Wow! What a year for UA Cycling!
The UA Cycling Team had a fantastic fall semester! The team started the 2014-15 school year off with a strong recruitment drive in August- growing the club to 76 members, an increase of 25 members from the last year! When the mountain bike season started we were able to send riders to each race and in doing so won the men’s A omnium with David Carlson. Our team also made a reappearance at mountain bike nationals after skipping last year. Kyle Trudeau and David Carlson represented the team and both earned a top 20 finish on different days. Cyclocross was the next target and the team met the challenge head on! Overall, the team won the conference title and Allison Alterman won the women’s A omnium. We’ll be sending seven riders to cyclocross nationals in January- up five riders from last year.
The team was also active on the non-racing side of cycling. We were involved in several community projects including working on the Tucson Velodrome project proposal and speaking on its behalf at the Pima County Bond Advisory Committee meeting, supporting the Tucson Bicycle Ranch development, attending tutoring sessions at El Grupo Youth Cycling, and supporting local rides such as El Tour de Tucson. The team believes in giving back to the community more than we receive and work hard to find projects in which we can help out.
Thanks to our efforts on and off the bike, the team has received some very prestigious recognition from USA Cycling in being named the 2014 Collegiate Club of the year. We are honored to have been selected against a pool of strong applications from across the nation! Our efforts have also paid off in being recognized as an emerging varsity program. We will join CU-Boulder and University of Florida as one of three Division 1 schools with a program working to achieve varsity status.
Building towards varsity status requires us to meet several requirements such as working with a coach, attending multiple nationals, covering entry fees and travel to races, and eventually offering scholarships. As you can see, it requires a substantial amount of capital to obtain varsity status and we receive very little funding from the school each year. This time of year, when you are considering organizations to support, we ask you to consider supporting UA Cycling. Every dollar makes a difference in our program and no donation is too small. There are many costs we face for the upcoming road season such as entry fees, travel, lodging, and rebuilding our bike trailer. Below are just some of the ways a donation could help:
Support a rider for a weekend: 2 races $15 per race $30
Support a rider for the spring: 15 races $15 per race $225
Support travel for a weekend: $300
Rebuilding our stolen bike trailer $600
Support the women’s development team, 4 riders: 15 races $15 per race $900
Send the team to road nationals in Asheville, NC $2,000
As you can see no gift is too small. Donations can made quickly and easily online at: https://uacycling.com/donate/ As a 501c3 organization, all donations are tax deductible. We are excited for the future and with your support we’ll be ready to build a nationally recognized program!
Happy Holidays and Bear Down!
Joey Iuliano
University of Arizona Cycling President