Women’s Little 500

Teter to wear white jersey for second straight year

/ robbyhoward / 6 Comments

Coming into Sunday, Teter needed four points to tie Alpha Chi Omega in the Spring Series standings. It would need to beat AXO to accomplish that feat.

Teter looked to be off to a good start to that when it recorded an 8:20.57 — by far besting the top time at the moment.

But then AXO followed with a 8:19.46.

The challenge was on. The two would meet in the finals with the winner taking the Spring Series crown.

If Teter won the finals, it would tie AXO in the points standings. The tiebreaker goes to the top finisher in Team Pursuit.

And Teter won that tiebreaker.

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Q&A: Kappa Alpha Theta’s Brenna McGinn

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Brenna McGinn is a name that you might not recognize — after all, she is a rookie — but it’s a name you need to learn quickly to get ready for this year’s Little 500.

McGinn, a senior riding for Kappa Alpha Theta, just picked up cycling this year. She was a competitive cheerleader in high school, but never ran track or cross country, the sport of choice for several Little 500 riders. In fact, she admits she forgot how to ride a bike the summer before coming to IU.

But despite her newness, McGinn has picked up riding immediately. She finished fifth overall at ITTs, the top rider outside of the No. 1 heat.

We asked McGinn to tell us how she’s gotten to where she is today, and what’s made her successful at Bill Armstrong Stadium.

33to1: What were the nerves like before ITTs?

McGinn: They were pretty high just because ITTs were supposed to be on Wednesday. I felt really prepared on Wednesday because I had been doing ITTs and then the weather kinda screwed that up. The weather continued to screw the track up, so I hadn’t gotten to do an ITT since Tuesday. So I was nervous about my pacing and, I mean, I got to see my teammates kill it all day so that just made me more amped up.

I guess I didn’t really get crazy nervous until I was on the warm up bike and I realized that so many people were watching and it is an individual thing, my team isn’t there with me. That’s when it started kicking in a lot. 

33to1: Was that the best time you had ever done on your ITTs? How did that compare to your practice times?

McGinn: My fastest time I put up before my ITT was on Monday and it was 2:46 (McGinn’s official ITT run on Saturday was 2:42.97). I was happy with that. I knew that that would’ve landed me seventh last year, and you’re not supposed to compare times at all, but it was a little bit of a confidence boost going into it.

The track was so fast. I saw that in the times all day. My teammates all killed it. They all bested their own times. That was definitely a personal record for me. I felt good, ya know, after I started feeling things again.

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Analyzing ITT results for team performance problematic

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BY CHARLES SCUDDER | @cscudder

Historically, the team with the winning rider of the men’s ITTs has a 75 percent chance of hoisting the Borg-Warner Trophy, while 33.3 percent of women’s ITT winners win the race.

But without analyzing the performance of every single cyclist for the past 20 years of ITT results — that’s at least 5,000 riders, for those of you keeping score at home — it is nearly impossible to produce a model for predicting how ITT performance weighs into the probability each team has to win the race.

If we rank each rider from Saturday and award points per position — first gets one point, second gets two points, third gets three, etc. — we start to get a picture of team performance in an individualized event.

MEN
Northern Indiana Cycling — 66
Alpha Epsilon Pi — 89
Beta Theta Pi — 106
Cutters — 111
Evans Scholars — 111
Phi Kappa Tau — 128
Sigma Chi — 135
Phi Gamma Delta — 156
Dodd’s House — 184
Delta Tau Delta — 221
Pi Kappa Alpha — 237
Black Key Bulls — 250
Forest — 278
Wright Cycling — 286
Alpha Tau Omega — 298
Delta Chi — 309
Phi Kappa Sigma — 350
Delta Sigma Pi — 351
Phi Kappa Psi — 353
Sigma Phi Epsilon — 360
Phi Sigma Kappa — 360
Gray Goat — 403
Sigma Nu — 409
Kappa Delta Rho — 481
Sigma Alpha Mu — 495
Sigma Alpha Epsilon — 547
Delta Upsilon — 574
Phi Delta Theta — 590
CSF — 600
Lambda Chi Alpha — 697
Collins — 965
Sigma Pi — ND
Pi Kappa Phi — ND

WOMEN
Army — 113
Mezcla — 131
Chi Omega — 162
Cru — 163
Delta Sigma Pi — 168
Ski — 181
Kappa Alpha Theta — 185
Melanzana — 193
Alpha Sigma Alpha — 227
Theta Phi Alpha — 240
CSF — 246
Alpha Chi Omega — 255
Kappa Kappa Gamma — 262
Alpha Xi Delta — 268
Teter — 284
Sigma Delta Tau — 288
Phi Mu — 316
Zeta Tau Alpha — 316
Delta Zeta — 345
Delta Gamma —358
Alpha Omicron Pi —360
Alpha Gamma Delta — 389
Wing It — 392
RideOn — 400
Gamma Phi Beta — 411
Alpha Delta Pi — 417
IU Nursing — 460
Delta Phi Epsilon — 497
Collins — 650
Kappa Delta — 782
Air Force — ND
Delta Delta Delta — ND
Alpha Phi — ND

But those statistics aren’t exactly fair, either. Northern Indiana Cycling, which scored 66 points in our model, only had one rider who placed 66th. Collins, which placed dead last in the men’s rankings, had eight riders, making their point total much higher.

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Quals position often not a perfect predictor of race success

/ cscudder / 23 Comments

BY CHARLES SCUDDER | @cscudder

The name of this site may be 33to1, but there’s a lot more that goes into a team’s odds of winning the Little 500 on race day than meets the eye. Team experience, speed in exchanges, track conditions, unexpected crashes and so much else plays into whether or not a team will be successful at Bill Armstrong Stadium.

The spring series events help test those different variables. ITTs find the fastest individual rider. Team Pursuit lets us see the teams perform as a group. Miss ‘N Out combines both speed and strategy.

Throughout the spring series, I’ll be looking at the odds each team has in raising the Borg-Warner Trophy on race day. I’ll be trying to predict probabilities based off historical numbers charting past team’s successes and failures.

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Welcome to the World’s Greatest College Weekend

/ robbyhoward / 1 Comment

There’s nothing else like it.

Every April, Bloomington becomes obsessed with one thing: the Little 500. The day-long, non-stop action of Qualifications. The head-to-head rider battles in Individual Time Trials and Miss ‘N Out. The team challenge of Team Pursuit. And, of course, race day itself.

Spring finally bringing sunshine and warm weather back to Bloomington (usually). Fans painting their chests for their favorite teams. Students belting out their house chant. Straight No Chaser performing “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Fred Glass saying the magical words, “Riders, mount your Little 500 bicycles.” The crashes. The competition. The rivalry. The victory pose. The lone champion.

Ask anyone who has been before. There’s nothing else like it.

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