Ryan ChartrandThe Cal Poly Wheelmen cycling club is spinning its wheels no longer, coasting triumphantly to the state championship in college mountain biking at the West Coast Collegiate Cycling Conference Championships on Nov. 16.
Although Cal Poly at one point had won nine years in a row, this year was especially sweet because the Mustangs finished second to Cal the past two times.
“We really wanted to take it back and we were able to do so,” Wheelmen President Blake Anton said. “I have a huge trophy sitting in my living room, so I’m pretty excited about that.”
The competition held in Santa Barbara wrapped up the mountain biking season with four different types of races: cross country, short-track cross country, downhill and dual slalom.
Anton, an architecture junior who raced in nearly every event, said the road to the team’s success was paved with practice.
“Some of the guys, me included, ride 16 to 20 hours a week,” he said, crediting San Luis Obispo’s varied terrain for the team’s success on the competition courses.
“Our technical ability and descent is really paramount just because the trails around San Luis are really rocky and really technical,” Anton explained. “And we have a whole variety of trails – anything from fire roads you can take your mom and dad on to things that most people can’t walk up or down.”
The addition of successful women to the team really propelled it to the victory, sponsorship director Menso de Jong said.
“Really, the reason we took it back this year is that half of our officer core this year is women,” said de Jong, an earth science sophomore. “Last year, I kind of got the feeling from a lot of the girls that they were kind of begging (others) to come out and race. This year, they did a really good job of encouraging the women to come out and go on the training rides, and I felt like they were all actually out there because they wanted to be there. And they were having fun and that got the points that basically pushed us over from second the last few years to first this year.”
Wheelmen secretary Sally Hermansen was one of those women.
In addition to finishing first in her division, Hermansen, an aerospace engineering sophomore, helped make a traditionally male-dominated sport more inviting to women.
“We tried to make it more of a welcoming atmosphere this year, and really promote the women’s team,” she said. “We had a lot of people show up to all the races, and it was (such) a positive atmosphere (toward) everything.”
After such an encouraging comeback, the team is ready to take the level of competition up a notch, Anton said.
In February, the team will hit the pavement as the road biking season begins.
“This coming year, I’m looking at sending a full squad to road nationals and trying to take a national championship,” Anton said.
The Wheelmen have not been to nationals since the early 1990s, Anton said.
“It’s really nice to get people into riding,” he said. “I think as a team, we have a lot of potential to go on to the next level. We’re looking to expand a little bit.”