Mercer MTB Team Finishes the Season Strong!

The SECCC MTB championships were held this past weekend in Conyers, Georgia in the 1996 Olympic Horse Park. This weekend consisted of a super technical time trial on Saturday morning, brutal Short track on Saturday afternoon and a Cross Country race on the actual 1996 Olympic trail Sunday morning. Evan Ayoub, Gabriel Denes, Dustin Prater, and Charles Weaving all competed representing the Mercer Cycling team, and produced great results! In the Collegiate B category, Denes Placed 7th in the time trial, 11th in the Short track, and 7th in XC. In the Collegiate C category, Weaving placed 1st in time trial, 2nd in the Short track, and 2nd in XC. Ayoub and Praeter joined the team on Sunday for the XC race, with Ayoub following closely in 3rd and Prater making a strong finish in 12th place.

The team finished the season strong with two members in contention for points. Up-and-coming Freshman Charles Weaving Finished the season at the top of Collegiate C's in 2nd, 2nd and 3rd place for XC, Short track, and TT. Denes finished in 3rd for the Collegiate B XC, his specialty. The Team only raced 3 out of the 6 races in the series and for the guys to finish this high was much better than expected! The team plans to attend all of the races next year and place even higher in the finals!


Evan Ayoub
A thoroughbred racer with and extensive history and credentials from SECCC spring road season, Evan Ayoub joined the Mercer MTB team this fall to compete in the collegiate series, and plans to dominate in the spring with the return of the SECCC road series and the GSC Mountain bike series.



Dustin Tyler Prater
New to the team, but definitely not cycling, Dustin joined the MTB, Cyclocross, and Road teams this fall. He plans to race the Collegiate and Georgia Cyclocross series this winter and plans to dominate. He will accompany the road team in the spring for the SECCC and Domestic road races.



Charles Weaving
Charles is the newest addition to the team and is making huge strides as a freshman! He has an extensive history in racing off road marathon events and is planning on joining the Mercer Cyclocross team in racing this winter along with the Collegiate "C" Road team this spring. He is a great asset to the team and is expected to place very highly this spring. He plans to move up to the Collegiate B category next fall in the 2011 MTB season and dominate again.



Gabriel Denes
The elder racer of the team, Denes has been racing since the age of 15. He is currently racing the Georgia Circuit on the Sport level and plans to move up to the Expert level in the Summer. He plans on Racing the Collegiate Road Season with the Cat4/Collegiate B team and plans to dominate. He also plans to upgrade after the Collegiate season and race Cat3 road this summer after much work with his coach.


Look forward to more updates of the rest of the Cyclocross and Road teams on plans for the 2011 racing season!

Lockwood Completes First Century at Sequatchie

- Dunlap, TN -

It was a long tough ride over rolling, scenic hills in middle Tennessee, but Mercer grad student Andrew Lockwood completed his first century in 4 hours 23 minutes 8 seconds for an average speed of 22.8 mph.

"It was a blast for my first century and I exceeded my goal of 5 hours by quite a bit," said Lockwood. "It's definitely an event that I want to put on the calendar every year and one that I'd highly recommend to anyone training for a long distance ride."

Lockwood joining his Dad in his first cycling event, was a bit spent after the 100 mile journey, commenting, "We only stopped once at the 77-mile marker and I was cramping a bit at the end. In all honesty though, the peloton and the weather pulled me right through this one and although I'm tired, I thought I'd be completely dead after my first century."