Take a look at who made it into Expresso Fall Frenzy’s Final Four

By Marisa Penkauskas

Every year, Interactive Fitness hosts the Fall Frenzy tournament where schools across the country battle to see who can bike the most miles on the digital roads of Expresso interactive bikes.

The event promotes personal fitness through fun yet fierce competition, students joining together for long hours at the gym all to represent their schools.

2014’s five-week tournament began with 124 colleges across the country.

Three rounds of competition—each lasting 48 hours—and 36,189 miles later, just four teams remain.

Results from the Elite Eight

The four teams moving into the Final Four are LSU, SUNY Binghamton, Gannon, and Schoolcraft.

LSU – 1,413 miles vs. Carthage – 1,327 miles
SUNY Binghamton – 1,849 miles vs. SUNY Oswego – 1,288 miles
Gannon – 1,514 miles vs. Vanderbilt – 960 miles
Schoolcraft – 2,147 miles vs. Houghton – 1,865 miles

Expresso Fall Frenzy is a national stationary bike event.

The drama of the last two days of the Expresso Fall Frenzy was like nothing we have ever witnessed. Strong riders from eight colleges—competing for pride, glory, and the legendary Golden Spokes trophy— poured sweat over their Expresso virtual reality bikes to push their teams ahead.

SUNY Binghamton and SUNY Oswego battled it out with a 100-mile gap until the last few hours of the tournament. The runner-up college from last year’s Frenzy, Binghamton was out for blood, breaking free in the last five hours to end up with over 500 miles more than Oswego.

Houghton College, a newbie school to the Fall Frenzy, was overtaken by Schoolcraft. Last year, Schoolcraft, which is currently seeded 13, rode only hundreds of miles and was knocked out in the Sweet 16 round by the University of Rochester. This year, Schoolcraft rode thousands of miles to knock out Houghton. This was despite Nathan Hatch’s 185 miles and Joey Wilmot’s incredible push—he rode 175 miles in 48 hours! Houghton’s getting knocked out of the competition was an upset for Wilmot, who was the top rider in the overall tournament by mileage, having ridden 457 miles these past three weeks.

Gannon University is a newcomer to the Expresso Fall Frenzy annual event.

Individual riders are also competing to be a part of the All-Tournament team. The following students have ridden the most miles throughout the overall tournament:

Joey Wilmot – Houghton – 457 miles
David Geyer – LSU – 377 miles
Brian Johnson – LSU – 363 mile
Justin Thomas – SUNY Binghamton – 315 miles
Alyson Dickson – Vanderbilt – 293 miles
Joshua Costa – Schoolcraft – 290 miles
Nathan Hatch – Houghton – 281 miles
Brian Ratajczak – Gannon – 265 miles
Pat Skeate – Carthage – 258 miles
Corey Olson – Carthage – 255 miles

In the end, 689 riders from your Elite Eight teams rode for a combined 12,367 miles in 48 hours and burned over 400,000 calories! The effort across the board from all of these teams was courageous and inspiring.

The Final Four

LSU (1) vs. SCHOOLCRAFT (13)

LSU is the heavy favorite in this matchup since it won last year’s Fall Frenzy in the Championship Round against SUNY Binghamton. LSU has a reputation to protect but Schoolcraft wants it this year!

SUNY BINGHAMTON (2) vs. GANNON

Binghamton knows exactly what they’re doing after making it through to the finals last year. But Gannon, even as the newbie school, hasn’t fallen short yet; they’ve trumped the competition all three prior rounds, proving themselves with hundreds of miles more than their opponent.

Tune into Fall Frenzy from October 21–22 to see who captures the Golden Spokes trophy—and think about racking up your own miles the next time you head to the gym!