Cycling Club
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Cycling Club
The cycling club is for all OSU students, staff, and faculty. This club allows OSU cyclists to connect with other cyclist outside the campus community. We have members that do every style of riding from road to free ride. As a club we volunteer in the community for events such as the American Lung Association's Reach the Beach charity ride and Benton County's Adopt-A-Road. Active club members also receive a generous discount from club sponsor Full Cycles. We currently have over 70 members; mostly students with some faculty and staff.
Cycling Team
The racing members of the cycling club make up the cycling team. We race in the Northwest Collegiate Cycling Conference against other schools from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Our main focus is road racing, but we also have members that race xc mountain, super D, BMX, and cyclocross.
Meeting Times and Locations
Fees
Contact Information
To sign up for the club email list or find out more information check out the Cycling Club's website.
My Seattle to Portland Biking Excursion
My first visit to the northwest came this past summer when my Dad and I flew out to Seattle to participate in the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride. The ride is 206 miles long and lasts 2 days with participation of over 8000 riders. The ride starts in downtown Seattle at the University of Washington at 7am with a large turnout and sponsors. We rode about 25 miles until the first stop through the local towns and communities. The citizens of Seattle were very involved; many of them would sit outside of their homes with signs or water or even just standing on the sidewalk cheering. It was definitely an interesting feeling to be a part of something so large. After hours of riding through the hills of Washington we were finally done with day 1 of the trip and had logged 122 miles in just 9 hours. We stopped at the 25 mile mark, the 60 mile mark, the 100 mile mark and then finished at the 122 mile mark. The most surprising part of this trip is that my dad cycles on a regular basis for exercise and I never have gotten involved in the sport but because he was doing it I decided to just hop on a bicycle and try it. It ended up being a massive amount of work but it was an incredible feeling to finish my first century (100 miles in one day) without even training. I was realizing that I really enjoyed this new sport. That night we camped out at an elementary school in rural Oregon and woke up at 6am the next day to finish the ride. I really couldn't even explain how sore I was the next day from not ever cycling. Muscles hurt that I didn't even know I had, but after a warm shower in the gym of the elementary school I was ready to finish the ride that I had started the day earlier. The start of the 2nd day of the ride was much more separated than the first because there were a couple stops that you could have stopped at the first night. You could have stopped at the 100 mile mark, the 110 mile mark, or the 122 mile mark which was the last stop. There also wasn't a set start time, everyone just started as early as they could. So it was definitely a different feel to the ride. It was mostly through the mountains of Oregon and was about a steady pace to get the soreness out from the day before. It definitely seemed as if this day was never going to end for me but as soon as I saw the city of Portland on the horizon I got a whole new set of energy. The feeling of crossing the finish line was unexplainable and a great feeling of accomplishment, especially because I did it with my 50 year old father and my 51 year old uncle. A bonding experience that I will never forget. At the finish line there were shops everywhere, live bands playing, food, prizes, and an all day party. I couldn't have asked for more. This is something I plan on making an annual event for me. It is a public ride so anyone can join no matter your skill level in cycling so I would defenitely suggest this for anyone who is in the cycling club.
