Cycling in the Seattle area is on fire!
Not only are the women’s ranks swelling, the UW Husky Cycling Club has tripled in size over the past three years and is attracting a wide range of riders to the club. On the competitive front they have been having a great season, which wraps up with conference championships the weekend of April 24-25.
Danny Koski-Karell, President and Men’s Team Coordinator took time out of his busy academic and racing schedule to answer a few questions about Husky Cycling:
You’ve actively worked to expand Husky Cycling over the past few years. Tell us about the kinds of changes the team has experienced.
The greatest change in the last few years has been the growth of the club. Membership has tripled over the past three years, and we now have over 100 active members.
This growth has led to a number of other positive changes.
In the four years that I have been involved, I have seen how every single new member brings a unique and valuable set of skills and goals. The club has been able to encourage everyone to contribute to the team in their own ways–from showing up to every weekend ride, to taking leadership positions.
Ryan Larson on his way to winning the men’s C road race at UO. He currently leads the men’s C overall and is the squad’s best new rider. Image courtesy Wheels in Focus.
Having committed leaders and an engaged membership has resulted in a positive feedback mechanism that makes it exciting to be part of the organization.
We have the team logistics dialed-in, and the members reap the benefits: We are able to hold unique team events, deliver kits in time for winter training, and promptly deliver bikes and gear.
The successes of 2009-2010 are actually just a stage in a longer organization-building process. The team is experiencing a new-found maturity because of the efforts of each individual member. The club is now able to provide real benefits to recreational riders, novice riders, as well as experienced racers. This helps people believe in Husky Cycling. Confidence in the club then translates to memorable team rides, individual growth as cyclists, and race success.
Tell us about life as a collegiate cycling competitor. What is it like for the typical rider on the squad? How do you balance academics and competitive cycling?
One of the great aspects of collegiate cycling is that all racers are also full-time (undergraduate or graduate) students. Having a team and field made up of individuals who are jointly developing their athletic and academic skills produces an exceptional atmosphere. Finding balance is one of the valuable lessons of being a student-athlete, and it is certainly challenging.
The undefeated men’s A time-trial team at the University of Oregon. (L to R: Grant Boursaw, Chris Diafuku, Danny Koski-Karell, and Rad Cunningham.) Image courtesy Wheels in Focus
I have been very fortunate to be a student-athlete for a long time so I have had time to develop a system that works for me. I think that, initially, new racers find it challenging to pursue competitive cycling while enjoying the unique social opportunities of college life–not to mention schoolwork, classes, and a job. I can imagine that its difficult to walk away from a fun college party or a group of friends on a Friday night because you have to wake up early and ride your bike in the rain and dark.
In addition to the social costs, I think this choice may be especially difficult because collegiate cycling is a lot of people’s first experience with race-training. If someone is focused on the road season, they have to log in a lot of cold, soggy miles before experiencing the rewards. If we can motivate people through the winter and into race season, it is pretty much a sure bet that they will return the following year.
With this in mind, we are constantly working to make the team both an inclusive and social environment. We use full-team, no-drop rides in the fall to help motivate novice riders. The current make-up of the team makes this a (good) challenge, though. There is a large graduate student contingent on the team and not all team members live on or near campus. In my experience, if a team fills social needs it improves training and racing.
Individuals racers must find a way to balance their own responsibilities with training and racing. As with most amateur athletes, the key here is efficiency. Training time comes from efficient transitions between activities and responsibilities as well as the elimination of extraneous things like playing video games, reading the Internet, twexting, or whatever people do these days. If one leaves out peripheral things, there is definitely enough time for academics and cycling. Of course,what to cut out is a very deliberate personal choice: one has to decide their goals, determine what training they need to reach their goal, and then schedule the time by choosing to sacrifice some things.
New riders always talk to me about they are busy so they have not trained well. I am not terribly sympathetic to this reasoning. Everyone is busy; show me one person who is saying, “I have absolutely NOTHING to do!” I would rather hear them say, “I have not been training because I have been up every night this week playing “The Legend of Zelda” and drinking Sparxx.” That’s fine–this this is college and that’s what most college students do, I suppose. Race results will reflect those choices. There is certainly more to life than bicycle racing. The goal is for each person to have a positive student-athlete experience and hopefully learn a few things about themselves and teamwork.
