At an altitude of 5,000 feet above sea level, the Western cycling team finished third overall at the USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships May 9-11 at Fort Collins, Colo.

Western’s cycling team placed first last year at the championship and hoped to have a repeat performance, Western junior Patrick Means said.

“There was some disappointment, but I think we did really well overall,” Means said.

Western men’s team placed sixth in the team time trials, an event in which they placed first in last year.

The women’s team placed second, eight seconds behind the first place team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Western senior Daisy Phillips said many of the cycling teams competing at nationals went all out in purchasing their equipment.

Teams from schools, such as MIT, bought separate bikes for the team time trials with lowered handlebars and carbon fiber wheels to decrease wind resistance and be more aerodynamic.

The Western team had a few similar bikes, but they were purchased at individual team member’s own expenses.

“It's fun to look at all the extras and the bling on other teams' bikes,” Phillips said.

In the road race, Western senior Meagan McPhee placed eighth in the women’s race with Western juniors Tela Crane and Kristen Stouder tying for 12th place. In the men’s race, Western junior David Fleischhauer took sixth place.

In the women’s criterium, Crane finished in fifth place with a time of 58 minutes and 27.5 seconds. Fleischhauer placed 13th in the men’s criterium with 1:15:44.2.

The team’s biggest challenge during the national competition was the high altitude and the hilly terrain, Stouder said. Many of the team members suffered from painful headaches and shortness of breath.

“It felt like I was breathing with a brick on my chest,” Phillips said.

The three events took place around Fort Collins.

In a sectioned-off area of downtown, teams raced in the criterium, a lap-based race. The flat surface of the downtown roads and the tight corners made the already fast criterium event even faster, Stouder said. The speed, combined with road conditions, made racers susceptible to crashes.

“People would be going fast, hit a pothole or gravel, and then go sliding off,” Stouder said.

Because of a cancelled omnium fund-raiser, Western’s cycling team was only able to send four men and four women to compete in nationals instead of the maximum six from both categories.

Stouder said taking the maximum number isn’t always advantageous, since only four people from each team are allowed to compete in each race.

“Everyone was able to enter every event in their category,” she said.

Stouder said there are still plenty of other races to compete in before the next collegiate season, but none are currently scheduled for the team.

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