About the club & team

Northwestern Cycling is a group of 40+ students enthusiastic about cycling. All types too – cyclocross, mountain, road, and track. We organize rides, a spring break trip, and many social team get-togethers. In the Spring, many of our members choose to race competitively in the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference as a Division I team of the National Collegiate Cycling Association (NCCA). Racing, however, isn’t required, and many of our members choose just to participate in weekly group rides. We use “team” to refer to the racing team and “club” to refer to all other aspects of the team. Whether you race or not, each member is part of this fun and quickly growing group of students.

Women’s Team

In the sport of cycling overall, women are vastly underrepresented and our team over the years has been working to build a larger women’s team. We currently have a small, close-knit group of girls who ride together often, both recreationally and competitively. Historically, many of Northwestern’s most successful competitive cyclists have been women. If you are a girl and are AT ALL interested in cycling (like, for example, if you’re reading this paragraph) then we HIGHLY encourage you to contact us. We are happy to introduce anyone to the team and sport without it being intimidating or overwhelming. Absolutely no experience is required!

Weekly rides

Most Sundays in the Fall and Spring, we organize a 1.5 hour ride that ends at Walker Brothers Pancake House, where we enjoy a deliciously filling breakfast. This ride is great for newcomers thinking about joining the team. Our other weekly team rides can be found on the calendar in the sidebar of this site.

Many rides aren’t scheduled at all and are sent out to the team by member over our listserv.

Racing

Bike racing is fun, challenging, and rewarding. Once you start, you’re hooked.

We have an “as much or as little” policy, meaning we don’t require anything of you. There are no required practices, races, or group rides. If you do want to get faster, however, we are here to give advice on training to get stronger. We will also run optional training rides and workouts throughout the year.

Training

In fall, we organize a lot of casual group rides and get back into the swing of things. We host skills sessions for new members on the team to learn how to ride in a group, draft, corner, sprint, and more. Once it gets too cold to ride in Winter, we move indoors onto trainers and lift weights one or two times each week. From Winter on, we train regulary to prepare for the upcoming collegiate season. We organize training sessions and individualized workout plans – again, always option.

Races

Racing begins in the very beginning of March and goes until the last week in April, with Nationals occuring a few weeks later for qualified racers. Races are hosted by schools throughout the Midwest (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, etc.) and consist of two races: a road race on Saturday and a crit on Sunday. Road races are longer than crits and usually have a long loop (5-20 miles), whereas crits only last an hour and have a small loop (< 1 mile).

Since the first race is on Saturday morning, we leave Northwestern on Friday in university vans and spend the night in hotel rooms. We also spend Saturday night in the hotel and then drive back on Sunday.

We’re very relaxed about racing and just try to have fun out there. We work together as a team and always put the team before ourselves.

Social Events

The team is not just about riding our bikes. That’s what brings us together and we have a lot of fun doing it, but we have even more fun off of our bikes. There are many events throughout the quarter, including team dinners, potlucks, and parties. New members are immediately brought into a welcoming and friendly group of people, and over the course of the year, new members make over 40 new friends.

In addition to on campus happenings, the team also goes on a spring break each year. This is a one week trip that is very cheap and very fun. Historically, we drive to and stay at a location with great hills to ride and beautiful warm weather. In 2010, the team went to Arkansas and last year, the team went to Georgia. It is one of the most relaxing weeks of the year to do whatever you want, whether it’s mountain biking, swimming, or hiking.

Learn more

We could tell you all about the team, but how about you see it in action. Our promotional video has great footage and some interviews to help you learn even more about the team.