STIFF COMPETITION LEADS TO SUCCESSES FOR SKIDMORE CYCLING

Over the Weekend of March 13th and 14th, three of Skidmore Cycling's most committed racers, Dave Brown '07, Adam Cohen '06, and Ricky Silver '07 traveled to Unionville, Pennsylvania to compete in three bicycle races. The competition at the Penn State races was very difficult, and the riders representing Skidmore gave a strong performance to finish well in the races. Even with all of the trials and tribulations, Skidmore Cycling is still focused on our goal of ending the season ranked in the top 15 clubs of division II. Currently, we have slipped from 10 to 11, but are looking to gain back ground in coming weeks.

At Penn State, in the A-class Individual Time Trial, which was contested in the midst of a snow shower, and boasted 1100 feet of elevation gain over the course, Dave finished 34th, out of 37 starters, 5 minutes behind the leaders. In the C-class Time Trial, Adam finished 40th out of 45 starters, also about 5 minutes behind the leader. Ricky finished 22 out of 31 starters in the D-class race, finishing 6 minutes behind the leader.

Later that day, at the weekend's fastest race, Dave out did himself to finish 16th, and earned Skidmore 5 points.  The exhilarating criterium that Dave raced in was 37 miles long and had an average speed of over 34 miles per hour.  In the C class race, Adam finished 47th out of 53 starters, and in the D race, Ricky finished 30th out of 38.

The next day, at the Road Race, Adam finished the D-class race 18th out of 42, 3 minutes and 10 seconds behind the winner from UNH. Ricky finished 26th, a great result consider that the course was so confusing that many racers did not finish.

The following weekend, on Saturday the 20th, Skidmore Cycling entered five riders in Columbia University’s Grant’s Tomb Criterium, in Manhattan, New York. The course on which this race was competed was extremely difficult, and had 5 90-degree turns, as well as one 180 degree U-turn. All three racers who had been at Penn State were present, as well as Ian Liptak ’06, and myself; Andrew Bernstein ’07. Skidmore ended the day gaining another 7 points, and offered a strong presence in both the Men’s A and D races.

In the Men’s A race, Dave went all out mid way through the hour-long race to sprint away from the pack and win an intermediary sprint, which earned 5 points for the team. Unfortunately, the effort tired Dave, and the pace of the pack was so unrelenting that he was unable to recover from his effort, so he dropped out of the race, but still had 5 points to show for his effort.

In the Men’s D race, Adam Cohen worked extremely hard for the team and picked up two points in an intermediary sprint, and finished 17th out of 58 starters. After being dropped by the pack leaders on the third lap of the race, I was once again left to chase my lonely way back to the front. I also managed to put my pedal on the pavement on the last right-hand turn on the second to last lap, which nearly caused me to crash, and did cause me to damage my rear wheel. I limped across the line on a broken wheel to finish 27th. Ricky, who flatted 45 seconds before his race and was forced to ride on Dave's larger bike, finished not far behind me at 41, and Ian was involved in a crash early on, and had to withdraw from the race.

Though we were all (aside from Adam) a little disappointed with out performance at Columbia, we got out of bed at ungodly hours the next morning (5:15 am) to compete in the Princeton Orange Criterium, in Sussex County, New Jersey. A much smaller group of riders assembled for this race, and Skidmore rode better, especially in the D-class race, than we ever had before.

In the D race, only 38 starters came to the line, and half of the Skidmore starters finished in the top 20 (Ricky and I). For the first three laps of the six lap race, Skidmore was working hard to communicate amongst ourselves, and to control the field. We were very successful at this, and managed to keep the entire field together, without allowing any riders to break away off the front of the pack. We continued to work hard at this task until Adam crashed, colliding with another rider with two laps to go. Although he tried to jump over the rider, he was thwarted by the rider’s torso, and went down without injury. Ricky finished, 17th, and I finished 20th on my hastily repaired wheel. Both of us finished only seconds behind the winner from Boston University. Adam got back up and chased hard to finish 24th, a minute behind, and Ian finished 26th, with, as he put it, “people behind [him].” On the whole, it was an exciting and triumphant moment for the Skidmore D-class racers, most of whom are in their first year of bicycle racing. We are hoping to be able to compete in C class races before the end of this season.

In the A class race, Dave rode a race of redemption, and finished 15th, scoring 7 points for the team, mere seconds behind the unstoppable winner, Mike Barton, a 31 year old engineering student from Dartmouth. Barton is a constant source of consternation for Skidmore Cycling, as he is clearly far too old to be competing in collegiate cycling, even though his status as a full time graduate student allows him to do so.
After gaining five points at Penn state, five points at Columbia, and seven points at Princeton, Skidmore Cycling currently has 39 points, which places us 11th in the competition for the division II title. There are 35 schools competing for the title. We are excited with this result, and are looking forward to continued successes in the future.

Skidmore Cycling will not be competing this coming weekend, and will instead be staying on campus to train for the team-time-trial races that we have coming up. Following the weekend away from racing, we will be competing in four consecutive weekends of racing, with three races each weekend, at Harvard, Army, UVM, and at the conference finals at UNH. For more information, and to see pictures of our races thus far, please visit our web site, hudson2.skidmore.edu/studentorgs/cycling, and happy riding!

Andrew Bernstein ‘07
VP Communications
Skidmore Cycling
A2bernst@skidmore.edu

Andrew Bernstein
Co-News Editor
The Skidmore News
a2bernst@skidmore.edu
x6839
Cell: 917 685 7859