Before this year’s Little 500 Qualifications, junior Jared Beamer had no cycling experience. He simply wanted to heed his mother’s advice, and be able look back on his college years without counting wishes.
Junior Jacques Poirier had spent years on a bicycle, but only on mountain trails. The transition from mountain biking to road biking appealed to him as a way to challenge other riders on the Little 500 track.
Freshman Alex Hartman came from a cycling background. He’d seen his dad and brother compete in triathlons, but didn’t feel inclined to start biking himself until he began to miss the routine exercise of his high school lacrosse team.
The trio of Beamer, Poirier, and Hartman had eclectic reasons for wanting to get involved in the 63rd annual Little 500 men’s race, but were united by one common goal: to put Phi Kappa Tau Cycling back in the Little 500 conversation.
After weeks of back-and-forth on Facebook chat, the three brothers joined with senior Alex Pappas and sophomore “Mac” Vaughan to form the 2014 Phi Kappa Tau Cycling squad.
“Someone posted, ‘Here’s the team, start training,’” Hartman said. “So that’s how I got involved with it.”
Beamer said that he had hopes of forming a team since last year, when Phi Tau Cycling disbanded last-minute and did not compete in Little 500.
He and Poirier were set to train for the 2015 Spring Series, when a group began to materialize a month before this year’s Quals.
“My original plan wasn’t to race this year,” Beamer said. “I wanted to get a team together for next year, but then we heard that only 36 other teams were competing, and decided to put this into overdrive and try to get it done.”
Beamer and Hartman had trained on their own here and there, but amped up their regimen substantially once the team was formed.
Phi Tau went beyond the standard biking workouts, focused on building their leg-strength and endurance by doing squats and running the 12 flights of stairs in Ballantine Hall.
As the two rookie members racing at Quals, Hartman and Beamer looked to veterans Pappas and Poirier, both of whom had raced in the 2012 Little 500. They showed Hartman and Beamer the reigns, including the trickiest part of Qualifications: the exchanges.
“As rookies, we picked up it really quickly,” Hartman said. “Exchanges are the key part of Quals, but with the training and explosiveness that we practiced, the rookies caught on fast. It’s all about timing and muscle memory.”
Despite successful exchanges on attempt one, Phi Tau failed to qual when Pappas touched the bike too early. On attempt two, the team faulted again, when Pappas blew past Beamer on the third exchange.
But magic would strike on the Phi Tau’s third attempt. Due to rain delays that moved the start times back five hours, the team returned to Bill Armstrong Stadium at 10 o’clock that night—the perfect time for them to make a push.
“We were expecting the track to be destroyed, but when we came back, the track was perfect,” Beamer said. “The wind died down, the track was fast. It was beautiful.”
The ride was nearly flawless, with divots and berms on the track working to Phi Tau’s advantage, Hartman said. The team qualified in the 30th position with a time of two minutes and 39.85 seconds.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better track,” Hartman said. “I think that’s what really helped us get the time we needed to qual.”
The finish was sweetened for Phi Tau when it learned that it had bumped out Zeta Beta Tau, the fraternity’s neighbor and the team’s “rival” of sorts.
But Phi Tau aspires to only one goal: continuing its history of success in Little 500.
Of the 14 times the team has qual’ed, Phi Tau has placed in the top-10 thirteen of those times.
Poirier said that this year is all about gaining experience, so that Phi Tau can put forth skilled group to contend for next year’s title.
“What we’re looking forward to is the years to come and how much better we’re doing then,” Poirier said.
The team members are already planning out their schedules for next year, getting them in sync so that everyone can practice together.
But for now, Beamer said that this year’s Little 500 is Phi Tau’s utmost priority.
“For right now, I’m focused on the race,” he said. “We’re focused on making sure it’s a clean run, making sure we put everything we have into it, and making sure we learn what we can for next year.”
Tori Ziege
