Return to July indexWhich Utah bicycle club has produced a racer with three years experience in the pro peleton who is about to begin his first Tour de France? Which Utah club puts on the most races each year? Which racing club holds the record for most continuous years under the same name and leadership? And which one is perhaps the least well known outside the select circle of bike road racing geeks?
You don't get three guesses, and the answer is MiDuole.
MiDuole is a serious racing club. This is not to say the folks at MiDuole don't know how to have fun or don't welcome new riders. But they take their racing seriously and are proud of it. And, more than any club in the valley, they pay back to the sport in the best way possible by putting on races of all sorts throughout the season.
Imagine Utah bicycle racing without the weekly criterium. Now put your hand up everyone out there who holds a USCF license (or ever has) and has never come out to "the crits", as they are known to everyone who has ever taken a razor to hairy legs. I don't see many hands...
I consulted with my Italian colleague Bruno regarding the meaning of"Miduole". As he put it, "This is an interesting question concerning an Italian expression. It has several meanings. One meaning, which probably does not apply, is `I am sorry', e.g., `mi duole comunicarvi...' translates: `I am sorry to let you know that....'. Another meaning, which probably does apply, would be: `It gives me pain'. In the context of a bicycle club, one wonders where the pain might be..." Bruno is not a cyclist.
The pro rider gearing up for his first Tour de France is, of course, Marty Jemison and MiDuole started from an informal training group that included Marty, Tom Bonacci, and Eric Schramm. Maybe they watched Breaking Away too many times but they picked an Italian name and became a USCF club.
The same guys are still around, all but Marty have grown up and landed real jobs, but they are all still riding and racing and helping to keep road cycling alive in Utah. Actually, now that I think about it, I am not sure about the growing up part--riding is what keeps us all kids at heart.In recognition of the "seniority" of many of the MiDuole members, the focus of the club has become the Masters' division. This past year MiDuole has also become the place of choice for many women racers, an honor that seems to rotate around the clubs from year to year. The lack of women racers in the state almost dictates that they gravitate to one or two clubs in order to reach the critical mass required for the team style of riding sonecessary at the elite level.
The membership demographics of the MiDuole matches the focus; there are no juniors, 75% of the riders come down on the mature side of 30 and 10% are in the gray-haired-over-forty category. Women make up 15% of the 60 members in the club and virtually all of them hold USCF licenses. If your age and ambition fit, the membership fees of $20 per year are certainly no obstacle to joining the club.
One of the unofficial duties of bicycle clubs is to impart knowledge and experience to new riders. With their many years of collective racingexperience (they claim an average of eight years so that makes something like 500 years total!) there is no shortage of advice at MiDuole. And inthe tried and true tradition of the sport, this experience is passed on not in the classroom but at the races and on club rides.
Besides an informal training schedule and the races, there are two regular club rides each week, one an endurance cruise on Saturday morning and the other an evening ride on Wednesday. All rides leave from the Canyon Bicycles stores and the pace is adjusted to the level of the participants.
MiDuole welcomes all active cyclists to their rides and so, as I have said throughout this series, try before you buy!
Canyon Bicycles is just one of a fleet of sponsors that MiDuole hasgathered together. In the 1996 season, MiDuole was perhaps the only clubin the state (and the country?) to enjoy sponsorship from a trades union,the Utah Pipe Fitters. Their Festina inspired jerseys derive from theirown watchmaker sponsors, Franchi Menotti Watches and Williams Jewelers.
This year, RC Willey has provided some welcome support, especially with the flawlessly organized downtown criterium race that kicked off this year's Cycle Salt Lake week. Other sponsors include JVC Electronics, Weider, Powerbar, Shimano, Pace Sportswear, and Specialized.
There have been many high points in the racing season already for MiDuole--the downtown criterium and Hammer-at-the-Slammer in May, the move to the newly renovated Rocky Mountain Raceway for the weekly criterium, and the strong results at Santa Rosa, the Tour of Willamette, and Lewiston.
Not content to travel the Western States, however, there will be MiDuole racers at the National Masters Championships and even the Worlds in St. Johann, Austria, in late August. I told you they take their racingseriously!
So if you want to have some serious fun with a very experienced andsupportive group, contact Terry McGinnis (273-8799, email: [email protected]) or Dirk Cowley (944-8488, email: [email protected]). Maybe you'll be the next MiDuole alumnus to visit France the painful way...
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