It’s been a scorcher of a summer, but thanks to a recently completed Eagle Scout project Colorado Junior Crew and Boulder Community Rowing will get some relief with an impressive shade structure that attaches to the trailer that transports our rowing shells.

Pete Bacus, of Boy Scouts of America’s Troop 78, led the charge on designing and building this amazing structure. It’s a massive 37 feet in length, and at 6 feet wide when extended the rowers will have it “made in the shade” at summer regattas for years to come.

The structure debuted on a hot afternoon in July. “CJC Rowers were coming off the water after practice to help out and see their new shade sail,” reads a statement from CJC. “Coach Vee brought some chocolate milk to make a toast! The team was given instructions on how to take it down and make adjustments as needed. It all finished up before our beloved Coach Vee moves to Florida. It was an emotional day for all.”

Too cool! BCR sends hearty thanks to everyone that helped with the project.

It’s May, and BCR is on the water!

We had two eights and a quad circling the reservoir for Sunday morning practice on May 1. Coach Vee emphasized early arm and blade preparation, with lots of rowing by 6s in the eights, or by 3s in the quad. Conditions were good — cool but not cold, some wind but no real chop.

Okay, maybe we’re not quite ready to try rowing square blades at race pace yet … but it’s early days for the 2022 season. A couple of weeks devoted to spring cleaning for the rowing stroke and the BCR boats will be ready for bigger and better things.

In addition to the BCR boats there were a good number of CU crews on the water, and CJC headed out for their practice right after the conclusion of the BCR row.

If you’ve been waiting to return to on-water practices consider this your call for hands on … it’s time for a row!

On March 7, 2021 BCR’s very own Katie Walker logged in from her computer in Colorado and won C.R.A.S.H.-B’s Women’s Masters A division. The virtual format of the race allowed Katie to compete from Boulder in a year when she otherwise would not have travelled to Boston. While training with BCR and following Coach Vee’s training plan, Katie had been pulling PR’s, and thought she could be a contender in the indoor championships. Her raw race time of 7:18.0 proved that conviction correct. 

C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints is the International World Indoor Rowing Championships held in Boston, MA.

On the day of the race, Katie’s husband took their kids, a 4-year-old and a 7-month-old, outside to play as Katie got ready to race from her home erging setup. Similarly to the in-person event, competitors could see each other and their relative locations on the screen. Unlike previous years, though, there was no high-energy environment or adrenaline created by sitting directly next to your competitors. To counteract this, Katie relied on playing music through speakers instead of wearing headphones. 

Katie felt good through the first 1,500 meters and held off the rower behind her. In the last 500 meters, she took the race 100 meters at a time to get to the finish line. While the organizing committee provided a 10 second handicap to those competing above 5,400 feet to account for the impacts of altitude, Katie won outright. 

In the last year, Katie has transitioned to working from home and gave birth to her daughter. She says BCR’s virtual practices provided the normalcy of seeing teammates and training together, even if in a virtual environment. On both BCR practice days and non-practice days, Katie ergs in the morning before her kids wake up. She continued to erg through pregnancy, erging the day before giving birth, and returned to the erg only 6 days later. Shortly before the race, Katie hit the 2 million meter mark since giving birth (yes, you read that correctly!). 

Success at C.R.A.S.H.-B’s is no stranger to Katie’s family. When Katie and her sister began rowing in high school, their mother took up erging and placed 2nd in C.R.A.S.H.-B’s. Katie, who pulled a 7:18 PR (raw time without the altitude handicap), has her eyes set on her mother’s 7:10 time from 2009. And who knows, Katie’s son has already medaled at one indoor rowing race, so maybe he’ll follow in his mother and grandmother’s footsteps! 

Denver Indoor Rowing Championships, the first day of Katie’s second trimester

Katie has been rowing with BCR for two years since moving to Boulder from Charlottesville, VA. She rowed for the University of Virginia, Xavier Crew, and Tempe Junior Crew.

2020 marks BCR’s 20th anniversary! During this time, we take a moment to reflect on BCR’s founding in 2000.

With a vision to start a community rowing program offering an opportunity for anyone and everyone to learn to row, Cymber Quinn helped lead the movement to start BCR in April 2000. Planning meetings began among the University of Colorado coaches and college students. The CU team blanketed Boulder with flyers, posted notices in gyms, and published an article in the local paper to promote the creation of Boulder’s new rowing club. Cymber remembers the phone ringing off the hook with Boulderites eager to put their name and number on the list of new rowers.

BCR’s first meeting for new members coincided with the night of the Colorado Crew banquet, but when the meeting started, not a single person showed up. After a quick search around the building, Cymber found 70 people waiting at the wrong door. After the brief mix-up (and perhaps moment of panic on part of the planning committee), the meeting was a great success. The roughly 15 experienced rowers in the room were immediately assigned positions on the board and put to work. For another two weeks, future rowers continued to call in daily, and BCR soon had another 80 members ready to kick-off its first summer. 

The early members, including Sue Coffey, Cinda Graubard, Hannah Gosnell, David Larsen, Darla Lamper, Mark Brunner, Tom Ryerson, Sarah Walls, Leslie Livingston, John Wood, Marcy Wood, Soren Moglesvang, and John Gontkof, worked tirelessly to create the smooth-running, inclusive organization we know today. Among the early members, Christopher (Tuffer) Dow was known as the safest, and most creative, trailer driver. He offered emergency launch support many times, and BCR would not exist without him. Richard Lingard, a former Leander member, provided essential insights to help BCR get off the ground in those early years.

