A Hillsdale chemistry professor will compete in a cycling world championship in Belgium this week. 

Courtney Meyet, chairwoman and associate professor of chemistry, will compete with Team USA in Flanders, Belgium, as a participant in the 2024 Bolero UCI Gravel World Championships Oct. 5.

“I will be representing our country, wearing the national kit. It’s pretty sweet,” Meyet said, “It was a big goal for me to do this.”

The race starts in Halle, Belgium, and ends in Leuven, covering 113 miles.

Women and men will race in separate competitions Oct. 5 and 6, respectively, according to the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global governing body for the sport of cycling.

In gravel riding, competitors ride on unpaved surfaces, according to the Adventure Cycling Association.

“It came out of a rebelliousness of cyclists that wanted to hit the dirt roads and not be under a governing body that said you have to have this type of equipment and these types of clothes,” Meyet said. 

As a sanctioned sport now, regulations on clothing and equipment have come to gravel biking, but the essence of the sport remains the same for Meyet.

“From the time I was a small child, a bicycle represented freedom,” she said. “You jump on your bike, and it’s transportation. You always knew what was happening based on how many bikes were piled out in front of someone’s house and even as an adult, it rekindles that childhood — the excitement for freedom.”

Meyet said she is excited to experience that same feeling on the trail.

“The speed, seeing a new country — it’s an escape,” she said. “It’s definitely a stress release. Time to think, to be alone.”

Meyet said her quest for health and fitness in midlife started with training for triathlons.

“I’m an average swimmer and when it comes to running, I’m definitely more back of the pack, but cycling — I really worked on cycling,” Meyet said.

Meyet’s hard work qualified her for a national triathlon championship, but she said it had nothing to do with her swimming or running. It was all in the wheels.

“After competing at the national championships, I thought I should just focus on cycling,” she said. “So I moved to gravel as a discipline, and I had good luck right away.”

Biking has personal roots for Meyet.

“My grandfather was an avid cyclist and he would ride his bike across the entire country,” Meyet said. “He would ride from California to Florida. Every summer, he would ride and he would do it in a month.”

Meyet said her grandfather’s passion for biking began to influence her life when she was only sixteen. It was then that he took her to participate in a five day biking tournament across the state of Wisconsin and made it a point to rise with the sun to see the best of the best cyclists take off.

“He would make me get up to watch the ‘fast guys,’” Meyet said. “The guys that were the tip of the spear that would get up and see how fast they could complete that day’s stage, and he was always so jazzed about it. I think that he had hoped at that point that I would get into cycling like him, but I didn’t.”

Now, two and a half years into her transition to gravel biking, Meyet said she has had strings of victories and accomplishments, but it has taken careful training balanced with career and family commitments to get her to Belgium.

“Sometimes I have to do two workouts a day so I get up early, like this morning, I got up at five o’clock,” Meyet said, “I get on what’s known as a smart bike and I can bring up a map of anywhere in the world and ride there.”

The smart bike takes actual geographic information such as hills and valleys to change the resistance on the bike.

On a typical day, Meyet said she could put in two hours of biking, followed by strength training.

“You do what you have to do when you are passionate about a sport or a hobby,” she said. “It’s a minimum of six days a week. I ride six days, and strength training or core, mobility, five days. And rest day isn’t just sitting on the couch. It’s an active recovery.”

This intense regimen has posed difficulties for Meyet.

“It can be a little bit of a struggle, especially when you have events on campus,” she said. “I have to either cut something out or decide I’m not going to that event, or get up really early and just get it all done. It can be challenging.”

Despite this, Meyet has managed to leave a lasting impact on her students.

“She genuinely cares about her students,” senior Colin Joyce said. “If you ever have a problem, she’ll sit down and walk slowly through things with you until you actually understand.”

Colin said in his class of 30, all students who sought help got the same level of care.

“She is one of the most hardworking people I have ever met,” he said.

Not even a wipeout could stop Meyet when she fell off her bike in a Nebraska race in early September.

“Post her crash at nationals a few weeks ago, I’m all the more impressed by her,” senior Emma Osborne said. “Cycling is a very dangerous sport. It’s very difficult to get back on the bike after a very serious accident because confidence on your bike is something that takes a long time to build up and can be destroyed in an instant.”

As the tournament draws near, Meyet said she has her own personal goals, but above all she views the race as a tribute to her World War II veteran grandpa.

“He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and we are actually going to be racing through a country where he served,” she said, “It’s kind of coming together. I feel like it was meant to be because he always wanted me to be a cyclist.”

Meyet said her achievement and success in cycling carries her grandfather’s memory.

“This fast guy thing,” Meyet said, “my grandfather, he’s gone, he’s passed on. But you know, sometimes I think, ‘Grandpa, I’m one of those fast guys now.’”