Criterium race at Tufts successful

The Tufts Cycling Team hosted a Criterium race this past weekend on campus in a joint effort with other area universities including Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, M.I.T., and Northeastern. The weekend boasted a record number of entrants, with 270 riders gearing up for three days of racing in the Boston Beanpot weekend.

The weekend began with team time trials on Friday, Mar. 28 at Northeastern and BU, and was followed by the main event on Saturday at the Tufts course. On Sunday, teams competed in a 13 mile road race, beginning in Grafton Hills and finishing at the Tufts Veterinary School.

The Criterium format for racing is unique in that it stages several categories of races in succession on a small loop, forcing many corners.

"This lets you race with lots and lots of people," said sophomore James Gronek, captain of the men's team. "Part of the trick with a Criterium race is that a lot of people get lapped because the loop is so short, so there's a pretty extreme rate of attrition."

The Tufts course is particularly difficult, forcing teams to focus on technical skills to go along with movement and positioning. A particularly harsh corner was the turn onto Whitfield Road from Curtis Street, causing several crashes and wipe-outs.

"This course is a test in cornering. It's difficult because it has six corners, which makes it very fast," sophomore Neil Hirsch said.

The Tufts riders put up a modest showing, with sophomore Scott West finishing 13th out of 47 in the men's D race, and Heidi Hauenstein coming in sixth out of 36 in the women's B race. Gronek placed in the top 14 of the men's C race, which began with a field of 74 riders. The Penn State team won the Criterium, edging out Harvard by one point, with the University of New Hampshire and the University of Vermont close behind.

"Tufts' success was putting on a good race," said Hirsch, who played a large part in organizing and advertising the Criteriun.

Gronek added that the performance may have suffered due to the time commitment of putting the race together.

"We didn't do as well as we hoped because we spent so much time with the set-up for the weekend," Gronek said. "We were all pretty tired come race day."

But the team is optimistic in terms of the future.

"Almost everyone on the team is new," says Gronek. "Sheer numbers is where Tufts loses out, but experience will make a big difference."

Hirsch agrees that the team is moving forward.

"Last year was pretty much an all freshmen team. Now we're starting to add strategy. Every member of the team has set his own goals."

Gronek echoes those sentiments.

"The key to getting a lot of points is having people in every category -- we only have beginning categories," adds Gronek. "Right now, my goal as captain is just to get more people racing and get more points."

Gronek predicts that the team will be very strong in a couple of years, and hopes to make a run at Nationals by his senior year. While the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference, of which Tufts is a member, is regarded as very competitive, most in the cycling world would agree that West Coast schools top the collegiate circuit.

"The big [University of California] schools dominate out West--they just have more time to practice outdoors and more hilly terrain."

The cycling team has several competitive weekends still ahead this spring. This weekend it will be head to the University of Connecticut Grand Prix, and the following weekend it will be at Army. Dartmouth will host the Eastern Championships on Apr. 26.

Overall, the club is happy with this past weekend, particularly because of the interest and involvement of the Boston area teams. "This was a benchmark for collegiate cycling," Gronek said. The CEO of USA cycling even came to watch.

"He was awed by the race and had a great time," Gronek said.