New Member Info

Congratulations! If you have seen the flyers around campus and they have brought you here, you are one step closer to becoming a member of Lehigh cycling. If you have any specific questions feel free to email our President or Captain:
President: Brandon: blo214@lehigh.edu
Captain: David: dad315@lehigh.edu

The information session is tentatively on Thursday November 8th at 7pm in Hawks Nest. All interested in becoming part of the team must either come to this meeting or email Dave and he will contact you with more info.

First off, you do NOT need a road bike to start off with the team. Winter training will start in November, with spin sessions 1-2 times a week in the spin room of Taylor Gym, for more info on winter training, follow the jump here. This is the perfect time to start getting in shape, and to slowly build a base up to what is needed to win races which start in March. As long as there is no snow on the roads, there will be someone going on rides, and the opportunity to ride in the winter is there. Around February (depending on snow and weather) is when we will start to go outside and work on skills like pace lining, group riding, and race tactics.

The one thing that is important to know is that all of this training is recommended but highly optional. The wonderful thing about the ECCC (Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference) is that it is as serious as you want it to be. The races are categorized by INTROS, D, C, B, and A so whether you want to have a casual race or mash the pedals like Mark Cavendish, you will be accommodated.

Regardless of how hesitant you may or may not be to try cycling. We highly encourage you to come to the first meeting and open spin sessions. Meet the team members, and learn about what the program has to offer before you make up your mind.

"My favorite part of joining Lehigh Cycling was the camaraderie in the team and the sense of accomplishment from racing. I had never raced bikes before and I did not realize how rewarding it was to see all this hard work pay off in the races. Not to mention... The UVM guys are a bunch of rednecks at heart and it is always funny to see what they have in store for the races"- member of Lehigh Cycling

Cyclocross Season Preview

Marten made his CX bike into a fixed gear winter trainer. So now the only way we can celebrate CX season is to drink the fluids of Cyclocross gods! (High quality H20)


Naturally Light, 
Dave

Winter training is coming

The leaves are falling, the air is cooling, it is literally perfect riding weather. Unfortunately as we all know this will not last forever. Pretty soon it will be cold as an eskimo's undercarriage and we will be forced to the confines of the winter spin room. We are excited to have the opportunity to use this as a platform for meeting potential racers and riders therefore the first two sessions will not be so intense. Mainly just intervals and cardio and our spinning games. The Contador paced hill slug sessions will be at a later time.

The games will include.

I hate you. You Suck. My Turn!
-Get in a circle and everyone gets about 8 minutes where they control what everyone does. And you literally can do whatever you want. Painfully easy spin, painfully difficult spin, hill slug fest, make everyone get off the bike and do planks, water break, Wendy's run... whatever

F*$! the fan
-10 minute interval session, when the fan blows by you spin as fast as you can until the fan comes back.... repeat. 5 minutes in you are obliged to proclaim "F the fan" every time the fan comes by you.

Strugglebus
-Do what Marten does for an hour and a half

Paintrain
- TTT simulation, everyone starts off at the same cadence, the first one at the front goes up 2 cranks in resistance and each subsequent person behind him is 1/4 of a crank behind the person in front of them. The person at the front says when his pull is over.

Powerhour
-Easy spin one song, hard spin on the next... repeat until legs loose feeling. *You are required to follow Dave in complaining how the hard songs are always longer than the easy songs*

Grit your teeth and squeeze your cheeks 
*To be done before black mo* Easy spin 10 minutes... 2-3/ 15 minute high intensity hill climb simulations... If you think you might pass out you are doing it correctly.

Movienight
-Marten brings in a corny awesome DVD of cyclists with random sound effects that correspond to pain.. Instructions inside.

Attack
-Hill climb race... The person who attacks the most amount of times wins.... If you want to stay in the race, you have to attack when they do.

And remember!

Lehigh Laps results

Phew, the proverbial rubber dust has settled, and our first track race is in the books.  Thanks to everyone who came out to race for helping to make a successful day of racing and spectating.  If you weren't there, here are some highlights of the day to showcase some of the excitement that is ECCC track racing.

After a thunderstorm blew through our MTB race on Saturday, I was very glad to see temps in the 70s, and low humidity for our track race on Sunday.

