Cyclers club making a name for club
Despite being a university-recognized club for less than a year, the Utah State University cycling clubmembers have been making a name for themselves not only in Logan, but also throughout Utah and the rest of the nation.
The club was first recognized by USU on Dec. 14, 2000. One day later, rider Amelia Henry placed eighth in the Cyclocross Nationals in Oklahoma. Cyclocross is a European style of riding that combining both mountain biking and road cycling.
Following the first success, the team members kept building on their performances. The road race season began in the spring of 2001 and the cyclers placed high in their conference, finishing fourth overall.
They competed as a National Collegiate Athletic Association team within the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Conference. USU raced against teams from Utah, Colorado Wyoming and other surrounding states. In their first team event, riders competed in a road race in Colorado. Henry took 11th in that race. Throughout the race season, riders went to various events both collegiate and non-collegiate. Most events were held in Colorado and Wyoming, though the team participated in several non-collegiate races within Utah.
“We hit races whenever possible to get experience,” said Tommy Murphy, club president and team captain.
Following the regional race season, the club sent a team to the RMCCC finals, in Laramie, Wyo., on May 12 and 13. This was the first event that an entire team was present for a race, Murphy said.
In the men’s division, Richard Hatch, Steve Hadley, Roger Snow and Murphy all competed. Hatch competed in the A division, which is for riders at or near pro level. Hadley, Snow, and Murphy competed at the B level.
Hatch finished fifth in the road races in his division. Murphy finished first and Hadley finished third. Snow finished in the top 20 in the division. For the season, Murphy finished second in the conference while Hadley finished fifth.
Both Darcie Kaufman and Henry raced for the women. Henry raced in the A division while Kaufman raced in the B division. Both riders placed in the top 10 for conference finals and in the top 20 overall for the season.
Murphy said the RMCCC is a tough conference to compete in. The University of Colorado won the conference and took second at the NCAA Nationals, while Air Force University took second in the conference and finished in the top 10 at Nationals. USU finished fourth in the conference.
Though their performance at conference finals qualified the team to participate in the National Championships on May 19 and 20 in Colorado, only one rider was able to make it to the race. Due to various circumstances, including funding, most of the team was unable to attend. Hadley was the lone Aggie rider at Nationals, and though he competed in the road race and criterium, he was unable to compete in the team time trials which requires more than one rider per team. Hadley finished 56th in the road race.
“It was a good accomplishment to finish and place 56th against some of the best collegiate cyclists in the nation,” Hadley said.
After a successful road-race season, the team was still not done with racing. Throughout the summer, club members participated in a variety of races through the Utah Cycling Association.
J.J. Clark won the pro division in Eight Hours of Ogden. This is a mountainbike race in which cyclists ride laps around the course. Clark won by completing the most laps during the course of the race. At the Snowbird Hill Climb, Hatch took fourth behind three pro riders who race for the United States National Team.
In one other summer race of note, Kaufman took second in her division in the Brian Head 100, a 100-mile race that took her 11.5 hours to finish. Murphy said he feels the club had a great year.
“I wish we would have had more participation, but the biggest thing was getting our name out, both on campus and in the conference. The conference knows us now and we are getting personal invites from schools to attend races,” Murphy said.