BCR’s fearless leader, Cymber Quinn, in 2000 and 2020

In its first summer, BCR trained 150 novices. As anyone who has trained even one novice knows, that is no small feat. The CU students who stayed over the summer became coaches and coxswains, creating a fun, new experience for the college students who, until this point, had never been allowed to tell adults what to do. As college students, these new coaches and coxswains successfully taught the eclectic group of novices how to row together as Boulder’s first rowing team.

Like any new club, BCR faced the challenge of acquiring not only rowers, coxswains, and coaches, but also boats. The club was fortunate enough to receive several generous equipment donations in its first year. Most memorably, BCR rowers climbed into two rickety Schoenbrod 8+s.  Remembering to bring tools in these boats was particularly important, as mid-practice stops to tighten the equipment occurred at least once a day.

BCR’s first gear from 2000

Cymber reflects that the early members of BCR gave an enormous amount of time and effort to build a sport that Boulder had not seen before. Rarely does an organization come together so easily, but in its early days, BCR truly felt like one big, happy crew of people working together towards a common goal. To this day, BCR continues to serve the needs of the community in the same manner as its early days: as one big family.

BCR was organized such that board members and volunteers each took on a specific, dedicated job, so that all responsibilities were distributed and shared among members. In this way, the club is truly Boulder’s team, as its many members volunteer to run the club and plan for its future based on the needs of the community as a whole, and not any one individual.

Cymber’s final reflection on BCR captures well a feeling shared by many, many rowers, coxswains, and coaches who have had the pleasure to share in its vibrant community:

“I’m honored to be a part of it.”

Welcome to the first post of our new “In the Spotlight” series! We are excited to highlight the rowing prowess and leadership of our current president, Bill Meyer. 

Bill joined BCR in September 2018 and was elected president in November 2019. Since he started his term in January 2020, Bill has shown undeniable leadership skill in helping the club navigate the unprecedented changes seen by so many organizations in the first half of 2020.

Though this is his first time on the BCR board, Bill has unsurprisingly donated his time on other volunteer boards before, including serving on the board of a youth soccer organization in Massachusetts for about seven years.

Bill Meyer, BCR’s current president.

Bill’s rowing career began in 1978 at sunny San Diego State University, where he studied electrical engineering. After seeing recruiters for the crew team on campus and their 8+ with oars in the middle of the quad, Bill decided to walk-on as a Freshman, following in the footsteps of his father, who rowed at UCLA. As soon as Bill got into the barge used to teach novices to row, he was bit by the rowing bug and never turned back. Bill rowed all four years he was eligible, rowing on the freshmen squad for one year and the lightweight squad for three years (with some guest appearances in the varsity squad).

Bill (3 seat) during a guest row with Ancient Mariner’s Rowing Club.

Between semesters at SDSU in the summer of 1980, Bill walked onto the lightweight national team camp and spent several weeks rowing twice a day have the most fun being “young and stupid” (his words!). A particular memory that stands out to Bill was his boat’s performance against rowers assumed to be much faster than them. During a practice at precamp at Yale, 16 oarsmen were divided into two 8+s, while Bill, two other spares, and an assistant coach were thrown in a straight 4+, otherwise known as the boat that was not expected to survive precamp. To the surprise of many, except maybe those who know Bill well, the straight 4+ dusted the two 8+s in every single piece of the practice.

At the Opening Day Regatta in April 1981, Bill stroked the SDSU JV boat to an impressive victory. His boat took a lead off the start and managed to pull away from the pack of boats going through the Montlake cut. With six boats behind them, Bill felt on top of the world and knew the competition would never catch them. After the race, Bill gladly received the betting shirts owed to his boat from the other crews. To this day, Bill still has his college betting shirts from this fun tradition.

Bill (far left) flexing for the camera with WRC.

After college, Bill took a brief, 30-year hiatus from rowing. In 2011, however, a friend dared Bill to come back to rowing. Bill had a similar experience to his first days on the water at SDSU; he was bitten once more by the rowing bug and left wondering why he ever stopped in the first place. The rowing community owes a big thank you to this friend, and his dare, for bringing Bill back to the rowing world. Bill rowed with Westford Community Rowing in Massachusetts before moving to Boulder in 2018.

With WCR, Bill raced at the Head of the Charles in the Men’s Masters 8+. Bill fondly remembers the electric feeling of rowing through the final bridges on the course and hearing the roaring crowd.

Bill (stroke seat) in the Men’s Masters 8+ at the Charles.

Bill’s favorite part of rowing is the community and friendships built through a collective passion for the sport. Reflecting on his time at BCR, Bill notes from his first trial row, he knew BCR and its community were the club for him.  Bill rows both sides and sculls, and though he has been rowing in 7 seat quite frequently at BCR, there is no seat in the boat he dislikes.

Outside of rowing, Bill focuses on a career in electrical engineering, outdoor activities such as hikes, bike rides, and kayak trips, and his family, including his wife and two children. Bill’s son currently lives in Golden and works at an aerospace company, and his daughter lives in DC and works in consulting.

BCR is so grateful to have Bill as part of our community, and we look forward to the many memories to come with him!