Kicking things off in high gear with the 200m TTs, Mark Wagner of Pink Rhino Racing set the fastest time of the day of 12.20 seconds, that's averaging 36.9 mph on a flat track!  Steve Rusnak of Army took the fastest collegiate time at barely a tenth of a second behind in the Men's A/B race.  In a theme that would continue for the day, the collegiate Women and C/D Men saw a very tight battle, Kenneth Dailey (Army) beat Alex Borsuk (PSU) by only 7 hundredths of a second, while the stop watches showed only 0:00.02 difference between Gabby and Victoria (West Point)!

In the Men's C/D 500m TT, Kenneth and Alex switched top spots, with Alex taking the win by less then a second.  Steve Rusnak showed he wasn't only fastest over 200m, but also won the Men's A/B Kilo by a solid gap of over 8 seconds.

The 2k individual pursuit showed just how closely matched the collegiate women were racing.  Here is a chart showing the relative advantage in seconds of Jasmine over Gabriella, finally putting an end to Gabriella's winning streak.

After a very even start, Gabby inched ahead to a maximum lead of almost 1.5 seconds, but in the final laps Jasmine poured it on to take the win by less then 1 second over the 3 minute race.

In the Men's C/D, it was Alex Borsuk (PSU) again, edging out Brandon Knettel (Lehigh) by less then 2 seconds in their 2k pursuit.  This result was good enough to move Brandon into 3rd over all in the omnium, just one point behind Kenneth Dailey who was consistently finishing near the top.

In the Men's C/D 4k Scratch race, Brandon found enough motivation throw down an early attack, and hold off a hard charging Alex Borsuk (PSU) to take the win, and move into second in the overall omnium, but Alex still held a significant lead of 5 points, after 3 events.

With Army fielding the majority of the riders in the Women's scratch race, Antonina Esposto (Marywood University) was forced to chase down the alternating Army attackers, doing a bunch of chase work, and just plain getting outnumbered by the team tactics of Army. 

Sarah Haight took the Scratch race win, bumping her up into 3rd in the omnium.  While Gabby scored 3 more points to increase her lead in the Women's omnium, the Men's A/B race was just getting tighter.  After winning the scratch race, Mike Houghton (Army) took enough points to tie Steve Rusnak for the lead, with Micah not far behind.

With such a close race for the Men's A/B omnium, it came down to a tense and tactical race in the Match Sprints.  Mike Houghton won each of his heats, all the way to meet Steve Rusnak in the finals.  Each were tied for first in the omnium, so this win would determine not only the Match sprints, but the overall collegiate win.  Crawling at a snail's pace (I swear they went backwards for a while) until late in the last lap, Mike got a strong enough acceleration to take the win by several bike lengths over his teammate.

In the Women's match sprints, Jennifer Webster took her first win of the day, facing off against her teammate Sarah in the finals.  While the margins got tighter, neither had quite enough points to take the omnium win from Gabriella Allong.

Results and TT times (with splits) posted on the website.

Lehigh Gran Fondo Recap

There was a great turnout for the inaugural Lehigh Gran Fondo Sunday afternoon.  We had two routes planned: 64 miles of pain out to Lake Nockamixon and up the hills of Lower Saucon Township and 18 miles around Center Valley.  The whole pack rode together for the first 14 miles, with the two groups going their separate ways before heading east towards Springtown.  Six of us opted for the longer trip and stayed together for the remaining 50 miles.

Below is a map of the ride and the Strava data for the day's journey:

Lehigh Gran Fondo KOM and Sprint Competitions

Next weekend's anticipated Gran Fondo (Sunday 9/2 at 12pm) will cover more than a metric century and promises to offer challenges for all participating riders.  The route features 5 categorized climbs (1 Category 3 and 4 Category 4s), a number of rolling hills, as well as some long, flat sections.  The ride is guaranteed to be a great way to start off the year, hopefully meet some new people, and see how much riding everyone got in over the summer.  In order to further animate the day's festivities, there will be two in-ride competitions.

Lehigh Gran Fondo - September 2!

As everyone returns to South Mountain, we've decided to get the whole team together for perhaps the largest group ride in team history.  The Lehigh Gran Fondo, or "Big Ride," will take place on Sunday, September 2 and is open to all Lehigh students, faculty, staff, alumni, family and friends of the club. All groups will meet at 12 p.m. at the following address: Warren Square, Bethlehem, PA 18015

After some discussion about potential routes through the Lehigh Valley, the club has decided on a trip to Lake Nockamixon.  The lake is the largest in southeastern Pennsylvania and is the site of the annual Masters time trial state championship.  We'll be riding on the same 12.5 mile stretch on the west side of the lake.  The event will feature rides of three lengths--64 miles for those up for a bit more climbing and a faster pace, 53 miles for those up for a more leisurely ride, and a 20 mile fun ride for beginners and those looking for a relaxed Sunday spin.  We hope that this will give incoming students and new club members a chance to immediately become involved in the club and make connections with our current team and alumni .

