He's like the drunk uncle at the wedding who grabs the mic!

[this post written by Jesse, not your usal blog-tastic Dan, who can be recognized in a pack by the messages on his calves written in brake dust...]

Well, in one last act as an 'important person' in the Cycling and Fine Dining Club, I've commandeered this blog like your drunk uncle who wants to put his two cents in when the microphone and video camera come his way...

Now many of you may have found yourselves wondering why all of a sudden there was a huge boost in good-looking and talented bike racers this season. You may have noticed an unusual increase in general ruckus and mayhem. You may have even seen a glowing white posterior at some point and begun to wonder what it all meant. These phenomena can all be explained by one thing: The Arrival of The RIT Cycling [and Fine Dining] Club. I'm here to answer some questions and clear up some myths about "The Arrival."

The "R" in RIT does not stand for Rennselaer. Nor does it stand for ripped, rocking, regurgitated, or rump. It stands for Rochester.

With our classically handsome facial bone structure and fair skin which gets easily burned by the harsh Massachusetts sun, you may be inclined to think that Rochester must be some beautiful place in Scandanavia where the water is fresh and the women naive. While weather patterns in Stockholm closely resemble those in Rochester, we hail from Upstate New York, a full 16 degrees south in latitude.

The "IT," in case you didn't know, stands for "Institute of Technology," just as it does for our fellow Massachusetts, Wentworth, and Stevens schools. This is really a polite way of saying that the ratio is skewed. Too many bros, not enough hoes. To many dicks, not enough chicks. Women are like parking spaces- they're all either taken or [too vulgar for this public forum. Look it up...]. This makes forming a cycling team a bit difficult, as we all know that winning weekends in the E-trip-C falls largely on the women of many teams.

Another important thing to note is that we're not Princeton. This seemed to be a major point of confusion for many riders in the pack, the reasons for which I can't begin to imagine. Yes, I realize that both Princeton and RIT have kits which are orange and black. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's because the mascot of both schools is the tiger, and not the siberian type. You can pick out and RIT rider easily by the tiger stripes on the thigh (no, Princeton doesn't have them, and somebody owes me $5 because of it), or more importantly the giant letters "RIT" on our asses and on the front of our kits. To be fair, during a race you're not likely to see anything but our hind ends, and the lettering can seem small at such a large distance. [he said facetiously...]

Yes, some of us drink beer. No, you have never seen any of us drunk. Yes, we take our racing seriously. At least as seriously as any collegiate cyclists without serious aspirations of going pro should. If you're not doing this for money, you should be doing this for fun. For me, I'm not willing to give up more for cycling than cycling gives me, and you shouldn't either. Life's about balance. If you're not balanced, you'll topple eventually.

I'll take a moment to address any team who may have been the victim of one of our many highway shenanigans involving bare asses on glass... Hahaha gotcha! But seriously, it's all in good fun. We only moon the teams we like [except for you, that is!].

I'm going to get mushy for one last time before I sign off for good. When this club was formed last March, I didn't even dream of being where we are right now. When the original guys rolled up to the line at Penn State in '08 wearing their numbers on our [now infamous] grey "performance apparel" t-shirts, we could have either been laughed at or respected for even showing up. I'm quite happy to say that it was definitely the latter case, with just the right amount of laughing thrown in. That day explains a lot about why our team is how it is right now. We didn't take things so seriously that we couldn't laugh at ourselves too. And now that we're a "legitimate" team, we've still kept enough of that to keep it fun. By "legitimate" i mean that this season we had at least 12 people at every race, and even with some of those ever-elusive "women" that we were somehow able to convince to get in a 15-passenger van with the rest of us. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't so damn fun. And it wouldn't be so damn fun if it weren't for you, the rest of the ECCC. To the Men's A, B, and Women's A riders, you were at least fun to watch. To the rest, you were fun to race with. To everyone, you were fun to hang out with after and between races. Yes, that's right, we haven't yet fielded a rider in the 3 aforementioned categories. And no, I'm not bothered at all. Give it a year or two. We're exponential, baby!

I've obviously got to give a huge shout out to Joe Kopena. Not only has he put in a ridiculous amount of time and effort to the ECCC that you all know of, he has consistently given us those little hints that let us know the ECCC loves us.

Lastly, I've got to thank everyone on my team. Most of you have heard me say this before, but I want to make sure everyone gets it. You have all made this team what it is today, even if you were only around for one race, or even if you were only ever there in spirit. I never really knew any of you before the club got started, but if I had, you would have seen the huge impact it had on me personally. Before this club, the only things I was good at were partying and school. Not that I'm claiming to be any good on two wheels, but at least now I've got something I can be proud of. I'll admit to dropping a little bit of a tear on the way home Sunday after we had all split from Jason's parking lot. It was probably a bit like a parent when their last kid goes to college. I've put everything I had into this club for the past year, and I've gotten to watch it grow from 6 of us meeting in Java's trying to figure out how to get 6 people and 6 bikes to Penn State, to now watching other people do huge things like run the bike maintenance, the bike blender, and the club. Now that my duties as road captain are over, its incredibly bittersweet. I've got this huge thing that I created and put my blood sweat and tears into, but now I've got to let it go as I move on to something else. My most emotional day isn't going to be when I walk across the stage in 2 weeks at graduation. It was this past Sunday. Thank you all for giving that to me.

Oh, and big thanks to the Northeastern team- especially Al(ex) and Elliot, who got me into riding in the first place, and former member Keith, who always reminded me that I was just a little bit crazy, and got the idea of starting a club into my head in the first place.

Signing off permanently as the founder and former road captain (and president, and sponsorship coordinator, and...) of the RIT Cycling [and Fine Dining] Club,
Jesse Steiner.

I'll miss you guys.