Meet Spencer Powlison, RMCCC Director

Air, part one.

How did you first get involved with cycling? Two good friends of mine decided to go mountain biking at a local trail center in Vermont, Catamount Family Center. I went with them, and the rest is history. That was 1996 or so, I think. I began racing mountain bikes in 1997.

What about collegiate cycling? A high school friend of mine let me stay with his teammates from UVM for the Mount Snow Nationals one year, and that was the first time I really became aware of the opportunities to ride collegiately. They were all uncharacteristically well-behaved, so I had no idea what I was getting into. I was president of my school's team, Saint Michael's College, for all four years of my time at school. I was also the mountain bike conference champion in the ECCC in 2004.

How long have you been conference director? Four years. Why did you decide to get involved? One of the collegiate trustees, Nathan Drake, suggested I help out as a co-directorafter I'd been in Colorado for a few years. I got to know him earlier in my collegiate career when he organized a project that successfully raised the status of collegiate cycling within the USAC organization. I helped out with some research on the financial viability of collegiate racing.

Describe a typical race weekend; what do you do? It depends. During mountain bike season, things are much quieter. I help with registration, then I often ride downhill with the athletes and pre-run the course before the race. I'll help the officials with other things as well, like dual or MX racing. I once was in charge of painting the lines for our MX start gate, but I really can't "do" numbers so we ended up with three lanes when we needed four. Fortunately, it was on dirt, which made it easy to fix. During road season I also will do clinics, finish camera and announcing. I also spend a lot of time telling triathletes that they can't race A’s... just kidding. Well, kind of. 

What about during the week? What kind of conference duties do you take care of then? I reply to emails and take care of rider upgrade requests. I try to keep the communication pretty steady during the week with e-mails and tweeting as needed. I also update the RMCCC website when I can. 

Air, part two.

What are some unique challenges or requirements of managing the Rocky Mountain conference? We are a bit limited by the number of schools we have--we can only grow so much. Also, it's very hard to get permits for true road race events and the weather can be quite sketchy. Plus there are lots of rustlers and bandits up in Wyoming. 

What are your goals for the conference? Keep the ship afloat... Ah, seriously though I would love to foster a more extensive and competitive cyclocross calendar. I'd also like to keep working towards full calendars with all disciplines held each weekend. We did really well last fall with our gravity events, which are often challenging, and I'm looking forward to seeing at least one new circuit-style road race course for the spring. Road races are similarly difficult to promote. Oh, and it'd be nice if we kept winning every national title each year, like we often do, haha!

Do you ride very often? Yes. Race? Yes. Road or mountain? Yes. What kind of bike(s) do you have? I have a track bike, a road bike, two 'cross bikes (selling one though... want to buy it??), a townie, a hardtail 29er race bike, a dirt jumping bike, a 6" full-suspension trail bike and a downhill bike.

What's your favorite part of the job? There are many things I like in different ways, but above all, I like standing in front of a group of 40 men's Cs at the first crit of the season and asking them if it's their first race. Usually about three-quarters will raise their hands. Then I have 15 minutes of clinic time to try explaining the salient points of avoiding catastrophe.

Least favorite? That 15-minute part I just said... no just kidding! Probably reading Joe Kopena's lengthy email tirades. Wait, no I don't actually read them! Okay, I'd say the long weekends of travel. And the rustlers. Why do you keep doing it? It is fulfilling and I think I've made a difference, albeit a small one. 

What is special about collegiate cycling? The combination of rank beginners and future (or sometimes current) world-class elite athletes racing for the same team, all conceivably having a meaningful effect on the final outcome of a weekend's result.

Spencer's the one wearing a helmet. Don't be surprised if there's an IPA in that water bottle.

Do you have any good stories (funny, heartwarming, dramatic) from being a conference director? I remember during my first road season, I was at Nationals, and number pick-up was about to close. Meanwhile, the CU men's TTT team was still driving through the middle of Kansas, so they had to stop and fax me their licenses and other info from some motel off I-70 so I could hand in the info for them. I was annoyed when they couldn't pull through for the win after all that, but I'm just yanking their chain, of course. In fact most of them are still good friends of mine that I see around town.

What is your real-life paying job? I am the Marketing Coordinator at the Brewers Association. We probably should have put that question first to grab everybody's attention. BEER!

Tell me three things about yourself that don't involve cycling.
1. My wife and I have an ill-tempered little dog name named Churro. He sometimes comes to races if he can behave himself.
2. I don't think I could ever live in a place that didn't have skiing. I've done it all my life, raced NCAA nordic in college and now mostly ski backcountry.
3. As you can tell from my job, I really like beer. I'm especially interested in food and beer pairings and will hopefully become a Cicerone this year, which is the beer equivalent of a sommelier.

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