Collegiate Season//Collegiate Nationals

Going into this year I had three goals: 1. Qualify for Leadville, 2. Qualify for Collegiate MTB Nationals, and 3. Get on the Chainbuster series podium in 6 hour pro/expert. I discussed goal 1 earlier this year; so this post is all about goal 2; qualifying and racing the USAC Collegiate MTB National Championships.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, collegiate cycling is sanctioned by USA Cycling (USAC) and allows college students to compete against other college students and are broken into several conferences, the Southeastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (SECCC) (home to Lees-Mcrae College, King University, Union College, Brevard College, and many others) and the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Conference (RMCCC) (home to Fort Lewis College and Colorado Mesa University) are the most competitive conferences nationally. Racers compete for points that contribute to individual rankings and team rankings and at the end of the season the individual and team with the most points are declared the conference champions. If you or your team are ranked high enough you may be given qualification to compete at the Collegiate National Championships.

 I would like to note that there are a number of schools in which cycling is a varsity sport and give SCHOLARSHIPS to athletes to race their bicycles at a collegiate level. If you are an athlete or work with an athlete that is interested in racing at the collegiate level feel free to contact me and I would be more than happy to get you associated with some coaches and get the ball rolling.

Conference Racing

The first race was the Georgia Tech Mountain Bike Omnium held in Conyers, GA at the Georgia International Horsepark, which is a course I'm really familiar with so I was excited and hoping for some solid results, I ended up getting 9th in the time trial, 18th in short track, and 17th in the cross country. Not exactly what I was hoping for but as I found out later in the season those were solid results for me.

For the next race the Kennesaw State Cycling team would travel to Clemson, SC for the Clemson Race weekend; the field had nearly doubled from the previous race so I was happy to squeak into the top 30 for both the short track and cross country.

After the Clemson race we traveled to Barbourville, Kentucky to race at the Union College race. I got 19th in both the short track and cross-country. Then I tried my hand at some gravity and got 2nd in the C's class 2-cross race. Huge thank you to the Union College Cycling Team and their coach, Sean Trinque, for housing us and treating us like their team for the weekend.

Then we traveled to the King University race where I had my best results of the season. 16th in short track and 19th in cross country! I started to really feel some fitness thanks to T.G. Taylor's coaching program. Then I got 5th in the dual slalom.

The final conference race of the season was the conference championship hosted by Mars Hill university. I had gotten sick a few days before and was still feeling it during the weekend but I still managed 21st in short track but I crashed out of the cross country race when I tried to drop someone on a descent.

Adding up all of the series points, Kennesaw State ended up 6th in the Club Team Omnium and I got 8th in the Men's A Club Endurance Omnium. That 8th place meant that I accomplished my goal of qualifying for collegiate nationals!

Nationals

The USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships were held in Snowshoe Resort, West Virginia this year; about an 8 or 9 hour drive my apartment in Marietta, GA. So not the worst, but by no means an enjoyable drive for one person to endure. Thankfully, Sean Trinque of Union College Cycling offered to drive me up and let me stay with the team for the entire week! Coming from a club team, a lot of the expenses were going to have to be paid out of pocket (at least, initially) so I'm incredibly thankful for that.

I drove up to Barbourville, Kentucky and then we left for Snowshoe, West Virginia in their team van around 2AM on Tuesday the 18th of October. We arrived a

round 10AM on the same day and got checked in. Then Sean, Yves, myself, and a few others went for a quick spin and explored some of the trails around the resort. The first trail we rode was called "6,000 Stairs" which was about 1.5 miles of constant roots and rocks; after that I realized that the race course was going to be more technical that what I'd prefer to race on my hardtail.

On Wednesday, we did another spin around to find out where the race course would be we were able to find some of it and I ended up riding parts of it backwards or in the wrong order; you know normal pre-offical preride shenanigans,

On Thursday, I met up with Elliott Baring and actually rode the correct course, in the correct direction and all of that. I was right about wishing I had a full suspension bike for this race; all of the singletrack sections were really rooty or just straight rock gardens. It was a really fun and fair course; the best mountain biker was going to win this race. Hands down.

When we arrived in Snowshoe, the weather was a perfect 60 degrees and sunny. However, for the first day of racing the weather went south pretty quick, making the short track a rainy affair at a nice and warm 40 degrees. I think I got 58th in that race, but after being sick for 3 weeks I'll take it.

You know how somethings just get progressively worse? Well, that was the weather at Snowshoe. The temperature dropped to 20ish degrees and it started snowing and kept snowing THROUGH the cross country race. I've never raced in conditions so unfavorable and probably never will again. I think I got 61st but this was more of a race of survival and after being sick I wasn't terribly interested in making myself even worse and potentially hurting myself for next year.

The following day, I race dual slalom which was more for fun than anything else and walked away with 37th place. After the weekend, to say that my bike was trashed was an understatement; it pretty much needed new everything.

Overall, my first collegiate nationals didn't quite go as expected or as well as I'd hoped. But it was an experience that I'll never forget and thankfully, I'll have another 3 seasons to get it right. I also have to give out the best mom and sister awards to mine for driving 11 hours and braving all of the terrible conditions the weekend had to offer, love you guys!