patentcad

Today on the Nyack ride (local fast guy Sunday ride) 6 guys from the West Point cycling team show up in team uniforms. Nyack is only about 25 miles south of the US Military Academy @ West Point, NY, so these guys rode down to do our little 40 mile hammerfest and then they ride back to the school. The Nyack ride is mostly older guys, 35+, with a few younger racers (the fastest guy on that ride is a fairly elite 27 year old Cat 2 who will be racing for Northeastern Hardware this season).

A couple of observations/questions:

• The fastest Army guy seemed about as strong as a typical young Cat 2. That struck me as about right. These guys rode near the front all day, but were unable to attack/get away. A local 40+ year old vet won the hilltop sprint finish @ the end (I was 9th today, I counted : ) ).

• Is West Point a Division One school for a sport like cycling?

• Do Division One universities/colleges ever offer athletic sholarships to recruit cycling team members?

All in all, not a bad day for late January. I felt very comfortable throughout which is good, the first Central Park races are in early March.

recneps

I doubt west point is a division one, Its done be size, plus I have not heard anything about my team racing them and were division 1.

Schools like Phiffer who is a very small school chose to have cycling be a varsity sport instead of intermural this means they have quite a bit of funding so they can offer racers money to come to their college. It really depends on if cycling is a varsity sport at that school or not.

Duke of Kent

Cycling is not an NCAA sport, in case thats what you mean by D1. We do have two divisions, 1 and 2 as well, but I am not sure which division USMA belongs to, as collegiate cycling divisions are based upon the number of license holding racers for that school's team. You could very easily go to a school of 30,000 kids and race Division 2 if you only have 5 people on the team. A school like Marian, near Indy, races Division 1 as they have a pretty big team, but a very small school.

Yes, some schools offer scholarships. Marian, as stated above, is a small school, and they offer scholarships for cyclists. They also have a velodrome and a coach. I'm not sure how much the kids get; that's not really my business but I'm sure it's not bad. You never see a Marian kid on a less than average bike. Lindsay Wilson, in KY, offers scholarships as well, but they're more of a mountain biking school.

Talent in collegiate cycling is pretty diverse. There are some schools who will show up and have nothing but 4s and 5s, and others who are loaded at the top end with Pro/1/2 boys and then a couple guys working their way up. Our A races last spring usually had 3-5 Pros, maybe twice that many 1s, some more 2s, and a lot of 3s. I didn't race As (will this year ) but you get to know people and schools after seeing them every other weekend from late February to late April. We have 8 race weekends this spring, if I'm remembering correctly.

patentcad

>>Talent in collegiate cycling is pretty diverse. There are some schools who will show up and have nothing but 4s and 5s, and others who are loaded at the top end with Pro/1/2 boys and then a couple guys working their way up. <<

That's what I would have guessed. Thanks for the feedback. I was just curious.

That's great, because all the old farts on the Nyack ride needed a bunch of 20 year old Army guys to chase around. That's perfect. The ride wasn't hard enough, this adds balance to the Force.

Somebody shoot me. As always, Ti or CF bullets only. I'm also considering a nice CF/Ti mix in the preferred ammunition.

grebletie

Not quite right. Division status is decided by the total enrollment of the school. The rules also allow for a school that would qualify as Division II, to declare as Division 1. That's likely what Marian did.

From the 2007 Collegiate Cycling Rulebook