Young Penn Cycling Team rides with the best of them

The University's Cycling Team is young -- only 3 years old. But looking at its recent history, the team seems to be like the biblical David contending in a world of Goliaths. "We're competing with 10- and 12-year-old teams like the University of New Hampshire, the University of Massachusetts and Penn State," coach Peter Durdaller said. In light of the fact that the team is not "on a physical par with the other teams," its win at the Eastern Championships at New Hampshire two weeks ago is even more impressive. At the competition, the team beat out several other powerhouse cycling teams from the East Coast in mountain bike races. "They have great spirit and are better organized? such enthusiasm," Durdaller said. Organized in 1995 with the help of a local Philadelphia racing club called the Quaker City Wheelmen, the Cycling Team is under the charge of Durdaller, a member of QCW and a former racer himself. The only requirement for membership is that a cycler be a full-time student at Penn -- and own a bike. The team's mountain biking unit races in the fall, while the road racers concentrate their training in the spring semester. "I found a lifelong sport in cycling," said Cycling President and Wharton senior Tal Zamir, who described the team as a "large and diverse group of riders." At the Easterns November 2, the team raced clubs that Zamir called "formidable" -- clubs with the strength, but fortunately not the numbers, of the Penn team. "The advantage comes in the numbers," Zamir said. "No other team had as much coverage as we did." Engineering senior Phil Bergman, captain of the team's mountain bike squad, also noted the organizational strategies that helped the team win at New Hampshire. In the competitions, team members are loosely divided by skill level into categories labeled A through D for men and A and B for women. "Some of them sucked it up," Bergman said, referring to the fact that some racers rode in a lower category to help the team achieve an efficient spread and accrue the maximum number of points. He emphasized the importance of the female cyclists on the team. "They get a little intimidated by racing but the competition for women isn't totally cutthroat," he said. "I was really tired during the race, but I knew it was important to finish," said Medical student Laurel Graves, who described the rainy, muddy course conditions at Easterns as "grueling." Just finishing the sometimes two-hour race is as important as finishing it fast, she said. "There's a huge camaraderie component to the team," added Graves, whom Durdaller said is a "dynamic force on the team." If even one racer had not finished at Easterns, the team would have lost, Bergman said, noting that the team won by a margin of only 57 points over UMass. "The kids are willing to come out and try," said Durdaller, who also expressed a desire to recruit more women to the club team. "We value their participation," he said, emphasizing that women aren't segregated from the rest of the team like in other college organizations. The women train alongside the men year-round and as Durdaller added, "If we have to push 'em, we push 'em." Zamir noted that the road squad won the Eastern Championship last spring, making Penn Cycling the first Ivy League university team to win both Easterns in the same calendar year.

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