Outline how the collegiate season progresses. How does it wrap up?
Collegiate seasons mirror the regular cycling calender: mountain bike and track in the summer, ‘cross in the fall and winter, and road in the spring. In our conference, the the Northwest Collegiate Cycling Conference (NWCCC), the road season is the most developed and popular race series. The road season consists of seven straight omniums, each involving a road race, team time-trial, and criterium or circuit race. Like nearly all competitive cycling, racers compete by categories. Collegiate categories are correlated with USAC categories: A (1/2/3), B (3/4), C (4/5), D (5).
This year’s road-race series started in mid-March in Boise, then traveled to Eugene/Corvallis, Bellingham/Seattle, and Salem/Portland. We are still looking forward to Walla Walla, Bozeman, and Pullman/Moscow. Traditionally, Washington State and the University of Idaho co-host the conference championship on the last weekend of April. Racers then get a week off before heading to Nationals, if they have qualified.
Development is obviously a big part of the program. Tell us about the training the squad goes through.
Once classes start in the autumn, we have team road rides every Saturday and Sunday–like many other road-focused clubs. During the fall months, these leisurely rides encompass the entire team and have a no-drop policy. These rides are help teammates reconnect and meet new riders. They are also a great opportunity for new riders to learn from more experienced riders. The most important development occurs during this time, as experienced racers explain the collegiate series, discuss skills, and pass on Husky Cycling lore.
This winter we tried something new for the club: We split our weekend rides based on experience and goals. For many clubs, this is not a big deal, but Husky Cycling has long been an open, all-inclusive club. There was concern that splitting weekend rides would isolate some new riders, decrease cohesiveness, and, ultimately, weaken the club. Despite these concerns, we decided to try the split–men’s A/B, women, and beginner–and it seems to have worked great. Having dedicated and patient leaders in each group made this a smart training move.
With split groups, the men’s A/B group were free to open up the mileage over the winter. Our race season starts early, and every race counts equally, so we were putting in long miles during December and January. In February, we typically turn to training plans provided by Cycle U, one of our long-time and generous sponsors. This year, however, we were very fortunate to have some mentoring by Adrian Hegyvary.
Adrian raced a little for Husky Cycling last year and, despite moving on, he kept Husky Cycling in mind. He led an intro-to-racing meeting, developed a training plan for our men’s A/B squad, and ran a great TTT clinic one Sunday. Racers were also able to pick his mind when he joined us a couple times for the team rides. The club continued to develop our TTT skills during a string of February Sundays when we rode out of a team member’s house in Skagit County for one-day mini-clinics.
What other teams do you compete against?
During the collegiate series, we compete against other collegiate teams. Our conference has a road series and a nascent mountain bike series. During a race series, we race against the other NWCCC schools, covering all universities and colleges in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Currently, there are 18 schools in the NWCCC. In the case of track and ‘cross, our conference does not have a race series so we only race collegiate track and ‘cross if we go to Nationals.
We have the greatest respect for the road teams in our conference. Whitman is the defending Division II national team champion. Their men’s TTT squad placed third at Nationals; one of their women’s riders won the crit. Western Washington (WWU) has also traditionally done well at Nationals. Any team looking to do well in the NWCCC has to go through Whitman and WWU.
Husky Cycling is also a registered non-collegiate club, so some members race local races in Husky kit. Most, however, are also members of the local non-collegiate clubs so they wear different colors when not at collegiate races.
What have been some of the team successes this year?
The race team has exceeded all expectations so far this season. We currently hold first place overall in the conference’s team standings, have an undefeated men’s A and B team time trial (TTT) squad, a men’s A squad that has won every road race, and plenty of high finishes across men’s and women’s categories.
