The 2012 year started with such high hopes

I can't deny that I'm disappointed in what has happened this year. A few new students who were very interested have been lured in to triathlon. Glad the the tri club is doing better, unhappy that the pain and suffering that is road cycling has scared some away. One of our team from last year transferred to Appy State and has been racing for them and I can't deny that Houston was disappointed he was a lone voice for the road. I was also saddened that Jeff didn't even try to do a few races at the SCCCC events to qualify for Nationals. I will bet he will see that as a mistake in a few years.

The TCU, SMU, UNT race that TCU was the lead school on was derailed due to their school being very reluctant to sign off on bike races. One reason we never asked for permission to do our races (other than going through the governing body, USA Cycling.
Without student support here, I couldn't ask our non racing cyclists to work another event like the race we did in 2009.

We do have an impressive alumni network right now, with Nicky and Frank racing for Oklahoma's DNA Racing, Jeff and Caryn racing for Think!Finance in Fort Worth, but we lost our first year student Houston, to a combination of homesickness and indifferent fellow roadies who were lured to tri. As Nicky so succinctly pointed out, the road is where you will get fast on a bike, and tri's are won on the bike, so the best training is out on the road.

I have seen improvenment in my TT's due to racing. You just don't know how fast you can go and for as long without having to bridge a gap or try to do an escape. Road racing is an tactical challenge on top of the physical effort, where in tri's, it seem to be a question of dialing in nutrition and training for game day results.

I'm not attempting to demean triathlons, I'm just disappointed that this year's crop of students chose tri's over the road. I should be satisfied that there are out doing something.