Of the Purdue cycling club that is. It's been busy but I've enjoyed the role so far, without too many setbacks. I don't have to worry about social security or the economy, so that's a plus. I do however get the privilege of organizing meetings, events, etc. Recently we ran our annual fall Purdue mountain bike race weekend. As for the event organization aspect, let me summarize: race mistakenly gets cancelled... un-cancelled and signing of papers begins... meet with University who say they need to "verify a treeline" on our course... morning of race day, screw the treeline and put the course through it... everybody enjoys some great racing.
Cracking a joke. I was too busy reconstructing our tent truss to notice
The cross-country course was looking too mountain-bike technical for me, but I did decide to race the short track the next day. This was going to be my first ever mountain bike race, and just as I had done for my only two cyclocross races, I rounded up my tennis shoes and some platform pedals. Now, according to collegiate rules, new racers must start their first race in the 'C' category. That's right, a road 'A' rider has to start out in the C's. I wasn't complaining though, plus I think without clip-in pedals I would've gotten roasted in the A's. The race was fun, I rode as hard as I could from the gun and lapped all but one rider. That was enough to get me my first
mountain bike win. Next time I don't think they'll let me ride any category except A's.
Post-race, and it's time to put in our clothing order with Hincapie. Not with George Hincapie silly, with the sportswear company! Anyway, my roommate Matt Hohn came up with a sweet alteration to the past year's jersey, check it out:
Julian and Sam displaying our super cool bib shorts
The shorts are the same as last year except the back panel is black instead of Gold. As you can see, the jersey is basically the same with inverted colors. Interested in getting one of our kits? Order here: https://sites.google.com/site/purduecyclingclub/clothing
Other things that I've been involved with are things like free bike tune-ups for the Boiler Green Initiative day, where we got to fix lots of squeaky brakes and rusty derailleurs, and lending bikes to Habitat for Humanity to use in the Hilly Hundred, who returned one of our bikes with handlebars twisted in all 3 dimensions. That's alright though, it'll get twisted back with a hard sprint or two...not.
This is also the first year I've been living off campus. Our own cycling club house, the "Bike Haus", has been passed down for several years now, and it was my turn to settle in. I get to live with four awesome guys who are passionate about cycling, the club, and most importantly, school. Two of my roommates are mechanics too, so it can't get any better! Well, that's all for now. Time for me to get ready for winter hibernation and wait for next year.
0 comments:
Post a Comment