ITT's & News

This year is flying by. I don't want to leave this place. ITT's are tomorrow. This 4 lap effort will allow us to see how we compare to the field. Training is going well and although ITT's and the other spring events are fun, our mind is on the race which is April 24th. We are within a month of the race and in the next few weeks will be putting in the final training efforts.

Monday we were riding through a small town south of campus and a BETA alumni gave us a good WOOGLIN chant (wooglin is one of those cool secret frat things for the non beta readers). It was pretty cool to hear that from a random guy who was stopped at a convenience store. Everything is going really well right now and we are beginning to talk strategy.

We are going to be wearing the blue jersey (pictured to the left) in this year’s race. It was great to have a choice!!! Last year we were just stuck with colors that no one else wanted. We want to look good for this year’s race. We need about $400 more in donations to get our race day uniforms setup. The alumni support has been great thus far and we thank you for that! Donating is as easy as clicking the button to the right ------>

ITT Times:

David Ong      - 4:50pm
Erik Kiser       - 7:30pm
Shane Ruckel  - 7:40pm
Matt Green     - 7:55pm
Eric Anderson - 9:15pm

-kai-
2686

Officially 5th

One of our goals for the season was to qualify top 10.  Today we meet that goal by putting down a fast time that secured a 5th place start for the 2010 Little 500.  The house and team couldn't be more excited about our result and everyone is pumped for this years race.  I am going to try and get better quality out of this video on youtube... but until then this is all I have.




-kai-
2686

2:22.21

2:22.21 was our official qualification time.  That is FAST.  Our qualification time was faster than the pole position last year and is the fastest qualification time since 2007. Hopefully it will stand up to the rest of the field for the day.  There are a few other fast teams that can put up some good times so we will see how that time stands as the day goes on.

The house and team couldn't be more excited.  I am damn proud to be a BETA.

I will post a video of our qualification later in the day.

-kai-
2686

Mock Qual Run

We attempted two qual runs.  The first run was not legal due to a dropped bike on the exchange.  The video below is of the second run.  This run was not as fast as our first... the first run was zoomin until the missed exchange.  This run was a 2:29 with winded riders which caused a few hickups in the exchanges.  Enjoy.



-kai-
2686

Qualifications

Beta Theta Pi will be qualifying for the 60th running of the Little 500 at 8:15am on Saturday the 27th. We have been throwing down some fast qualification times on the track and are shooting for a top 10 spot in the field. 

Tonight we are doing a mock qual's run at 7:40pm.  I am going to record the run and post it on the site later tonight.

Little 500 is the buzz around campus right  now.  This is the best time of the year.

-kai-
2686

Weekend Recap

Friday was a great day to do a whole lot of nothing.  After the long hard week, we deserved a day off.  We ate a ton of food, caught some ray's and packed up our stuff to move back into the beta house.  Saturday we had one guy race, we were supposed to go as a team but decided that the one day trip to Miami University was going to be too expensive and too long.  The guy that did race though, Eric Anderson one of our rookies took the win in the category 4/5 road race.  He won a sweet new helmet and added the first official win to his record books.  It always feels good to win.

Today I raced in the category 4/5 road race in Brown County State Park.  The picture above is me in the IU kit followed by a good friend Greg Bortz who rides for AKAK while we try to survive up the last climb. The course is one big hill up and then back down.  The climb is 1.5 miles which made this the most difficult race I have ever competed in.  We started with a field of about 60 and I finished in the lead group of 9 in 8th place.  Although I did not win, it was a great experience and a really tough road race.

The rest of the team spent their Sunday on a long hard 40 mile ride mixing in some intervals and hard efforts.  As a whole, we are all feeling really fast and are looking forward to the spring series events.

Next weekend is Qualifications for the race.  We have narrowed down our qualification team and are going to be working on smooth, fast exchanges all week.

-kai-
2686

Great Week

Our team had a great week of training in Bloomington. We were officially done with our hard efforts yesterday and we were BURNT. I am really excited to see what we are going to do in Quals and more importantly in the race. We have some strong riders and really tested our strength this week. Everyone on the team was frustrated with me at times with the workouts and the amount of time we spent training but now that its all said and done, they all told me that they are glad that we pushed it.

The weather was amazing here for the week. We had one bad day and that was on Monday. I can’t be more satisfied with staying in Bloomington.

This weekend we are racing in Oxford, OH and Nashville, IN. Both races are road races and are not collegiate. I am looking forward to some different faces and potential to win some money.

-kai-
2686

Fine Tuning

Spring break has been productive so far. We have gotten a ton of intensity in. During our free time we have been making lots of food, watching movies and just hanging out. It is pretty nice not having the pressure of school for a week.

