Abel Ibarra
Road: CAT3

No muchos saben donde vive, o lo que hace. Lo que se sabe es que le encanta correr su bicicleta y tiene una afinidad por dermotrajes. Durante la mayor parte que sea suficiente, para otros, la curiosidad sigue siendo.

Not many know where he lives or what he does. What is known is that he loves to race his bike and has an affinity for skinsuits. For most that is sufficient, for others, curiosity remains.

Andrew Erickson
Road: CAT2 | Track: CAT3 | CX: CAT3

Andrew Erickson is originally from Seattle, WA and attended Whitman College, a small liberal arts school in Walla Walla, WA before he moved to Austin in August of 2010 and enrolled in a master’s program at UT in Engineering Mechanics. He would eventually like to put his engineering degree to use designing and testing bicycle frames. He grew up alpine ski racing, but took up bike racing during his junior year of undergrad.

Andrew is currently a Cat 3 road, track, and cyclocross racer though he hopes to earn his Cat 2 upgrade on the road within the next year. He enjoys technical crits and rolling road races and helping put his teammates on the top step of the podium. Having been weather hardened by ski racing and long rainy rides in Seattle, Andrew strongly prefers racing in 55 degrees with spitting rain, though he has managed to acclimatize to the Texas heat better than anyone expected.

Antonio Ramirez
Road: CAT5

I’ve loved riding a bike since I was a kid, however; just recently I started riding competitively. I started on the mountain bike, and gradually picked up road cycling. I’m a calculating rider, not a powerful road grader, instead riding more with my mind than with my power. Races that suit me have elevation. Thanks to the guys I train with and learned from, I won my first Cat5 race in Walburg, Texas this year and look forward to building my form to have continued success. I’m an avid movie watcher, and like to spend time with my wife when I’m not at work or riding.

Art Gonzalez
Road: CAT4

Originally from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Art studied Computer Science at The University of Texas at Brownsville and moved to Austin in 2002. An avid weekend warrior, he played city league flag football and basketball until his body began to break down.

He took a break from sports to concentrate on a Master’s degree in Software Engineering via the University of Michigan’s online program where he was a distance learning student for 90% of the classes. In 2009, he worked remotely from Michigan to attend the only required in person class for graduation while also getting back into sports by taking up cycling to continue his career as a lifelong weekend warrior. He’s done the charity rides and the local Tuesday nighters, and he finally succumbed to his competitive spirit and started racing in 2011. He strives to be an all-around cyclist and is into cycling statistics to keep track of his training. He’s not the fastest by any means, but he enjoys racing his bike and spending time with those who share his passion for cycling.

Ashley Hiatt
Road: CAT4 | Track: CAT4

From the forever flat city of Houston, TX, Ashley is an undergraduate at the University of Texas. Graduating in May 2012 with a B.A. in history, she is planning to pursue graduate study in a related field.

Having spent her freshman year at UT rowing competitively for their women’s athletics program, it wasn’t until her junior year that Ashley bought her first road bike and began cycling with a purpose. Ashley is currently a Cat4 road racer, hoping to earn her upgrade this spring. She thrives on crits, team time trials, and cheering for her teammates on and off the bike.

Barrett Raven
Road: CAT5

Born in Beaumont, Barrett moved with his family to Conroe, TX at the tender age of 10. With its tall pines, BBQ, and…..tall pines, Conroe provided the perfect landscape for him to discover his love for Weezer and fellow music nerds. In 2006, Barrett relocated to Austin after transferring to the University of Texas. With his economics degree in hand, he got married and decided to stay around Austin for a while. Barrett wed his wonderful wife, Kristen, in 2009 and they have two wild heathen sons.

Barrett started riding to school in 2007 and immediately fell in love with the pace of life on a bike. Between commuting to work, preparing for his first racing season, and carting the boys around in a trailer, cycling has evolved into a way of life for the Raven household. Barrett teaches middle school math at Rawson-Saunders School for Dyslexia and is a longtime partner of the Austin Stone Community Church. Having slung espresso as a barista for 10 years before entering education, he has a deep-seated passion for good coffee and Ryan Adams.

Blake Warden
Road: CAT4

Blake is originally from Houston. He started riding at 16 years of age, and began racing road in 2011. He favorite type of racing is technical crits. For 2013, his goals are to train harder, eat smarter, and hopefully win a race. When he is not training or racing, Blake is studying computer engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He hopes to work in the cycling industry after he graduates.

