One of the largest events in collegiate cycling came to the Hill on Sunday morning, bringing with it roads roped off by yellow tape, a detour for the Joey and an occasional burst of color speeding by. The 2005 Boston Beanpot Cycling Classic arrived on campus this weekend for the Tufts Criterium, the last leg of the three-race event that included over 400 competitors from 80 northeastern schools.
The Tufts cycling team, one of the university's successful club sports, finished 15th out of 37 schools with 154 total points, and several Tufts riders finished in the top tiers of their events. University of Vermont took first place in the race, finishing with 762 points to fend off Dartmouth College, who had 675.
The first race of the weekend, the Dunkin' Donuts Team Time Trial, was held on Saturday in Grafton, MA and was Tufts' most successful showing as the team garnered 107 points, putting the Jumbos seventh out of 17 teams.
The 7.6-mile course, which took place mostly on winding and flat back roads with a sharp climb to the finish, proved a challenge for the riders. Tufts finished teams in three divisions. The Women's A team took sixth of 11 (22:22.66) while the Women's B team came in fourth out of 10 (23:24.90), and the Men's D division, the Jumbos' most successful delegation on the day, took second of 15 (20:28.25).
In the afternoon, the action shifted to the Grafton Hills Road Race, the longest distance event on the program which was designed to test riders' endurance. The race featured four ascents of over 450 feet along the 14-mile course, including a half-mile climb to the finish. As the course has hosted legs of such high-profile races as the Tour Dupont, the American version of the Tour de France, Saturday's competitors found themselves following the tire marks of some of the sport's greatest names.
The Road Race was the worst of the day for the Jumbos, who finished 29th out of 32 teams. The team's only points in the Road Race came from team captain sophomore Abe Gissen, who finished seventh in a field of 91 in the Men's D division for three team points. Gissen was joined in the top twenty by Jack Chase in 14th and grad student Eric Silva in 20th. Freshman Judy Wexler's 17th-place finish in a field of 54 was not enough to earn any points, as she missed the cutoff by two spots.
Junior Olivia Jaras, the only team-member to compete in the A division, was unable to finish the course due to over-exhaustion and dehydration, but was pleased with Wexler's performance.
"Judy did extremely well," she said. "It's her first year racing, and that was really a nice surprise for all of us."
The final event, the Tufts Criterium, was an opportunity for a completely different kind of riding, as the 0.6-mile course threaded a familiar path through the downhill portion of campus and presented competitors with six 90-degree turns at high speeds.
"The Crit really tests technicality and aerobic capacity," Wexler said. "It's about whether you can take the turns really quickly without falling."
On a path that threaded the downhill portion of campus, the Tufts cycling team finished in the middle of the pack at 15th out of 30 competing teams. The highlight of the day came when freshman Steve McFarland broke away from the pack with ten laps remaining and opened up a 20-second lead to beat out 42 other racers for the top spot in the Men's D II category (the Men's D group was split into Div. I and Div. II and III sections for the Criterium event), earning 20 points for Tufts. Also in the Men's Div. II, Silva picked up six points with a seventh-place finish. Due partially to their success this weekend, Tufts' Men's D riders will be moving up to the C class.
"I think our performances in the Team Time Trials the past few weeks is a pretty clear indication that we're ready to move up to C," freshman Steve McFarland said, who moved up to seventh in the Men's D category, and second among Div. II riders.
In the Women's A category, Jaras took 15th of 29 for seven points, and was joined by sophomore Caitlin Thompson in the Women's B group, whose tenth-place finish earned the Jumbos nine points.
The team will compete next at West Point this weekend in the Army Spring Classic. Jaras commented that the course, which includes a two-mile long steep hill, will be a test of the team's endurance.
"It's definitely the hardest course we've seen," she said. "There are huge hills because they're the Army, and that's what they do."
Wexler was excited about the diversity of the track, which will include an Individual Time Trial in addition to the three events held in this weekend's race.
"Next weekend will be really exciting," she said. "We have four different events, which should allow each strength to come through."
