The Valley Preferred Cycling Center

While Air Products Developmental Cycling Program graduates Bobby Lea and Lauren Tamayo are getting ready to compete in the most important races of their journey as cyclists, Dana Feiss has returned home to work on her own post Air Products program journey after an extremely successful 2011 season that saw her collect Elite National Titles in the Keirin and Sprints, as well as a bronze medal in the Keirin at the Pan-American Games.

Recently, the 22-year-old Feiss returned to Telford, Pa., from her adopted home in Huntington Beach, Calif., where she trains with the National Sprint Program. However, she’s still hesitant to call California home. “It’s where I live, train, and am based out of, but T-Town still feels like home,” Feiss explained. After following the big track races on the West Coast earlier in the summer, she returned home to compete in the Keirin Cup and the sprint tournament that is slated for August 10. “I follow the action, and right now it’s here,” Feiss explained.

Feiss got her start through the Air Products Developmental Cycling Program at age 16. Her coach, May Britt Hartwell, saw her potential and encouraged her to attend the 2007 Junior National Championships in Colorado Springs, Colo.

While there she turned in two silver medal performances in the 17-18 Junior Womens category and a Junior Worlds Qualifying Time Standard, causing her to question where her future was in the sport. “When I started college the following fall, I really had to sit down and think about whether or not this is what I wanted to do,” Feiss said.

She decided that she wanted to commit to the sport, which meant she had to balance her coursework at Kutztown University with her very serious training schedule. “In hindsight, I look back and wonder how I did that,” Feiss says when asked about how she managed her workload. “At 18 you’re at a crossroads with school and work, and then you throw in elite level training… it was a lot. I would have to sit down and say ‘This is my goal for Elite Nationals’ and plan everything around that.”

She had a far from average college experience, “I was up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning to go and lift for two hours, then I would quick go home, eat, shower, and change and then head to class until 4:30. When that was all finished I would do another workout,” Feiss explains. “I had a goal, I wanted the degree and I wanted the medals. I did both.” She graduated from Kutztown University with a degree in Professional Writing in spring of 2011.

With more time to devote to cycling, her career took off. The most notable performance to date is her bronze medal at the Pan-American Games in the Keirin. Her medal-winning results justified her years of hard work, “I cried on the podium. I couldn’t believe I was standing there. It was the most immense honor to be wearing the red, white, and blue.”

The US National Womens Sprint Team did not qualify a team for London, but that doesn’t faze Feiss. “Rio is the ultimate goal, Jamie [Staff, US National Sprint Coach], made it clear from the beginning,” she says when discussing the future, “When trials for the Olympics come around again, I want to be the fastest.”

You can follow Feiss’ international travels on her blog, Chain Reaction, and be sure to come out and watch the big thing to come out of T-Town race the World Series of Bicycling for the remainder of the season.

Story by Elspeth Huyett

Photo by Anthony Skorochod of Cycling Captured