BreakingAway

BreakingAway

By Sam Spiller
Arizona Daily Wildcat
August 27, 1996

Courtesy UA Club Cycling Team
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Members of the UA Club Cycling Team race in the National Time Trial Championship in San Luis Obispo, Calif., last June. The team won the trial in a time of 26 minutes, 5 seconds.

On the heels of the most popular Olympics in modern times, many events have gained greater recognition and respect. One of these events is cycling.
Divided into road racing and recent Olympic addition mountain biking, cycling has been rapidly gaining in popularity over the last 10 years. The cycling surge has made its way on to the Arizona campus by way of the University of Arizona/AZ Medical Service s Cycling Team. A registered club sport, the men's team consists of Jon Apprill, Dan Dietzel, Justin Peschka and Steve Rouff, and the women's team consists of sole member Irene Pang.
The team has been competing at both collegiate and pro-am levels. At the Collegiate National Championships in San Luis Obispo, Calif., June 1-2, the team placed third overall.
The Championships consisted of three events: a men's and women's team time trial in which the four-member team work together to cover a course in the fastest time; a men's and women's mass start road race; and a men's and women's criteria which is a high speed and technical race held on a couple of city blocks. Men's and women's placings were equally weighted, and the team with the highest cumulative placings wins the overall championships.
In the men's time trial the Arizona riders covered the assigned 12.8 miles in 26:05 minutes and took the first place from pre-race favorite Colorado by a 22 second margin. The UA men were considered long-shots to win due to their lack of national champion ship experience and specialized time trial bikes. UA was unable to compete in the women's time trial because it had only one woman on the team.
The Arizona riders continued their success in the road race with Peschka finishing second behind Ryan Tie of Colorado. In the woman's road race Pang finished ninth. In the crowded men's criterium, the best UA finisher was Detizel who was fifth. Pang was s eventh in the women's criterium.
The team has yet to be involved in any mountain biking events but Apprill was optimistic.
"It's growing quite a bit," Apprill said.
The team will have its first meeting of the year on tomorrow in Student Union Room 285. The levels of competition vary and all who are interested in joining the team, especially women cyclists are encouraged to attend.