Christopher Stanton (Director Sportif)
Road: CAT3 | Track: CAT4 | Official: Level C

It wasn’t until he was 18 that he rediscovered bicycling which became his primary mode of transportation while pursuing a degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas. After receiving his degree and retiring as a gymnast at the age of 22, he joined the workforce and landed a research and development position in the field of Linux High Performance Computing Clusters. Then it was back to UT to work for a group funded by the National Science Foundation studying soil and structure response to earthquakes. His passion for cycling continued to grow until he decided it was time to quit his full time career for a while and ride off into the sunset.

Christopher completed his first major tour from Vancouver, Canada to San Diego, CA in the fall of 2008 and started his first season of racing in the spring of 2009. Working part time at a bike shop enabled him the freedom to train, working his way up the ranks of the peloton to CAT3, while continuing to tour each year (Rapha Continental, 30 Days in Italy, and Boston->Austin). He started a new Austin based team which debuted in the Spring of 2011 and was finally able to launch a new bicycle based non-profit that Fall. Although he is not actively racing due to injury, he is super excited to see the men’s team evolve, watch the women’s team take Texas by storm in its inaugural season and build The Ghisallo Foundation into a successful and self-supporting organization helping to build the future of bicycling in Central Texas.

Elizabeth Korinek
Road: CAT4

A Texas girl through and through, Elizabeth has traveled the state pursuing both academic and athletic ambitions. As a Nationally ranked junior tennis player, Elizabeth received an athletic scholarship to play for Abilene Christian University in West Texas. After a year of competition, she transferred to Baylor University, where she completed her bachelor’s of science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry. With a background in science and a passion for health, fitness, and nutrition, Elizabeth went on to pursue a doctorate in Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin, where she currently conducts research on nutrition and physical activity behavior in children.

Elizabeth began racing for the University of Texas cycling team in the spring of 2011 and fell in love with the sport. Endurance is her strength, and she enjoys road races and long rides against the beautiful Austin landscape. She hopes to improve her performance in criteriums this summer and is looking forward to being a part of the Ghisallo Foundation Racing Team. When she’s not working on those tan lines, you can find Elizabeth in the kitchen cooking up a gourmet meal or hanging with her friends and family of seven!

Hannah Calvert
Road: CAT3

Hannah Calvert hails from America’s heartland, the good old Midwest. She calls Geneva, IL home but spent her undergraduate years as a Hoosier at Indiana University. She began racing as a sophomore in college, with humble beginnings training for a race known as Little 500 (an intramural race on a cinder track with single speed bikes, a.k.a. the worlds greatest college weekend). She also raced at the collegiate level for IU her junior and senior year, competing in collegiate nationals for track and road in the 2010-2011 season.

Hannah is a CAT3 on the road and loves racing for the thrill of a good sprint finish. She is currently studying for her masters in exercise physiology at UT Austin while enjoying the winding roads of Texas, and the taco stands.

Jack Mott
Road: CAT4

Jack Mott was born and raised in Houston, TX with a brief stay in Connecticut in his high school years. He returned to Houston to attend Rice University, managing to get a degree in Computer Science. He recently moved to Austin,TX with his wife Kat Hunter of Snapple-ATC Racing.

Jack started endurance sports doing triathlons and duathlons, with a strong interest in aerodynamics on the bike. 2012 will be his second year of bike racing, and first year to focus on it exclusively. He hopes to win some Cat 4 races this year, pull some teammates to victory as well, and achieve Cat 3 Hero status in 2012.

Jesse Duncan
Road: CAT5 | Track: CAT4

Jesse Duncan is originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, but has lived in Austin for many years. He is currently working for the City of Austin producing bicycle corrals, bicycle lanes, and other Austin bicycle infrastructure. He graduated from Texas State University – San Marcos where he studied Sociology. He will soon be studying Urban and Regional Planning at Texas State and hopes to further his experience with transportation planning. He worked as a BMW mechanic for three years, but is now doing all he can to encourage and facilitate bicycle riding in Austin.

Jesse spends a lot of time on his bikes between being car-free, training, and riding with teammates. He looks forward to racing with the Ghisallo Foundation Racing Team in 2012 and gaining more experience on the track, road, and crits. He is also excited about his continued participation with in the parent organization as an after-school bicycle class instructor and continuing to help the bicycle community improve and grow.

