Stanford Today
Edition: January/February, 1997
Section: Features: Geeks No More
WWW: Geeks No More

When Nicole Freedman, '94, first joined the cycling club for training rides in 1993, she wore running shorts and rode a bent-frame club members could hear approaching.

The following spring Freedman finished second in combined events in the western conference. That summer, she and three Stanford teammates did the grueling, non-stop Race Across America. Now she races full time and trains up to 400 miles per week on her carbon-fiber racer.

Freedman laughs about the Stanford transformation: "It takes people who are on these seemingly successful career paths and turns them into their parents' worst nightmare."

Fortunately for the team, which has won back-to-back championships in intercollegiate road racing, the western conference and combined rankings (road, track and mountain bike), it's a "nightmare" that keeps repeating itself. Among the explanations for that success:

High Analysis: With Art Walker, PhD '90, as coach - his dissertation was on the design and calibration of a gamma ray telescope - the club gets serious strategic analysis.

Sure, conditioning is crucial. The team regularly churns up mountainous grades west of campus, repeating the climbs after "an incomplete recovery." Walker cites the "desire to suffer" as vital and notes, "there are key points in races where selections are made on physical grounds."

But he adds that tactically smart riding means "to conserve for that moment and to recognize the onset of that moment, so that one can put this undiminished physical system on the line."

Geography as Destiny: The temperate Santa Cruz Mountains have long been known as prime training grounds for top racers. Those ranks include Canadian Linda Jackson, MBA '88, who left the investment banking world for cycling. She was bronze medalist at last year's world championships.

Intra-Squad Competitiveness: Competition among the club's top riders - spiced by drop-in alumni like pro racer Derek Bouchard-Hall, MCE '94 - turns some weekend training rides into brutal, impromptu races. (Team tradition calls for sprints to all city limits signs.)

Dave Bailey, a doctoral candidate in physics, recalls a 95-mile trip to the top of Mt. Hamilton and back along with members of the Cal team. During the climb, egos kicked in. Returning, Stanford riders drove each other in a pace line at nearly 30 miles per hour.

"This guy from Cal asked me, 'Do you guys always ride like this?' I said, 'No, usually we keep on going 'til there's only one person left.' "

Geek Bonding: "A lot of us didn't do traditional team sports in high school. We were geeks," says Bailey.

Bailey's father was befuddled when his son shaved his legs as a 16-year-old hell-bent on racing. But at Stanford, riders find others who get it.

"We don't have a TV, we just sit around talking about bikes and components and training methods," notes co-captain and medical student Cynthia Ferguson. ST