The Wheelmen kicked out the 2012 Road Season in San Diego this past weekend. 8 wheelmen traveled to SD. Our Men's C/D rode great in both the windy road race and the crit as we found the Poly Train at the front in the final few laps. Our two women road awesome in their first road race, and secured a successful weekend with a 2nd and 3rd in the demanding crit. The Men's A's race was windy and long. Brian Funk lauched an attack on the main climb which shattered the field. The remaining groupedos rode hard in the wind finishing up 7th and 8th. The crit for the A's was fast with short lived breaks going. Again finishing up 7th and 9th. Overall a successful weekend and looking forward to a flatter race in Fresno next weekend! Below is a youtube URL of the Men's A's race

Video!!!

Road season has begun for the wheelmen with weekly practice crits! We are tuning up our teams to get ready to compete in the WCCC (Western Collegiate Cycling Conference) with our first race weekend approaching. This weekend, Feb 4-5, in San Diego is the UC San Diego road race and crit. Stay tuned for more updates!

As road season approaches, the Wheelmen spent this past weekend in Santa Barbra at the Wheelmen Training Camp. We received expert coaching from pro-cyclist Cody O'Reilly and 2010 Collegiate Road National Champion Blake Anton. The two day camp consisted of team rides through beautiful Santa Barbra, bike skills clinics and eating ridiculous amounts of Nutella. Keep getting those base miles in! Keep a lookout for more updates as road season approaches...

The Wheelmen wrapped up another successful mountain season at Conference Championships hosted by UC Berkley. The XC and Super D races were held on Saturday in Lake Sonoma, CA. The trails were in near perfect condition following recent rains, and an epic day of racing ensued. Saturday's highlights include Brain Funk taking 2nd in As XC, Convis winning As Super D, and a Cal Poly sweep of the podium in Men's Bs XC.

Short track XC and Super D were raced at Bailey Bike Park the following day. Bailey Bike Park had a brutally hilly short track course and an incredible Dual Slalom course. Sunday's highlights include a 2nd in As STXC by Convis, and another Cal Poly Men's Bs Podium sweep. Kathleen Kramer and Sally Hermansen took 2nd and 3rd respectively in Women's As Dual Slalom.

At the end of the day, when final season points were calculated, Joe Yoham took home the Men's As Omnium (even though he was not able to race Conference due to a broken arm). His sister, Victoria Yoham took 2nd in the Women's As Omnium. And keeping with the theme of the weekend, Cal Poly swept the Men's Bs Omnium podium. Cal Poly has kept with the tradition of dominating the team Omnium by bringing home the team Omnium trophy, for the 4th year in a row.

The Cal Poly Wheelmen would like to thank all of their sponsors and supporters for making another great season possible.

This year, USA Cycling chose the secondary bid for Collegiate Nationals to be located in Angel Fire, New Mexico. We left SLO in three vehicles Wednesday afternoon and drove across California, Arizona and were in Santa Fe New Mexico about Sunrise. It was cold and cloudy, threatening to precipitate; as we kept driving north, snow started falling heavier and heavier the closer we got to Angel Fire.There was anywhere from 4 to 14 inches of snow all over the place, and there was no sign of it melting.

We checked in and got into the condo mid-morning and started cooking breakfast: English Muffins, Eggs, Bacon. Kendal decided to try riding the course while everyone else went and chilled at the lodge doing work or sleeping, or both. Eventually most of us rode the lift to the top of the mountain and walked down the downhill, which was more of a tree ski run than a bike course. We all arrived at the riders meeting immediately after all cold and some of us really muddy. Dinner followed as well as sleeping.

Friday was the cross country and our ladies went first, riding at 9 am. Kathryn and Sally ended up in the upper 20's while Victoria would have crushed souls had her pedals not frozen and caused her to DNF. The Men's race turned out ok with Chris hiking past all the flatlanders into 16th with Kendal following 29th , Brian took 36th and Joe into 41st. Following was practice and seeding on Downhill which was very cold and muddy. The next day was Short Track and the women answered the men's high placing with a redemption by Victoria; She took 11th , while Kathryn took 26th.

Gravity ended up humbling a lot of people as the mountain claimed pride and caused sorrows for some; Greg took 17th, Joe placed 24th, Max followed with 26th, then Patrick in 29th. Chris gran-fondo'd the downhill with Nitish Nag and placed 43rd. The ladies raked in more points with Sally's 10th, Kathleen's 13th, while Victoria and Kathryn had 16th and 17th. Dual Slalom was a blast before the sun muddied up the course. We saw some really fast qualification times on the first run by Chris and Patrick, but as the sun shone, Chris rode in his second qualifier, completely pinned and pedaling even when the bike wasn't on the ground, and crashed in the third corner bumping him out of qualified spots. Greg ended up 34th just barely out of the qualifier as well. Max scraped by in his first runs putting him in 32nd and Joe pulled a 28th. Patrick held it all together and placed 21st. Kathleen finished 9th and Sally sat in at a solid 12th .

The Wheelmen placed 5th out of 35 D-1 schools, we were 3 points off of 4th and 10 points off of 3rd; for perspective, 10 points is about the difference between 3-4 places in any-one race

Woo! Get Ready to ride bicycles! The first meeting is going to be this Wednesday in Fisher Science at 8 pm; remember to bring all your paperwork to become a member. Dues are 60 dollars! You should have an emergency contact form for Cal Poly, and an emergency contact form/contract for the Wheelmen; as well as any necessary driver forms.

Woo! As we all gear up for another academic year, it is time to prepare for mountain season! Make sure you complete all the club registration before WOW, and get ready for Parkfield. Check out registration here:

USA Cycling

The Cal Poly Wheelmen will be at a few events on the weekend of April 16-17. Cal Poly's open house spans that weekend, so you can visit us and check us out at the farmers market in San Luis Obispo, and also visit us at our booth over open house weekend on Campus. We will also be at Sea Otter that weekend, and we will be having a team booth in the pits of Laguna Seca Raceway. Check us out!

Cal Poly Riders John Bennett and Menso De Jong have achieved great success off of the collegiate raceway. John recently took first in the Redlands Classic Stage Race, one of the biggest and most difficult in the nation, and Menso is on track to race with Wonderful Pistachio in South American stage races.

Welcome back! The Wheelmen are now in the back stretch of the 2011 Road Season and still looking strong. For any riders, any rule changes to USA Cycling must be submitted to the Board of Trustees by April 14. Also, road nationals are going to be held in Madison Wisconsin again, so get prepared and qualify!

The Wheelmen are hosting the Cal Poly Crit and Time Trial again, February 26-27. You can register below for the Criterium in non-collegiate categories as well as download the race flyers and check out your volunteer opportunities if you are required to volunteer at this race.

• Time Trial
• Crit
• SoCal Reg
• Volunteer here