux recovered from a bad starting position, caught up with rd the main group and took 3 in Mens Cs, with teammate Kyle Johnson taking a top 10. The Womens C field quickly split up into small groups and even though she spent most of her race pulling a group of girls, th Sarah Oertel took 7 ! In Womens As, Becca avoided a crash but had some trouble keeping up with the constant attacks from Lees-McRae and ASU, th finally finishing 10 . The Mens B race was exciting, where an early spill from Gavin shattered the field into bits. Thankfully Gavin recovered and after taking a free lap, jumped back into the pack. After a lead out from Luke Woodard, Gavin nd th sprinted to 2 and Luke snagged 6 . Constant attacks by Wake Forest and ASU in the Mens A race amped up the pace and led to an eventual breakaway that our VT riders were not in on. Even so, they held their own, Taylor Pearman and Jacob Aber doing fantastic in the field sprint, and their teammates also placing well. We have had some stellar results and tons of fun this first two weekends, and look forward to another weekend of racing at ASU March 22-23. Wish us luck! Go Hokies! -R

Thanks to our sponsors for making race weekends like these possible!

VIRGINIA TECH CYCLING ROAD SEASON, FEBRUARY RECAP

111

Issue #1

How to Donate!
Thanks in advance for helping the VT Cycling Team out. We may only be a club sport here at Virginia Tech, but we take our training and racing seriously. Since we send every dues paying member to every race weekend, costs add up quickly, and we have to look donors like you to help us keep costs low and students racing!

So, Every Dollar Counts!

The team spends about $2000 per race weekend; this includes entry fees for our team of about 23 riders, hotels when necessary, cargo and passenger vans, and gas. WHAT DO DONATIONS COVER? A donation of $20 covers a riders entry fee, $200 puts the team in a hotel for the weekend, $350 pays for our vehicles, and $400 covers gas for the weekend. Any amount helps! Sarah Oertel and Sarah Chase-Walsh before their UNCW RR

The Cycling Misadventures of a

Brand New Womens C

-Sarah Oertel
I only completed one race with VT Cycling last spring, and that Duke race was where my string of bad luck began. Five minutes into the road race, I heard the sound of crunching metal and fell over into the grass. My rear derailleur hanger had snapped, and my race was over before we even left the neutral rollout. Unfortunately, my string of misadventures has continued this season. At William and Mary, our first race of the season, I followed a rider from American University about a mile and a half off course. After getting off of our bikes and consulting the map on her phone, we finally found our way back and finished the race. Luckily, our delay caused us to avoid a big crash! At UNC-W the following weekend, I managed to hang with the mixed pack of Womens B/C and Mens D for a good part of the race before I dropped my chain (which wasnt actually dropped, I just didnt shift hard enough). After getting reset with the help of a random man in a truck who kindly held my bike, I found fellow teammate Sarah Chase-Walsh. We caught up with an NC state rider and worked together for the rest of the race which was so fun! There was also a criterium at UNC on Sunday, and during that race I couldnt clip in for half of the first lap resulting in poor placement and an exhilarating 30 minutes of fighting the wind by myself. The good news is that my calamities seem to be becoming smaller and smaller, so keep your fingers crossed that Ill be able to finish a race with no issues at App State! -S

Donation Process
Donating money to the team is easy and only takes a few minutes. Donations can be made through The Virginia Tech Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization 1) 2) Visit the Virginia Tech Foundation, Inc. donation website. Enter a donation amount and beside the white box that reads Select the areas that your gift will benefit click on the blue box that says Enter your own. The following text should be entered: Virginia Tech Cycling Club Account # 887487 Answer the optional questions and hit the green box labeled Next to complete the donation process.

3)

4)

More information about the Virginia Tech Foundation donation process can be found here. Any questions can be directed to our President, Oliver Donkervoet, at odonkervoet@gmail.com.

Wish us luck as we head to North Carolina this weekend to compete in the App State road race, team time trial, and crit!

Thank you!
All the member of the Virginia Tech Cycling Team would like to thank you for your donations, any amount helps our team ride, race and have fun on bikes!

(Douglas Graham / WLP)

Taylor P. about to win the Mens A W&M RR.