Despite discovering the sport only nine months ago, Michelle Khare '14 has made a name for herself in the world of cycling at Dartmouth and beyond. Khare, who began riding during her off-term last fall, raced at the 2013 United States Cycling Amateur and para-cycling Road Nationals in the under-23 section last weekend in Madison, Wis.
Khare, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is an intern at Google, finished 12th in the 55-mile road race on Friday and placed 13th in her race on Sunday.
Khare encountered cycling while interning for DreamWorks Animation in Los Angeles. The digital media major had hoped to continue playing ultimate frisbee for a club team, and when those plans fell through, Khare settled on biking. During her sophomore summer, Khare occasionally used a road bike and participated in the 100-bike ride portion of the Prouty.
Khare, who said she hated Los Angeles when she first arrived, started doing group rides to stay fit and eventually got hooked.
"I ended up staying in California through winter quarter and raced out west for the majority of winter term," Khare said.
Patricia Neckowicz '15, Khare's teammate on the ultimate frisbee team, said Khare is athletic and dedicated.
"She has the best work ethic of anyone on our team," Neckowicz said. "She was just very athletic and definitely inspired a lot of us to want to get in shape."
While Khare quickly found success with cycling, it did not come easily. On one of her first group rides, she was the only female rider and biked with several other fast, experienced riders.
"I was excited because I was keeping up until I crashed really bad and was bleeding everywhere," Khare said.
Khare said the people she met helped keep her interested in the sport.
"They're the ones that kept me riding, and are still some of my best friends," she said.
Khare planned on returning to Dartmouth for her junior winter, but enrolled in a transfer term at the University of California, Los Angeles after her internship was extended.
Over the winter, Khare began a training plan with a coach and raced every weekend of the term.
"In the winter things got really intense," Khare said. "I went to my first race and won, which was really awesome."
When she returned to campus in the spring, Khare joined the club cycling team.
"It's been quite a switch for me, especially because before cycling, I had never done an endurance sport," she said.
Despite her relative inexperience with the sport, Khare has already become an invaluable member of the team.
"She is an incredibly fast racer who has a lot of talent and trains very hard to make the most of it," teammate Adam Schneider '15.
While Khare insists that she has been "lucky" to compete at a top level given her inexperience, Neckowicz said that her frisbee teammates were not surprised.
"We all knew she could be good at a lot of other things too," Neckowicz said, "I honestly wasn't surprised when we found out she was really good at biking."
Neckowicz also spoke of Khare's self-determination and resilience when competing.
"She's the type of person that likes to put in work and get results and she can capitalize on her athleticism," said Neckowicz.
Schneider, who has been a member of the cycling team since his freshman year, said that during the short term she has been cycling, Khare has greatly improved her skills.
Neckowicz, who is living with Khare in the fall, is unsure whether Khare will continue with the ultimate frisbee team when she returns to Dartmouth, but is confident that "she will always be present in the community."
Khare said she hopes that people know they can find their passions in unexpected places.
"A lot of people go through Dartmouth feeling like everyone has their passions figured out freshman year," she said. "I only found mine on an off term in my junior year."
After her senior fall on campus, Khare will return to Los Angeles for the film studies foreign study program, where she will continue her training.
