Ian Schwing '21 - Like Riding A Bike

As some 500 mountain bikers climbed nearly 12,500 feet through the backcountry trails of George Washington National Forest, cyclist Ian Schwing ’21 had an unexpected encounter. During a less strenuous stretch of the Shenandoah Mountain 100, another rider fell into cadence beside Ian. “You’re Ian Schwing, right?” he shouted above the whirring of pedals. He introduced himself as fellow Mount Saint Joseph alumnus Jimmy Klose ’12.

“You meet an MSJ alum anywhere and you just instantly click,” Ian explains. The two were able to exchange a few words before the 100-mile race picked up pace again. At the time, Jimmy lived in Connecticut, but they stayed in touch and eventually Jimmy made his way back to Ellicott City, where he and Ian often meet up to ride together. Today, they even compete as part of the same team under the sponsorship of the endurance sports nutrition company Flow Formulas.

Ian was picked up by Flow Formulas as a junior in high school. After winning a race that spring, Ian looked down from his first-place podium and noticed the athlete in fifth was decked out in Flow Formulas branded gear. He’d recently watched a product review on YouTube that sparked his interest in the supplement, and he thought, ‘I should go talk to that guy.’

“What’s cool about a bike race is that we’re all here for the same reason,” Ian explains. “We love riding bikes; we want to test ourselves; we want to see how hard we can push our bodies. So, we’re all in the same boat, and just like meeting an MSJ alum wherever—maybe a bike race—you instantly have a connection with other riders. Talking to anyone after a race is super easy because you know exactly what you can talk about right away.”

The rider’s name was Caleb Reese, and he just so happened to be the founder and co-owner of Flow Formulas. The introduction quickly evolved into a friendship, and when Caleb asked Ian if he’d want to join the team, he jumped at the opportunity.

Ian is now a sophomore at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he is a founding member of the club mountain bike team. Balancing the demands of a college student and those of a semiprofessional athlete has proved challenging, but to Ian, it’s all worth it to get to compete in the sport that he loves while still preparing himself for life beyond cycling.

“My first priority is my education and my professional career outside of athletics. That’s why I’m here at college. I’m not here to just train and ride and be an athlete for the school. I’m here to get a degree and move along in life and my career,” he explains.

Sometimes staying on top of his academics means waking up at 4:30 a.m. to catch his 8 a.m. class on Zoom while on the West Coast for a race. Such was his schedule during one of his favorite races of the year, the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California. Advertised as the largest gathering of cycling enthusiasts in North America, the four-day expo featured several races, including a 50-mile endurance event. The trails were smooth and dry which made for a fast run for all competitors regardless of skill level.

“Because of the conditions, I was able to keep up with people who are considered celebrities of the sport,” Ian says. “In the middle of the race, I looked to my left and saw Laurens ten Dam. He got ninth place in the Tour de France one year! That was amazing. I used to look up to these people and aspire to be them, and now I’m racing against them.”

Ian’s road to success in the sport hasn’t always been smooth. In October of 2021, during his last race of the collegiate season, he went head-to-head against a talented rider in the dual slalom event. Trying to keep pace, he went too hard around a bend in the track and wiped out right in front of his team advisor and his dad. They later said they could hear the crack of his collarbone when he went down. Pumped full of adrenaline, Ian picked himself up and pedaled the short distance to the finish line.

Thankfully, the timing of Ian’s injury was such that it didn’t derail a whole season of racing. He’d been looking forward to competing in the Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in Durango, Colorado, later that month, but instead kickstarted his offseason and began the recovery process. “This season, it’s like it never even happened,” Ian says.

In fact, he was healed in time to run the inaugural session of his summer camp program for riders ages 13-18 at Mount St. Mary’s. The camp is a passion project for Ian, as he feels his own development as an athlete was missing the kind of guidance he believes he can offer the next generation of racers.

“High school teams are great, but that is the very first building block of what makes a racer a racer,” Ian explains. “There are so many steps between that and a race like Sea Otter, and no one has any guidelines for how to get there. There isn’t a linear path. There are a bunch of different routes, and I’ve been down a lot of them.” 

Ian has big plans, not just for the future of his camps, but also for his own. He was recently able to check a box on his mountain biking bucket list when he placed first in his age group at the 2022 USA Cycling Marathon National Championship in October–a scene of redemption after last season's injury. And next to him on the podium: Jimmy Klose in second.

Ian also hopes to pursue a master’s degree in material science, while cashing in on his allotted six years of collegiate cycling eligibility, of course. "I just love riding bikes," he says with a shrug and a smile.