The Penn State cycling team had a strong weekend of racing, taking home fifth place overall in the Pagoda Nittany Classic races on Saturday, March 12 and Sunday, March 13.

The races were held on Skyline Drive and Shearer Road in Reading, and consisted of a road race on the first day and a criterium race on day two. Saturday's competition was a road race, in which cyclists race to cross the finish line first after a designated number of miles. Sunday's racing consisted of shorter laps with riders still vying for first place, but also attaining points based on their position after certain laps.

Of Penn State's 35 club racing members, 15 competed in the weekend's events against 205 riders from 20 other schools, including the University of New Hampshire, Cornell, Rutgers and Army. There were four male divisions and two female divisions for racers on both Saturday and Sunday. The divisions are ranked in terms of speed and skill of the riders, with the "A" division being the fastest, "B" the next-fastest and so on.

When the dust settled after Saturday's competition Penn State found itself in fifth place overall. The Men's B division was the most successful heat of the day for Penn State, with three riders finishing in the top eight. Ben Miller, Brent Durand and Andy Munas finished in first, sixth and eighth place, respectively. In the Men's D division, Chris Thompson won the race and Adam Snoke finished in fourth place.

Penn State continued its impressive showing on Sunday, finishing in sixth place overall for the day. Miller and Munas were again strong in the B category, securing second and fourth places, respectively. In the Men's D group Thompson and Snoke also put together another solid day of racing, finishing in first and ninth place respectively. Christopher Consorto took second in the D event.

"The team was very strong, and given the turnout we did very well overall," said club president Jordyn Drayton.

The Penn State team is made up of 110 undergraduate and graduate school cyclists from University Park, as well as riders from Penn State's branch campuses. While some of the riders compete competitively, the team is not solely for those cyclists interested in top-level competition. The majority of the team's members are recreational riders who join the club because they simply enjoy cycling.

"The coolest thing about the club is that you get out of it what you put into it. There are some kids that come to races just to help out since they're not too excited about competing. They just come out for the camaraderie; they like the sport for the recreational part of it," road race director Lou Devlin said.

The team is part of the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (ECCC) and competes in road, track and mountain bike races. The ECCC is a subdivision of the National Collegiate Cycling Association (NCCA), which is a member of USA Cycling.

The club's season is broken into three parts: a road race portion, in which the team is currently involved, a track race division, which takes place in the summer, and a mountain bike section, which concludes the season in the fall.

Saturday and Sunday's events were part of the team's second weekend of competition during the road race portion of its schedule. The current season is eight weekends long and features upcoming races at Princeton/Columbia and Lehigh.

"We won the National Collegiate Track Cycling Championship last year and we have a good chance of winning our conference title this spring," Devlin said.

The team's next local race will be on April 2-3, and will take place in the Ferguson Township, Unionville and Bellefonte areas.