Rough Times at the Tour De Ephrata

Hi everyone, 

So this weekend the team experienced its first non-colligate race. We raced the two day, three stage Tour De Ephrata. 

Saturday was a 26 mile circut race on narrow rolling coutry roads. It was the first truly hot day of the year with the tempurature in the high eighties. From the start we had problems. Dan Rossi had his chain snap putting him out of the race. On the first climb of the day Stephen dropped his chain causing him to fall over and Charlie got caught behind. Both were dropped from the main group. Stephen crashed again going through a gravely corner and Charlie was our best finisher in 47th place. 

Sunday things got a bit better. In the morning we had the "Pain Mountain" Time trail. The name says it all. Stephen put in a great ride to finish 12th. 

Sunday afternoon's crit is things went very well. Both Stephen and Charlie were active in the Crit. Stephen held a good position all race and sprinted for 13th place. Charlie was in a group farther back but won the sprint from his group finishing 30th. 

Stephen finished the weekend placed 15th overall out of 75 starters. Not bad considering Saturdays bad luck. 

Next weekend is our final team race of the season, the Eastern Championships in State College Pa.  We are fired up and ready to bring home some good results. 

YALE!

Yet another super successful weekend for F&M cycling!

This last weekend we traveled up to Connecticut to race at Yale. Saturday morining started off with a 4.3 mile time trial that finished with a 1.5 mile climb. F&M struggled to place with our best result being at 12th place by Rob Burnett in the Men's B race. 

Saturday afternoon the rain came with a vengence dampening our spirits slighty. The Men's D and Intro racers had some bad luck with dropped chains and poor positioning taking them out of contention. 

In the Men's B race Rob Burnett broke away from the pack with 3 others with 7 miles left in the race. The four worked well together and never saw the main pack again. Rob finished a fantastic 2nd place for the teams top result so far this year!

In the Sunday morining Criterium the Men's D's stepped up their game. Despite an unfortunate crash of Dan Rossi half way throught the race they were still able to place Charlie Salzer n great position for the sprint. Charlie was able to sprint for third, his best result of the season! Rob was able to light up the Men's B Criterium with two different breakaways lasting four and two laps respectively and winning one prime. 

F&M finished the weekend ranked 25th out of 50 teams! Great weekend overall, but we are still chasing that win. We are now hungryer than ever!

This coming weekend we will not be racing and we invite everyone to join us on a group ride Saturday afternoon. We will leave from Buchanan Park at 1pm and ride for around 1 and a half hours. Please RSVP. 

Thank you to everyone for your support!

-The F&M Cycling Team

Stephen coming in 2nd in Philly! (and dusting Millersville)

We are on TV (kinda)

Check out this clip of our collegiate race at Yale. In the last shot with the reporter speaking into the camera I am the blue and white blur over her left shoulder. 

Ups and Downs in Philly

Well, it was certainly an interesting weekend for the F&M cycling team. We headed down to Philly with very high expectations. We had been training hard and were very confident of bringing home some great results. 

We kicked off the weekend Saturday with a Circuit Race. Sam got a season best 8th in the Women's Intro race, and Adric placed 13th in the Men's Intro race. 

For the Men's D race we had high expectations, we fielded four riders: Charlie, Dan, Stephen and Drew. We were confident that both Drew and Stephen were capable of good results. Unfortunately our bad luck started with both Charlie and Drew getting caught up in a crash and Dan getting caught up behind the crash. Drew Broke his bike and Charlie landed on the same hip he had crashed on at Princeton, both had to pull out of the race. The one piece of good news is that Stephen avoided incident and was able to sprint it out, coming in second, scoring the best result for the team so far. 

I lined up for the Men's B racing looking for at least another top 10. Unfortunately in the last two miles of the race several riders crashed in front of me causing me to go down as well. Fortunately I was able to land on a pile of people and walked away unharmed. 

Sunday morning started early with a Team Time Trail. We had been practicing hard and it payed off with a solid 10th place out of 25 teams. 

In the afternoon we finished up with a Crit. Adric placed 10th in the Men's Intro race and Sam placed a season best 5th in the Women's Intro race. 

Stephen sprinted well in the Men's D race to score yet another 2nd place for F&M. 

All in all a tough but successful weekend. Congrats to everyone who came out. We will rest next weekend to be ready to take on Yale in two weeks time. 

University of Delaware

The F&M cycling team continued its success last weekend at the University of Delaware. Riding with only half of our team due to spring break, we still managed to make our presence felt in a big way. 

We kicked off the weekend with Dan Rossi racing his first D race ever. Despite an unlucky crash Dan still managed to place 21st. 

Sunday Morning we were up early for the Individual time trial, a rolling 5 mile course that hurt everyones legs. F&M's captain Rob Burnett, coming back from mono, placed a respectable 9th in the Mens B race only 30 seconds off the winning time. 

Sunday afternoon is when F&M really started to shine. Adric Quackenbush put in his best race ever in the Mens intro race to pull of a 12th place. 

In the Men's D race we fielded three racer: Dan Rossi, Drew Mitstifer, and Stephen Thomasch. From the gun Dan flew off the line leading the pack through the first lap with Drew and Stephen right behind. Midway through the race Stephen was dropped with a mechanical problem, but was still able to finish a respectable 16th. When he has his bike working right he will be unstoppable. Despite losing Stephen we were still represented well in the front group with Drew. Coming into the final lap Drew was perfectly place and finished a fantastic 4th in his first D race!

Finally Captain Rob Burnett took on the Men B's in his first mass start race of the season. Despite the overwhelming force of UVM (6 in the top 11) Rob was able to hold onto the front group to finish 10th. 

Overall a very successful weekend at UDel and we plan on even more this coming weekend in Philly where we will field a full team. Stay tuned for updates!

almost 300 miles!

Not much snow, but this winter & spring have been terrible for cold. Despite the chilly temps, I've somehow managed to accumulate mileage I wouldn't have seen till sometime in May. I credit much of the motivation to riding with some speedy students. Its been fun to see the F&M Cycling Club grow and succeed.

Now, at the risk of having some throw-up in their mouths a little, here's a photo of me in the club jersey & shorts. I've never been on a team before, so this is a proud moment!



- Andy Gulati