Columbia Ends Best Season Ever, Looks Towards Nationals

April 28 – The Lions closed the book on their best regular season ever this past weekend at races hosted by Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.  The Lions took fifth for the weekend, which included a 10 mile team time trial, challenging criterium course, and a road race with a five mile climb!  The Lions took fourth (of 72 teams in the Eastern Conference) for the season, logging their best team finish in the history of the team. But they were pipped for the Ivy League cup by the home team, Dartmouth, which pulled off an incredible performance. Check out the pictures of all the action at our photo gallery.

The races began on Saturday morning with a ten-mile team time trial that went downhill for the first half and up for the last.  The Lions fielded three four-man teams I the men’s A, B and C categories. The men’s A team had a tough start and lost one rider early.  But the other three exchanged well and rode the used their range of descending and hill climbing skills to log a great time and earn 6th. The men’s B team started well but struggled on the climb after losing one of their strong riders, who was shaking off a cold. They also finished sixth The men’s C team, was nearly perfect.  Their strongest descender tested the others on the downhill, but they kept it together and rode very smoothly on the uphill, taking third.

The criterium was a tough course… a .7-mile loop with a nasty downhill to 90-degree turn combination. The Lions high point was Mike Wasserman.  He got a great lead out on the last lap, mixed in a deft sprint and came up with fifth.  Three Lions crashed out of the races, including some of the biggest point winners in the field. This season the criteirum has been the Lions ace in the hole.  Bad luck help them back this weekend.

The road race course was epic. One loop of it was rolling and 17 miles.  The other was 51 miles of up and down, including a 5 mile climb and descents that pushed many of the riders over 50 miles per hour.  The Lions struggle on this kind of course because the terrain in our region is so much flatter. The strongest showing was led by Alex Bremee, who got into the break in his 102 mile race and sprinted with them for sixth.

With the regular season over some of the Lions are looking forward to the Collegiate National Championships in just over two weeks.  This criterium and road race will be hosted by Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. Three Lions qualified for the races: Alex Bremer, Tony Hall, and Maggie Shirley.  Shirley got third in the criterium at Nationals last season and hopes to upgrade that. Bremer will be taking part in his second Nationals and also has high hopes for the criterium.  Hall is competing in his first and will ride in support of Bremer.

Team Results