FURMAN UNIVERSITY CYCLING TEAM ARE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!

Chris Butler Winning the Road Race!

Yes it's true.....we WON!!!
The weekend started off with the team time trial on Friday. After a course evaluation on Thursday, we decided that we needed bigger gears because we would be going so fast!!! A special special thanks to the McClure family for driving 2 HOURS just to get us bigger gears. It really helped us beat the competition by even more. The day of the race EVERYONE was nervous but we all felt really strong. We blasted through the time trial with the fastest Division II time of 24.08.32 which was the 4th fastest time of the entire day.

Spencer Beamer, Chris Butler, Craig McKinney, and Todd McClure riding to a National Championship
The Team Time Trial Team along with our Director Glenn Thrift with our national jerseys and medals!!

The next day was the Road Race and at the start of the race it was snowing, but luckily the weather turned nice shortly after. Here is Chris Butler's report from the road race. He is the new Collegiate Road Race National Champion.

Spencer, Craig, Todd, and I lined up representing Furman along with about 80 other riders from across the country for Saturday’s Collegiate Division 2 Road Race Championships. There was a 1 mile climb very soon into the race followed by a fast descent and a couple of shorter climbs in crosswinds before we hit the circuit laps which we did four times. Spencer and I made the front selection of 35 riders up the introductory climbs of the race. The circuits were somewhat uneventful for me as I sat in for the majority of the race while Spencer made sure no serious threats got off the front of the peloton. With about 8 miles to go, Ben Showman from Army, was off the front in a solo move that had 1:30 on the our group, as Zach Grabowski(Colorado School of Mines), Craig Leugens(Yale), and I got off the front on one of the small climbs to form a chase group. Running out of time to pull back Showman, I attacked the two others in my chase group on the next rolling hill. I pulled back a little over 1 minute of Showman’s advantage over the next 4 miles, hoping I could close the rest of the time on the day’s final steep 1 kilometer climb. I passed him pretty early on in the ascent, but kept the tempo high as I knew I need a pretty big cushion for both the descent and the finishing stretch which were in a strong headwind. Meanwhile, Showman regrouped with Grabowski and Leugens, and began to chase me down. With 1 mile to go, Leugens(Yale) tried to bridge across to me, and ended up closing to within 4 seconds. I saw him coming from behind and put out as much power as my legs had left and got as aero as I could in the strong headwind to hold him off for the close win. Spencer came in the next group, finishing 11th and Craig Mckinney coming in later for 35th and Todd McClure for 68th. Overall, Furman executed the day’s plan to perfection as Spencer unselfishly worked hard all day and I did my best to follow through on my part.Chris Butler catching and then blowing past Showmann (Army)

Chris Butler taking nationals by storm

The next day was the criterium, a short technical course with lots of turns and sprinting. Almost immediately in the race, a group of riders got off the front of the rest of the pack. In this group of 10 people Furman had 2 riders in it, Chris Butler and Spencer Beamer. Here is Spencer's report from the criterium.

The race started off quite fast and almost immediately had a break establish off the front. Luckily Chris and I both made the break. Chris then worked hard on the front of the break to get us over a minute ahead over the field. With about 10 laps to go the attacks started coming from our group and after one particular attack, I attacked and got a descent gap on the group. Chris Butler did an amazing job covering anybody trying to catch me throughout this time and was a large part of the team's successthat day. I was riding solo off the front of the Collegiate National Criterium up until 3 laps to go when a rider from Yale bridged up to me. We worked together a little and were coming up to the sprint, Yale leading me out. In the sprint for the win, I started to come around him and was about to leave him in the dust, when my cleat pulled out of my pedal. Because of this I had to stop pedaling and clip back in, and even though I did this as quick as possible, by the time I had done this, we had crossed the line for second place. This was a real heartbreaker because I knew I had the win but things like this happen once in a while and there isn't really anything you can really do to prevent it. Even though I didn't get first, it was still a VERY good weekend with 2 national titles and a 2nd place.

Spencer Beamer followed by Chris Butler in the break in the criterium

Spencer off the front on his way to a second place!

The Team with the Gold!

We would like to give a special thanks again to the Beamer and McClure family for all of their help because without them this entire trip wouldn't have been possible. We would also like to recognize and thank our Director Sportif Glenn Thrift for all of his help throughout the season. A HUGE thanks to all of our sponsors this year for helping us achieve our goals and dreams: Fairway of Subaru, Greenville SC., West Coast Tomatoes, Hincapie Sportswear, Sunshine Cycles, and Specialized Bicycles