Last Saturday, the cycling team hosted its first home race on campus in ten years. For years, Andover hosted a circuit race as part of the New England Prep Cycling Federation. For the past decade, however, the school has not hosted a cycling race on campus. But over the past couple months, Cycling coach Thayer Zaeder and Captain Andrew Clay ’08 worked to restore the tradtion. This involved receiving the support of the town of Andover, the Andover police department, and the people who live along the course. Coach Zaeder said., “There was a lot to do for the race; we had to knock on doors, set up hay bales, buy prizes. Just a lot of little things that you don’t normally think of.” The course followed a 1.1 mile loop around the Abbot Campus. The format for the race was two-part: an individual time trial (ITT) followed by a team time trial (TT). “We thought that it would be more interesting if we had a short individual time trial with one rider from each team – presumably the superstar – followed by a team time trial,” said Zaeder. In the ITT, Hilary Rich ’09 placed first overall for the girls, while Captain Clay placed third in the boy’s race. In the team time trial, the pair of Rich and Berol Dewdney ’09 placed first overall in the Girls A category. “Berol and I worked really well together for the entire race,” Rich commented. In the Boys A category, Captain Clay and Mike Discenza ’09 took third overall. Clay commented, “The race turned out pretty well. We had a few people go down on the turn onto Abbot Street, but nothing major. There were a lot of people out on the course cheering as the riders went by, which was really exciting.” On Wednesday, the Cycling team competed at Holderness. The 20 mile course finished with a steep two mile climb up to the base of Waterville Valley Ski Area. In the Boys A race, Clay placed second overall and first for Andover. The pack stayed together until the final two-mile climb up to Waterville. “I was just waiting for someone to do something the entire race, but no one did. I had perfect positioning leading into the sprint, but started just a bit too late and wasn’t able to catch the first place finisher from Gould,” Clay said. In the Girls A Race, Rich placed second just behind a girl from Holderness. Dewdney finished close behind for fourth overall.