Jordan Patik
Coach: Level3 | Road: CAT3

Jordan Patik is originally from Casper, Wyoming. After attending the University of Wyoming in Laramie, he moved to Austin in May 2007. Currently a personal trainer at Pinnacle Elite Fitness, he holds a B.S. in Kinesiology and plans to go back to school and further his studies in Exercise Physiology.

Jordan grew up on two wheels. His main focus was motocross racing, but spent time racing BMX, riding MTB, and even competing in local bicycle trials competitions. He began racing road in February 2010 and found it to be the competitive outlet he was needing. Jordan won the 2011 Central Texas Cup in the Novice division and will be making his Cat 3 debut in 2012. He enjoys technical crits and windy road races.

Julie Cushen
Road: CAT4

Julie is a Virginia native, born and raised in the beautiful Appalachian mountains in the D.C. area. She has been a runner for the past 13 years, competing in track and field and cross country in high school and has run 5 marathons, two of which resulted in Boston qualifying finishes. She got on a bike for the first time in almost 15 years and began doing triathlons in 2012 and loved cycling so much she started racing with the University of Texas cycling team in the 2013 season.

Julie completed her undergraduate work at Virginia Tech and is now pursuing her Ph.D. in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She plans to graduate in December 2013 to pursue a career in research in the microelectronics industry.

Linnea Nasman
Road: CAT3 | MTN: CAT3

Linnea Nasman grew up in the hippie liberal bubble of Berkeley, CA before migrating to Texas to work as a lobbyist in the most conservative state legislature known to man. Now a graduate student in Public Affairs at UT’s LBJ School, she hopes to one day use to her policy prowess to work toward health care reform and social justice.

Linnea started racing her bike in 2004 as an undergrad at the University of California, Davis (home of the “other” Aggies). A ferocious crit racer and a time trial fiend, she loves sprinting but despises hills. In 2006, she and her fellow Aggies brought home the National Collegiate Road Championships overall and team time trial titles. Linnea is a Cat 3 on the road, but moonlights as a mountain biker in her spare time. She loves eating at food trailers, swimming in Barton Springs, and being a policy nerd.

Marc Granberry
Road: CAT4 | Track: CAT4

Although he has only been racing bikes for two years, Marc Granberry’s love for cycling is trumped only by his love for coffee and jackets. He currently races Cat 4 on the road and track, but hopes to upgrade to Cat 3 in one or both in 2012. He also hopes to buy a mountain bike, a cross bike, and probably some other bikes. Maybe some new jackets too.

Off of the bike, Marc is working on his Masters in Professional Accounting at The University of Texas. After school, he hopes to use his business knowledge to open up a Bike-shop-brew-pub-coffee-house. If he’s not auditing financial statements, look for him riding out on Lime Creek, down by Creedmoor, or even around his hometown of Houston. He’ll be the guy wearing a jacket.

Mike Reyna
Road: CAT4

Mike Reyna started cycling in 2009 with putting together a fixed wheel. He quickly fell in love with riding,and after a year of pushing a fixed wheel around.He wanted to compete, and moved to gears and slowly fell into Crit racing. Mike is also a student at Texas State university where he studies family and consumer science and is anxious to make cycling a part of our community in Texas.

Saul Monarca
Road: CAT5

I started out on the mountain bike not knowing that I could shift up or down, I suffered at cadences of about 60-70 rpm on training rides. Needless to say, I eventually figured it out in time for the Dirt Derby MTB Races. Abel influenced me to switch over to road cycling, and I’m not a patient person that’s why my friends know me as an attacker. My favorite saying is “Traigo power de mas!” translated to “I’ve got power to spare!”. When I’m not riding I like to hang out with my friends to watch movies or hang out at local hole-in-the-wall eateries.

Theron Sweet
Road: CAT4 | Track: CAT4

Theron Sweet is an original Austinite with a strong passion for cycling. His cycling roots started with racing mountain bikes at the age of 15. Theron’s off road cycling took him all over Texas with the experience of dirt, mountain climbs, mud, embedded rock, and snow. With ten mountain bike seasons under his belt in 2009 his focus went toward road cycling. Theron enjoys long road races that usually include wind and breakaways. Stage races are a favorite. With experience and hard training Theron hopes to upgrade from cat 4 to cat 3 in 2012.

In the winter of 2010 Theron and a friend went on an epic touring journey from Austin, Texas to Long Beach, California averaging 80 miles a day and making the 1771 mile ride in 23 days. Theron currently plans to expand his track racing at the two Texas velodromes, embark on an even more extreme touring trip, and work with teammates to build a successful team on the road and in the community.