Room to grow

When Paul Smith decided to transfer teams and leave Wright Cycling for Delta Tau Delta, he didn’t realize his training room would go from a random basement to one of the best facilities on campus.

“It’s probably one of the nicest, if not the nicest, bike rooms on campus,” Smith said.

The Delts’ bike room has six sets of rollers with rails for easier access to the bikes. It has eight full lockers. It has a bike rack for up to 20 bikes. It has an area that looks like a bicycle garage. It has a 50-inch television.

“Everything is nice,” Smith said. “It’s just a lot of added benefits.”

The room is designed for winter work, when the team spends lots of time indoors on the rollers. Smith said the rollers are some of the best on the market right now.

“It makes it feel a lot more like you’re riding on the road than just normal rollers, which have no resistance,” he said.

The rails also have power outlets for riders to charge their phones or even plug in their personal fans located behind the rollers.

If it gets too smelly and sweaty in the room, an air conditioning system ionizes the air.

While training, the riders watch race tape or a cycling event. A stack of three DVD cases of past race broadcasts stands on the table in front of the flatscreen.

But sometimes, race tape gets old.

“We’ll come in here and watch movies in the winter,” Smith said. “Anything is better than staring at a blank wall and a clock. Time goes by so slow when you’re on those rollers.”

Directly under the TV sits a large digital clock with red numerals. The riders use this to set timers during training.

It’s their biggest enemy in the room.

“The clock is probably the worst thing in the world,” Smith said. “I think that’s the number one hated thing in this room, especially when you have it on a countdown timer. It’s like, ‘How much time do I still have left?’”

In the entertainment center in front of the TV sits multiple silver trophies from the last five years and last year’s newest addition — the gold trophy given to the Little 500 race winners.

“We’ve got the big gold trophy there for motivation while we’re on rollers,” Smith said.
Next to the trophies is a framed copy of the front page of the Indiana Daily Student from last year’s race, with a picture of RJ Stuart raising his arms after winning the race.

While it might sound like this room has it all, Smith said there’s more to be done. He said the team is working on building a trophy and memorabilia collection for its Little 500 gear that will go in the team’s formal room.

The house’s commitment to the bike program has encouraged the riders to work even harder, Smith said.

“With this I feel like people actually want to come and train,” he said. “We don’t have to force them as much.”