2008 Woodie Awards
Laid-back ride draws students to cycling club
Cherome Owens
Issue date: 5/7/08 Section: Sports
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The program has been around for 12 years. Schaefer said it was the perfect club to join as a new student to the university.
"I wanted to meet some new people without going out and getting tanked at a random party," Schaefer said. "I found that the cycling team [is] a pretty cool group of people. They are all real nice and are only out to have fun."
Schaefer, who has been in the club for three years and is the president, said cycling is a fun sport because it's something he can do daily. Some club members even prefer to ride their bikes to driving a car.
"A lot of us ride to class," Schaefer said. "I ride in anything but rain. This winter was real bad on the bikes, as the salt rusted our chains. Some of the people on the team don't have commuter passes for their cars because they ride all the time.
"Our commuter bikes run anywhere from $20 Huffys to $1,400 old race bikes," Schaefer said. "Our race bikes can get all the way up to $5,000 or more."
Schaefer said his first bike was $1,000 and his last one was $4,200 before personal upgrades. In addition to members having expensive bikes, they also have multiple bikes.
"Most [members] have two or three bikes, and others like me have five or six," Schaefer said.
Students have more than one bike for competition, as the club participates in different race formats. The team participates in eight road races in the spring and eight mountain races in the fall. There are also four divisions based on skill level.
"We had a strong showing in all classes," Schaefer said. "Many of our higher level racers didn't race regionals, but we still managed to do well, only losing to teams that are Division I. Our team was all over the rankings."
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