At the track we have been fine tuning our exchanges, working on team pursuit and practicing individual time trial runs. The track has been relatively empty but there are a lot of teams down here for break. At one point yesterday, I counted eight different teams doing team pursuit runs... everyone doing their own thing could get a little dicey. There were a few wrecks yesterday and I think by now everyone on our team has managed to fall while throwing an exchange.

Our bike parts for the Little 5 bikes are ordered and currently being installed on the new bikes. This will be the first year in a LONG time that we have had the opportunity to build up these bikes. Thank you alumni, parents and friends. We really appreciate the opportunity to build these bikes up and have alumni that are willing to donate.

-kai-
2686

Spring Break

Spring break starts next week. We will be staying in Bloomington and sharing the track time with the other teams. This year there is an abnormally large amount of teams that are staying in Bloomington for break therefore the track is going to be open all day every day. Spring break in Bloomington is planned to be a super hard week.

This weekend we are racing at Depauw University, just west of Indianapolis. Similar to last weekend there will be a road race on Saturday and a criterium on Sunday. There should be a large field of Hoosiers to work together for a couple more IU victories. This weekend our whole team will be racing on both Saturday and Sunday and I know a few of us are hungry to win.

-kai-
2686

Beta on Top

This past weekend our team represented IU in a MidWest Collegiate Cycling Conference race located at Lindsey Wilson University in Kentucky. We had 4 riders travel and each of us raced once on Saturday and once on Sunday. In short, of the 8 races we had 6 top 10 finishes and 1 win. Matt Green and I raced in the B category while David Ong and Shane Ruckel competed in the C's. Dave and Shane finished in 2nd and 4th today in their first criterium ever. Matt Green took the win today and I finished behind him in 9th place. The fields for every race were 40+ and competitive. It was great to get out there and face some real competition. It felt good to get the competitive juices flowing.

We are going to be traveling to Depauw next weekend and continue to do these weekend races until Little 500 events start to pick up. These weekends are a great opportunity for our team to become closer and really understand what it is going to take to win.

I really want to thank the alumni that donated in the last week. We received over $600+ in the last 4 days. We have ordered our bike parts and look forward to having the competitive bike that we were looking for. THANK YOU!!! Without you, we would not be able to do the things we do. Any extra funding that we receive this year will go into the bike account for the following years.

I will be posting pictures from this weekends races when I get them.

Below is a nice article about the race.
http://kl.am/8fV3

-kai-
2686

Rookie Miss'N'Out

Our rookies were definitely three of the strongest on the track for the Rookie Miss'N'Out Race. All three of them blew away their preliminary heats winning by more than 5 bike lengths. In short, all of them made it to the finals and one was knocked out due to inexperience, one to a lost chain (crappy little 5 bikes) and the other got 2nd overall. I was really proud of their performance and they had a good time racing.

The IUCC racing season is starting and just about every weekend from now until qualifications for Little 5, we will be on the road traveling to different schools for races. These races will give us experience, speed and the knowledge of how hard we need to be working to win.

Thanks to everyone that has donated. We still need cash for little 500 bike parts and our Spring Break in Bloomington. Our bike parts are being ordered at wholesale cost, therefore we will be able to save some big bucks.

We are going to be selling Beta Cycling t-shirts and having a Dine and Donate for the bike team in the next few weeks. The T-Shirts will be available for everyone to purchase after we qualify for the race.

I am looking forward to the little 500 season and to start getting competitive in some of these road races!

-kai-
2686

Rookie Week & Budget

Rookie week concludes today. The Beta rookies have a chance to finish 1, 2, and 3 in the rookie Miss'N'Out Race that will take place at 5:00 tonight. I will post pictures and results. I believe that they are the strongest rookies on the track and will kill the competition. Our hard work and effort has put me in the position to be confident in their abilities.

Financially we have two obstacles ahead of us. Spring Break and Little 500 bikes. To cut costs on Spring break we are staying in Bloomington. This way we can make our own food, not have to pay for gas and stay at a Beta live out house.

The Little 5 bikes need to be the most competitive that they can. We are planning on building up new back wheels, installing new bottom brackets, replacing the cranks, handle bars and stems. We have someone to service the bikes and we have a source to get at cost prices for the items we need to purchase.

Totals -

Spring Break: $200
Little 500 Bikes: $800

We are running a few fundraisers to actively seek donations and have the support of the chapter in everything that we are doing.

Your support and donations are greatly appreciated and not only aid the bike team but support the Pi Chapter of Beta Theta Pi.

-kai-
2686