8 Hoosier cyclists to race in collegiate road championships

It's not Little 500, and it's definitely not a ride in the park. This weekend eight IU students will travel to the 2004 TREK Bikes Collegiate Road National Championships in Madison, Wis., for three days of intense racing. The riders will compete in three different competitions -- the Criterium, Road Race and Team Time Trial. \n"They are some hard races," 2004 Little 500 champion rider senior Chris Vargo said. "The best colleges around are going to be there, but we're looking to do really well in the Team Time Trials, the top 10 or top five (in the races). With both men and women we should do pretty well overall."\nVargo will be joined by seven other members of the IU Cycling team; professional riders sophomore Rahsaan Bahati and senior Mike Kehrberg and sophomore Steven Ballinger, who competed in the Little 500 with Team Major Taylor. \nThe women's side of the team is made up of two Teter women's riders, senior Bri Kovac and sophomore Jessica Lindemann. The Teter women's team placed second in the 2004 Little 500. Kappa Alpha Theta rider senior Nicole Vincent and Jenn Wangerin, the 2002 ITT winner, will round out the team. \nRacing begins Friday with the TIAA-Cref Downtown Criterium. The mostly flat circuit meanders through downtown Madison between the university campus and Madison's cultural and political center according to usacycling.org. The race has changed from previous years and will allow all male collegiate riders to race whether they are qualified competitors or not. The road race Saturday is a 15-mile loop that winds through the hilly Wisconsin back roads just 20 minutes west of Madison. And the final event Sunday will consist of the team time trial, which is flat and fast 32 km course. \nThe courses are fierce, but so is the competition, Vincent said. Though IU is regarded highly in collegiate cycling, professional college-age riders will also be competition.\n"This is going to be my first year," Vincent said. "It'll probably be some of the most competition we'll face all summer. Colleges that have professional riders will be there; that makes competition a lot tougher."\nWhile Vargo and Vincent said the national races are nothing like Little 500, the team still brings an impressive collegiate résumé to the competition. Vargo won the overall 2004 Little 500 series, the race and placed first in the Individual Time Trials. Kovac and Vincent also finished an impressive year. Both won the overall Little 500 series and finished second in the 2004 race. Kovac finished first in the ITTs with Lindemann in second. Kovac also turned out an impressive finish in Miss-N-Out, edging Vincent out of first by milliseconds. Vincent finished 12th in the ITTs and third in Team Pursuit and the final race. \nThough the team competes against each other as Little 500 riders, Vargo said ultimately they are all friends on the track.\n"We race together and have fun," Vargo said. "This is a whole different thing."\n-- Contact staff writer Katie Schoenbaechler at kmschoen@indiana.edu.