Middle’s Noah Granigan Cycles Country and World

Noah Granigan was exposed to his family’s rich tradition of competitive cycling at an early age. The Landsdale, Pa., native grew up in Court House and starred for the Panther soccer team, but his family ties with two-wheel racing go back many generations.
“My great grandfather competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials and my grandfather is a 20 plus time U.S. National Champion, three-time medalist at UCI World Championships, and several time Pan-American Champion,” said the 18-year-old son of Mike and Beth Granigan. “My grandmother is a several time U.S. National Champion and was inducted into the Bicycling Hall of Fame a couple years ago as a contributor to the sport.”
Granigan, also accomplished in soccer, basketball and skiing, said his mother also raced, but “her career ended when she realized she didn’t have to do it.”
Granigan started racing at age nine in the 10-12 year-old grouping. He loved it from the start. “It was fun and I realized I was good at it when I won my first of 14 New Jersey State Championships when I was 10 in the 10-12 age group,” said Granigan.
The 18-year-old is a mechanical engineering major at the University of Colorado. “Boulder is a really cool town and it’s probably the biggest cycling town in the country,” said the 6’3”, 160 pounder. “There’s great training here. It’s at altitude.
There’s a large cycling community and many top races are held close to Boulder. The university has a really good engineering program. Colorado is a win/win situation with academics and cycling.”
The multi-talented Granigan excelled for Cape Express. His club team won the Rider Cup, a prestigious tournament hosted at Fort Dix.
“The championship game went to penalty kicks and every player had to take a PK because neither team could get ahead,” he recalled. “Zach Buchanan was our last kicker because he was hurt, and he scored to win the tournament.”
Granigan added that his U-14 squad was the first Cape Express team to win the first division of the organization’s signature event, the George Pratt Memorial Columbus Day Tournament.
A four-year letter winner, Granigan’s Panther soccer career was equally impressive.
In his junior and senior years, Middle earned bids into the highly competitive South Jersey Coaches Tournament. He was part of the Middle squad that captured the 2013 South Jersey Championship.
“We were down 3-0 in the second half of the South Jersey semi-final and we came back to tie it and win on PK’s,” he said. “The South Jersey Final was 0-0 versus West Deptford and we won on PK’s again. I scored the winning PK after some clutch saves from our goalie, Tanner Kerr.”
Granigan was especially nostalgic about the South Jersey Championship because he was among teammates who had competed together since U-8 Cape Express. “It was special because we earned the second South Jersey Championship in Middle Township history with all of our best friends,” he said. “We lost to eventual state champion Delran in overtime.”
Despite his impressive background on the pitch, Granigan has gravitated full time to cycling. “I’ve been playing soccer for longer and I’m going to miss playing, but most of my focus is toward cycling now,” he said. “Cycling has taken me so many places and I’ve met a ton of people. I have friends all over the country and even the world, now.”
Granigan acknowledges the difficulty of his favorite sport. “It’s such a brutal sport,” he said. “I’ve raced in 35 degrees in pouring rain, I’ve raced on several hundred-year-old cobble stone roads, and I’ve raced on courses that finish on top of mountains. Since it’s an endurance and performance sport, it’s very mental. Pushing yourself through the pain of climbing a mountain or in a 40 mile-per-hour sprint is tough.”
Cycling can be devastating. Granigan took second this summer at the U.S. National Criterium Championship by 0.004 seconds. “I lost by about an inch,” he lamented. “That was my second silver medal of the week. I was also second at the U.S. National Road Race Championships by three seconds.”
Granigan wasn’t kidding when he said cycling has taken him to many places. The sport has taken him to or through 35 states.
“I’ve done three-stage races in Canada, two of which were the Tour de l’Abitibi Desjardins,” he said. “This was a UCI race which drew teams from North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. I’ve been to Europe three times including earlier this month. Two of those trips were with the U.S. National Team.”
Granigan’s 2011 and 2013 European adventures included stays in Izegem and Oudenaarde, Belgium, two West Flanders towns where everyone plays soccer or is a cyclist.
“Races in West Flanders are usually kermesses, which are about 100 kilometers long, with about 8 kilometer laps. The finish is near the center of which ever town is hosting the race and the lap often goes out on narrow, technical roads through the Belgian farmlands.”
Granigan said he performed well in 2011 with a second place finish highlighting his trip. In 2013 he won a race in Lauwe. He topped both of those this month by winning two races in Belgium. He also won the KOM (King of the Mountain) classification in a Netherlands event.
“We stayed in Sittard, Netherlands, and raced mostly in Belgium and the Netherlands,” he said. “We trained primarily in Germany. Our last race there was the Gran Prix Reubliland, a four-stage race in Northern Switzerland. This was by far the biggest race I have ever competed in and it was definitely a learning experience.”
How does a competitor prepare himself for these grueling events? “I do a lot of training year round,” he said. “Sometimes I put in 15-hour training weeks on the bike. I have a personal coach, Jon Heidemann from Peak-to-Peak Training Systems who reads the files from the power meter on my bike and sends me workouts and advice. A good thing about cycling is that racing is the best training because you use tactics and technique and it’s obviously a great workout.”
His travels have taken him far from Cape May County. What does Granigan miss most?
“I definitely miss seeing the people every day who have been my best friends since I was 8,” he said. “Colorado University is a pretty big school. I’m used to pretty much knowing everybody at Middle since it’s a fairly small school, so that’s a little different.”
So what do his friends say about his rabid love for cycling?
“My friends are very supportive and they’re always asking about my races and results,” he said. “Of course, there is the occasional joke about the tight clothing and shaved legs!”