The ETSU Cycling Club, Ride ETSU, recently competed in the National Collegiate Mountain Biking Competition hosted at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, N.C.
To qualify for nationals a team must place in the top three in their conference, or qualify as individuals. ETSU Ride has qualified for national competition every year since their official founding in 1999. Also, every year, except for last, they have had at least one person place in the top three spots of at least one event.
More than 300 individuals competed for the title of national champion in four events: dual slalom, cross country, downhill and short track. The downhill event took place on Sugar Mountain Ski Resort while other events were located on the Lees-McRae campus.
“I got first in slalom on Sunday,” said Geoffrey Fryer. He claimed this honor without the use of a front brake, which was disabled in an earlier practice run.
“Dual slalom is where you have two lanes, they’re similar but different,” Fryer said. “It’s about a 30-second course and you just do a bunch of jumps and turns and you race against each other and you race best two out of three runs to advance on to the next round.”
O’Hatnick said, “That is the event that we are known for doing well in. Our course on campus is the best course on the east coast for slalom. It was twice as long and twice as big in terms of jumps and everything as the nationals course this year so we had a great place for everybody to practice.”
“This is my second year going to nationals,” said Thomas Wilkinson. “You get to see how you stand compared to everybody else in the nation.”
More than 50 schools competed this year for an overall title, with Ride ETSU placing 13th. “We usually get in the top 5,” said Fryer.
“Well … top 7,” O’Hatnick said. “Last year where were seventh as a team, and our best ranking was 2003 where we placed third overall.”
Although Ride ETSU is faring well in competition, they still lack sufficient funding. “Our biggest problem we have no formal coach or formal support from the school. We get around $3,000 a year from the club sports program, campus recreation. But this past year our budget for the three-month cycling season was about $20,000,” said O’Hatnick. “We had to raise some of that. Some of that we did through hosting a race on campus … we raised about $4,000.” The rest comes out of their pockets.
“Especially for teams that qualify for nationals, we are one of the few that qualifies and places that doesn’t have that support structure,” said O’Hatnick.
But the team takes it in stride. “We just like to ride, it’s just what we have to do,” Fryer said.
“The nationals mark the end of our mountain season of competition, beginning in about February our road season starts. We haven’t competed in that in about seven years but we may begin to reintroduce the road season to the calendar, not to be competitive but just to see if people want to ride the races,” said O’Hatnick.
The cycling club is separate from the team. The team enters the competitive events but the club encourages cyclists of all skill levels to join them on their rides. For more information contact ride_etsu@yahoo.com.

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