VIRGINIA TECH CYCLING ROAD SEASON, DUKE WEEKEND RECAP

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Issue #3

Road Season, March 29-30 Recap

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Virginia Tech Cycling

Duke University Road Race and Team Time Trial

Another Friday brought another weekend of bike racing for the VT Cycling Team. Once again we met on Friday afternoon to load up the cargo van with bikes and squeeze ourselves into the passenger vans for a 3.5 hour drive to North Carolina. After some dinner and a little bit of getting lost, we arrived at Luke Woodards house- where his family graciously allowed us to stay the weekend in-between racing bikes! After cranking out some homework and watching Frozen, we all fell asleep in anticipation of the next days races. The road race course on Saturday was new to the ACCC, so none of our teammates had ever ridden the 7.4 mile lap before, but the 4 turn course sounded exciting, with a series of short climbs and a long uphill to the finish. TJ and Brian Doyle once again were our first riders to brave the morning chill during the Mens D race, completing 4 laps. Both TJ and Brian finished in the top 10! Next off was the Mens C race- with Triathlon Nationals coming up this weekend, Quinn Giroux played it safe in the increasing downpour, worked together with the field and used the uphill finish to his advantagerd finishing 3 . Teammate Kyle Johnson came th an impressive 10 after doing lots of work on the front. The Womens B and C fields were combined for a 4 lap race. Sarah CW stuck with the nd pack for the first 1.5 laps and finished 2 in her race, while fellow Womens C rider Erika th Joseck came 7 - in her first race using clipless pedals and shoes! Womens B rider Becca Stimson crashed at the beginning of the last lap but was able to catch back on to th the lead group and finish 4 . The weather cleared up slightly for the Mens B race, where Gavin Kline put in a few attacks th and came in 5 . The Mens A race was extremely exciting and Taylor Pearman has provided a write-up of the action for us: The Men's A race started with teammate Mike Reidenbach attacking and soloing most of the eight laps. Navy, ASU, and Duke had to lead the chase for most of the race, taking some energy out of their legs for the end of the race. After Mike was sadly caught, there was some very aggressive attacks and I felt like something was going to finally get away and stick. Chris Jones from VCU made an effort up one of the many rollers of the course and I decided to go with him. We looked at each other and knew what to do, after having a successful breakaway together at William & Mary. For the last 1.5 laps we worked together to stay away and built a 75 second advantage over the chasing peloton. As we approached the final climb to the finish line, the toughest hill of the course, Chris came around me and I accelerated to catch his wheel. We slowed down and rode side by side at the base of the hill waiting for each other to make a move. Chris started another acceleration, to which I responded to and then kept going to gap Chris before cresting the hill and taking the win for the team. Congrats on your second win of the season Taylor! After a short rest, the TTT began! This weeks team time trial was a single lap of the road race course, and although only two VT teams raced, both teams crushed the competition. The Mens B team (Kyle Johnson, Luke Woodard, and Gavin Kline) finished the 7.4 rd mile lap in 17:14:30, coming 3 in the Mens B category. The Mens A team (Will Massey, Oliver Donkervoet, Sean Gardner, and Taylor Pearman) finished the lap in 15:17:62, beating the Duke team (2013 Collegiate TTT National Champions) by 2 seconds and taking the win! What a day! With top 10 finishes in every category raced, a win in the Mens a TTT and a win by Taylor Pearman during the Mens A RR, we were ready for some recovery in preparation for tomorrows crit!