The Lees-McRae College cycling program will be competing on a new level for the 2006-07 academic year. The team has for the past four years raced in Division II of the National Collegiate Cycling Association, winning the past three national mountain bike championships and finishing second in the road national championship in 2005. During the current year the Colleges cycling team has also competed nationally in the disciplines of cyclocross and short track. Due to this success and the opportunity to expand the program further, the College made the decision to make the move to Division I.
“The team could have remained comfortably at the top of Division II,” said Lees-McRae President David Bushman. “But we have elite athletes who are able to compete at the highest level, and we want to give them that opportunity.”
The move will mean competing nationally with the perennial Division I powerhouses of the University of Colorado, Fort Lewis (Colorado) University and the University of California at Berkley.
Regionally, the team is a member of the Southeastern Collegiate Cycling Conference, which includes Division I and II schools in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Lees-McRae is a four-year, co-educational liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church U. S. A, located in the town of Banner Elk. The college is dedicated to service learning and offers majors in twenty-four fields.
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