More important, however, has been the development in the team’s cycling worldview. The club has always been committed to being an open space to all the cyclists in the UW community. People love bikes for all kinds of very different reasons and when they bring their unique perspectives and experiences to the club, this significantly strengthens our organization. In recent years, the club has been searching for the best structure to balance competitiveness, experience, and goals. This year we seem to have found a formula that results in a fun and inclusive recreational group, a welcoming yet challenging developmental process, and a strong competitive squad. The evidence of our success in finding this balance is that on any given Saturday there are folks wearing Husky kits on a leisurely rides around Lake Washington while their club-mates are wearing the same kits on their way to race victories.
What have been some of the individual successes this year?
There are too many individual successes to count. Any time a rider helps teammates we consider it individual success. This includes faculty members Les Atlas (Electrical Engineering) and Matt Conroy (Mathematics) who have organized Saturday rides often starting with coffee hosted by one of our sponsors, The Essential Baking Company. It also includes Zach McDonald, who won the Collegiate Cyclocross National Championship which gave us a ninth-place national ranking and in turn motivated the road squad.
We see individual success any time a racer attacks to exhaust a teammate’s rival, and every time a solid performance motivates others to go back to Seattle, get their schoolwork done, rest and train a little better, and come back the next weekend a faster and smarter racer. Individual performance is only successful when it breeds team success.
Grant Boursaw winning the men’s A crit at OSU. (With fierce rival Ben Chaddock from Whitman in second.) Grant is currently the overall individual men’s leader. Image courtesy Wheels in Focus
Of course, there are the standard measures of success: Grant Boursaw is leading the men’s A overall individual standings. Lisa Toner was leading the women’s B field until she upgraded to A’s. Tony Azevedo is battling with a rider from OSU for the men’s B title. Ryan Larson, a novice racer, was leading the men’s C until he was all but forced up into the men’s B field.
Tell us about the women’s squad
A few years ago, Husky Cycling had a very strong women’s squad and they earned national championship medals. In recent years, however, the women’s squad has been nearly non-existent. In response, the club leadership focused on rebuilding the women’s squad but really struggled. Building a women’s team from scratch was a lot harder than we thought. Fortunately, things changed last year when Lisa Toner agreed to help out.
Lisa Toner (women’s team director) and Jesse Opp on their way to going 1-2 at the Boise State criterium. Image courtesy Wheels in Focus
At last spring’s Conference Championships, Lisa and Husky Cycling’s two other women racers won the women’s C TTT. Lisa returned this year determined to make cycling accessible to novice female riders. She organized non-cycling social events for both the women and the whole club. She led women-only team rides and clinics, and offers constant encouragement. She then led the charge when the race season started, racking up individual wins while seeing her efforts pay off with wins and top finishes in the women’s B and C fields. So far this season, it has not be uncommon for the Husky women to win the women’s B and C TTT’s and take a majority of individual podium spots.
The women’s squad is still young but we have started to lay the foundation. The club is very fortunate to have individuals like Lisa who are willing to help cultivate an environment of success.
How do riders join the club?
The University of Washington Cycling Club is just like any other registered student organization at the University of Washington. This means that any student, faculty, or staff member can join the club. All that anyone has to do is to sign a waiver and pay the club dues.
What do you envision for the team’s future?
Our long-term efforts are focused on strengthening the organization. I personally hope this continues in two realms: The role of cycling in the UW community, and the race team.
The University of Washington is a huge community. I also think it’s a community with a (potentially) easy affinity for cycling. I do not think the club is going to be able to get everyone at UW on bikes (yet), but perhaps it can be a meeting space for different individuals and organizations interested in promoting cycling on campus. I think the club can serve a coordinating role by bringing together varied efforts and skills and focusing them on productive cycling-related goals.
While the real focus of any cycling organization is bikes, Husky Cycling cannot forget that it is a racing team. We would obviously like to see this year’s racing success continue. But how do you institutionalize success? I think the goal of any competitive scholastic sports team should be to field a strong team as a step towards building a sports program. In this regard, being a club is a curse as well as a blessing. On one hand, our team is made up of exceptional individuals from the UW faculty and staff in addition to students, but, on the other hand, we do not get the budget and support that varsity teams get. Nonetheless, we are currently thinking about how to institute a system that would consistently place Huskies on the podium.
If anyone out there has any suggestions, feel free to get in touch!