Like this, only without the imported Italian cyclists.

More info below: the course, food stops, and what to bring...

2012 Lehigh Laps

September 9, 2012, 9:00 am

Announcing the 2012 Lehigh Laps track event to be held at the Valley Preferred Cycling center.  Collegiate and USAC categories, see the website for more details!

http://www.lehigh.edu/~mtb308/track/


Registration: https://www.bikereg.com/Net/17051

Penn State Weekend Recap

The team set out this weekend to Happy Valley for Penn State's race weekend.  Eight members of the Lehigh Cycling squad headed across the state for another great showing by the team.  Week 5 of the ECCC season featured arguably the two most challenging courses of the entire year.  Saturday featured the storied/dreaded (at least for those of us who do not resemble mountain goats) Black Moshannon road race, a 21.5 mile long monster of a course that many of us conquered at last year's Easterns.  With a 1000 foot descent just a few miles into the race, followed by a pair of Cat 4 climbs, and ending with a Cat 2 climb of 1200 feet in 3.7 miles, many riders were pushed to their limits.

Some happy Lehigh Cycling riders at Penn State's Black Mo race.

Black Mo Preview

In case you didn't get enough of Black Mo last year, Penn State's brutal road race is back this weekend. Fortunately for the A, B, and C fields, there will be one less lap than last year.  The course is the same 21.5 mile long one with 2330 feet of climbing each time around.  Here's the course profile to look over.  The race is in Port Matilda, PA for weather/clothing planning purposes.

Molly coming around the final turn towards the finish at 2011 Easterns.

Jersey Devil Recap

Week 4 of the ECCC road season was hosted by Princeton this past weekend.  This weekend saw the largest single-day participation of the year by Lehigh Cycling, with 7 riders competing in the Col du Skillman Circuit Race.  As with almost every road race on this year's schedule, the theme of the day was climbing. And lots of it.  The course was 4.4 miles long, with a 1.4 mile/310 ft climb to start off every lap.  Men's A, B, C, and D did 8,6,5, and 4 laps, respectively, with Women's C racing 4 laps.  Breakaways were largely successful in just about every category due to the nature of the course.

Philly Phlyer Recap

This weekend, the club headed down to the Philly Phlyer. The race is a staple of the ECCC road schedule and a perennial favorite among Lehigh Cycling due to its proximity to Bethlehem and its great venues. Saturday featured a team time trial, which we did not participate in, as well as a circuit race on a 6.2 mile course. Men's A, B, and C completed 5, 4, and 3 laps, respectively, and Women's C completed 2 laps.

First out on the course was Brandon O. in his first Men's C race. The Division 1 and 2 C groups were combined, which led to a large field of 75. Brandon finished in 32nd out of all C riders, and 7th in Division 2, picking up some important individual points. Kiki was next up for the team in Women's C. Unfortunately, she crashed out but was alright and in good spirits.

Brandon leading the B field up the climb into lap 4.

Philly Phlyer Preview

This weekend, we're headed to Philadelphia for the annual Philly Phlyer. With a TTT and circuit race in West Fairmount Park along the Schuylkill River on Saturday, and an on-campus crit at Temple on Sunday, there is sure to be some great racing at some awesome venues.

The course profiles and some footage from last year's races are after the break...

ECCC Week 1: Rutgers

The 2012 Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference road season kicked off with yet another edition of the Frozen Toed Season Opener, hosted by Rutgers. The forecast leading up to the weekend was bleak for the first race of the year, but our club still sent a total of 5 riders this year. As in years past, the first event of the season was a fast 2.2 mile individual time trial on an out-and-back course in Somerset, NJ early Saturday morning. Marten, Brandon K., and Perry all participated in the wet ITT, with Brandon just missing out on points in B's.

The much anticipated and surprisingly long road race was next up for the club in the afternoon. ECCC races typically increase in length and difficulty as the season progresses, yet the Rutgers planned a 13 mile course with 944 ft of climbing each lap. The A field would race 5 laps, B's would do 4, C: 3, D: 2, and Intro would do 1. This meant that the second longest race of the year, after Easterns at UNH, would be during the opening weekend. The combination of plenty of mileage and climbing would prove to be a good test of everyone's early season form.

Marten at the start of the A road race