It was the University of Denver’s first ever appearance at the USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships May 12-14, and by the end of the weekend they established themselves as a top-10 Division II team in the country.
The three day event in Lawrence, Kansas featured top collegiate cyclists from across nation, all competing for a national championship. The three events were a team time trial, a road race and a criterium and DU’s Club Cycling Team entered all three.
DU sent six men and one woman to see how they matched up against the nation’s best in Division II (schools with less than 15,000 students).
The first day was the team time trial, in which seniors Joe McNabb and Justin Rose and freshmen Joe Lewis and Taylor Shelden raced a 14 mile course in 36:55, battling ferocious Kansas wind. The time was good enough for 9th place out of 15 teams.
Day two was a road race in which senior Steve Forbes, junior David Muecke, Rose and Shelden tackled an 85 mile course in a 90 person field. After 60 miles of racing, Muecke was involved in a brutal crash which took him out of the race, but the other three were still with the main pack.
With 8 miles to go, there was a 2 person breakaway 2:00 in front of the field. Rose then went to the front to speed the pace up. With only 5 miles remaining, the peloton reached a hill at which Shelden took off, taking three other riders with him.
Soon after, Rose and two other riders left the peloton as well. Inside of one mile to the finish, Rose left his group to catch the others. Shelden and his group had caught the leaders inside 500 meters at which time Rose caught on too.
From there, a sprint gave Rose 3rd and Shelden 5th, putting two DU jerseys on the podium. Forbes finished up in the top half of the field at 43rd.
On the woman’s side, third-year law student Kathryn Garner was DU’s lone representative. In a tough 56 mile race plagued with multiple crashes, Garner ended up a very respectable 34th, avoiding the crashes and without any help from teammates.
The third and final day of racing was a criterium held in downtown Lawrence. The men started the day off with Lewis, Muecke, Rose and Shelden on the start line.
Halfway through the race, Lewis was involved in a 5 person pileup, but he was able to get back in the race. With 20 minutes left in the race, a 5 man breakaway left the field, without a DU representative. Shelden, Rose, and Muecke did everything they could to bring it back, but could never quite do it. On the last lap, Muecke was involved in another crash, leaving Lewis to take on the other schools alone. He was able to get a 19th place finish, out of 80 starters. Shelden and Rose rolled in at 40th and 41st and Muecke got up from a nasty crash to finish 58th.
The weekend was a complete success for the DU Club Cycling Team. They left Kansas ranked 9th in the Division II standings, labeling them as one of the stronger teams in the nation in just their first year.
The team has 65 members, of which about half race throughout the 10 week season that begins in early March. The team was started last summer by Muecke, McNabb and Rose. Next year, they hope to send another team to nationals, but with more women. For the rest of the school year, the team will continue to have group rides a few times a week and will race in non-collegiate races throughout the summer.
