Biking, undoubtedly, is an almost timeless part of campus culture, and a new Amherst club is injecting a healthy dose of excitement and competition into what has become an integral part of college life. The Amherst Mountain Biking Intercollegiate Racing (AMBIR) team is taking this exciting sport to a competitive level.

“The team started when I, along with a few friends decided to take advantage of this great area’s mountain biking network of trails last spring,” said senior Griffin Biedron, the founder and president of AMBIR. “We consulted Professor Crowley who is also a competitive mountain bike rider and knew that Amherst had an incredible pool of talent for such an exciting sport.”

Biedron also added that club members fall into two categories: “‘weekend warriors,’ who just enjoy riding on a nice day” and “the competitive racer, who will attend races representing our team.” Currently, Jack Baer ’10, Andrew Schremp ’08, Emil Vasilev ’11, Andrew Stevenson ’10, Joe Black ’10 and Tom Herter ’09 make up the roster of racers, and the team’s first race at the Hopbrook Dam Mountain Bike Race in Middlebury was a success. In the beginner bracket, Baer took first place and Biedron finished third. Vasilev also placed first in the first racer division.

At the moment, the AMBIR team is undergoing intensive training to prepare for the upcoming fall season of the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference. Biedron hopes that the program will become “a dominating force in the world of mountain biking,” and Black will lead the team next year as president. (The AMBIR team’s headquarters and bike shop are located in the basement of Morrow room 20).