USD Magazine, Spring 1996

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~ 0 .l:"tune Pattengill's cycling career began while he rehabilitated from a knee injury in high school. As a youth, soccer was his sport of choice, and USD's Division I soccer team played a major role in luring Pattengill from his San Francisco home to Southern California. But once he got a taste for cycling, he couldn't get enough. He initially tried to fit in both soccer and cycling at USD, competing in collegiate cycling competitions during the soccer off-season "I just gravitated toward cycling," says Pattengill, who currently is ranked as one of the top 30 cyclists in the nation. "It's pretty exciting when you can translate the power from your body into speed and velocity." When Pattengill's academic work began cutting into soccer practice - he was a double major in marine studies and computer science - his playing time diminished. Cycling proved the best solu– tion, as he could set his own training schedule to work around lab times. That freedom, juxtaposed with the challenge to stay focused on the next competition, continues to excite Pattengill about his job. From his home in Reno, Nev., Pattengill typically heads toward Lake Tahoe when training for the long, hilly road races. He's one of six members of a team sponsored by Mongoose, a bike manufacturer, but prefers to work out alone on most days. Pattengill generally wakes up by 7 a.m., eats some breakfast and hops on his road bike for a two- to three-hour morning ride. He alternates practicing sprints and long, slower-paced intervals before returning home for lunch and a nap. His two-hour afternoon workout takes a new route and incorporates different tactics. The 26- year-old cyclist always trains with a heart rate monitor that charts the intensity of his workout. "The monitor is my little buddy, push– ing me," Pattengill says. Pattengill sticks to his workout sched– ule through the winter, then travels from race to race almost continuously from March to September. The winter also is a time to handle the business side of cycling for a living. In searching for contracts

that will pay the bills, he sends out resumes, photos and cover letters to potential sponsor companies. It's much like searching for a job, Pattengill explains, but he has to do it every year. Last year, Pattengill took on a new job racing mountain bikes for a team spon– sored by Amp Research. The Laguna Beach, Calif., company recently switched from manufacturing motorcycles to build– ing full-suspension mountain bikes. Maneuvering along dirt trails through trees and streams is vastly different from grinding out 100 miles on asphalt roads, but Pattengill says he enjoys the chal– lenge. "Mountain biking is you and the course for three hours. It's much more of an individual, all-out effort," he says. The courses mapped out for mountain biking competitions range between 30 and 35 miles and require well-honed technical riding skills. Road competitions, on the other hand, call for tactical skills and knowing when to push and when to ease up and give your body a rest, he says. "This next season I just hope to show the sponsors a little hope and promise," Pattengill says, noting that mountain bik– ing is increasingly popular and will be included in the 1996 Summer Olympics. Encouraged by his results in both sides of the sport, Pattengill will compete in road and mountain races again this sea– son. Much of his effort, however, will go into road competition, because in May Pattengill will be one of 150 cyclists vying for a spot on the five-man U .S. Olympic team. His berth in the 1996 Olympic trials requires him to ride in six races in four cities within a two-week period. Pattengill's outstanding record last year qualified him for the trials. He won three road races in 1995 and was the eighth American to finish the grueling 160-mile professional championships held in Philadelphia. In mountain biking last year, Pattengill consistently finished in the top 50 out of several hundred competitors. Not bad for the first season, he says. One of the biggest thrills, however, is not in the finish but enjoying the ride as hundreds, even thousands, of fans look on. "I couldn't believe the huge crowds at the mountain bike races," Pattengill says. "In a lot of the places we compete, every– one is really impressed by what we do and excited about bike racing."

Derby Pattengill '92

D erby Pattengill '92 has a job that reg– ularly takes him to places such as Belgium, Honduras and Costa Rica. His job requires him to careen down moun– tains as he dodges trees and jumps over ravines. He spends his days on a bicycle, training for road races and mountain bike competitions throughout the world.

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