DURANGO, Colo,.— In a lab tucked away in Schlessman Family Hall at Fort Lewis College, the countdown begins.
“Three, two, one – go!”
Wearing a mask strapped to their face and sensors placed strategically across their body, the cyclist looks as if they were racing the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad up Coal Bank and Molas Pass – a Southwest tradition in the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. 
As the resistance on the stationary bike increases, a team of senior exercise physiology students closely monitors the sensors, tracking everything from heart rate to oxygen saturation. The young scientists gradually increase the watts as their test subject pushes through the growing resistance.
“Keep going! You’ve got this!” shouts Henry Nelson, a 22-year-old senior, as the cyclist’s cadence begins to slow.
This scene has played out repeatedly over the past several weeks at Fort Lewis College’s Durango Performance Center, where Nelson and his fellow seniors are conducting a final research project on how beetroot supplementation affects cycling performance in elite young athletes.
The study leverages Durango’s competitive cycling community, drawing participants aged 15-23 from local cycling programs and the college’s racing teams. It’s a senior capstone project highlighting the hands-on, real-world research opportunities available to Fort Lewis College students.
“We’re looking at whether beetroot supplementation helps with muscle oxygenation and whether it’s worth taking before races to make a difference in athletic performance,” said Quinn Roark, 22, another senior on the research team.
The experiment, in theory, is relatively simple, the students said. Each participant completes three VO2 max tests. The first familiarizes them with the procedure and establishes baseline metrics. For the subsequent tests, participants consume either beetroot powder or a placebo 2.5 hours before testing, without knowing which they've received.
“Our test is simple and beautiful,” Nelson said. “But it took a lot of research to develop things like the proper warm-up routine and testing protocol. We wanted to look at nitrates in beets and leafy greens. There are lots of studies on nitrates, but not many focusing specifically on muscle oxygenation, especially at altitude.”
The testing procedure itself looks grueling to the average onlooker. Starting at 100 watts, the resistance increases by 25 watts every minute until the cyclist can no longer pedal. The current record stands at 425 watts, the students said. For perspective, 425 watts is enough energy to propel an average cyclist up a steep mountain pass at a race pace, a level only elite athletes can sustain for more than a few minutes. When all testing concludes, the research team will have collected data from about 16 cyclists, all participating anonymously as required by research protocols.
Keeping a keen eye on the computer, Roark pointed to the various monitors displaying real-time data.
“We put sensors on their legs and shoulders that tell us what percentage of their blood is oxygenated,” he explained. “The goal is to look at trends in muscle oxygenation and see if beetroot supplementation makes a measurable difference.”
A community of cyclists
Nelson said Durango’s reputation as a cycling mecca made it the perfect location for this study. The town has produced numerous professional cyclists and Olympians, creating a culture where performance enhancement—through natural means—is a topic of high interest.
“Obviously, with the cycling culture in this town, there’s a lot of interest in our research,” said Nelson, who plans to pursue semi-professional cycling after graduation. “We asked Durango DEVO for participants, and most of our subjects are collegiate athletes who raced for FLC. We have a good balance between younger and older riders, some in high school, others just out of college.”
The research team includes Nelson, Roark, Asa Demmert, Madelyn Roberson, and Lovato Sandoval – all 22-year-old seniors majoring in exercise physiology, except for Roberson, who is majoring in health science.
“For our cyclists, this would be an expensive test to get their metrics professionally,” Roark said. “I think that helped us get a lot of volunteers. Plus, at the end, they get a comprehensive report on their performance that they can use in their training.”
The students said the technology being used is at the forefront of sports science. The Moxy sensor, which measures muscle oxygenation in real-time, represents some of the newest applications in performance testing.
“These sensors are really cutting edge,” Nelson said, carefully placing a sensor on a participant's quadriceps. “The technology allows us to measure things we couldn't have just a few years ago.”
From the classroom to the real world
The beetroot study represents the culmination of four years of academic preparation for these seniors. Associate Professor Missy Thompson, who has been at Fort Lewis College for 10 years, oversees the senior capstone course.
“We always try to do real-world projects,” Thompson explained. “This semester, we only have two projects. The other group is testing an emergency dermal solution, a newly designed medical device alternative to gauze for burns, made by a local paramedic.”
Thompson collaborates with Rotem Ishay, lab coordinator and fellow Health & Human Performance department instructor, to develop research themes each semester and give students really interesting options.
Although the beetroot concept has existed for some time, according to Thompson, it hasn’t been studied extensively with the new sensor technology, especially at altitude, where Durango is located at around 6,500 feet.
“We give direction to the students,” she said, “but from there, they take it and develop the testing. They’re really the drivers of the project.”
Making an impact
For Demmert, who previously competed in cross country and track at Fort Lewis College, the project combines his athletic background with his academic interests.
“Cycling in itself, there’s so much to measure (from a metric standpoint),” Demmert said, adjusting the settings on the stationary bike. “But because of the nature of the sport and the equipment we have available to us, it’s easier to measure all those variables.”
Demmert reflected on how his perception of the senior project has evolved. “When I first started college and learned about senior projects, it seemed very daunting. But actually doing it – it’s so much more amazing than I thought.”
The research has real-world implications beyond the classroom, too. Thompson said that this isn’t just an academic exercise.
“This is publishable research,” she said. “We’ve had students publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals before. Previous projects have included trail running energetics, where we found that technical terrain increases energy cost by 11%, and the biomechanics of ice climbing at the Ouray Ice Climbing Festival.”
When the beetroot testing concludes in the coming weeks, the students will have accumulated data from approximately 45 tests to analyze.
“When we’re all done, we’ll run a statistical analysis and test our hypothesis,” Roark said.
Combining passion and academic interests
Thompson noted the exceptional commitment of this year’s research team.
“The amount of time they put in – early mornings, late nights – they’re pretty pumped on it,” she said. “For them, it’s relevant and hands-on, instead of just administering a survey and waiting for responses. They know the equipment, they’re running the show, working with subjects, troubleshooting. That gets a lot of buy-in.”
Ishay shares Thompson’s passion for endurance sports and sees the project as developing skills that will serve students well beyond graduation.
“We try to focus on what skills will be honed through this experience, whether for the professional world, graduate school, or further research,” Ishay said. “We’re thinking about skills more than the topic itself – administering tests, collecting massive amounts of data and trimming it down, interpreting results.”
According to Ishay, Fort Lewis College’s Health and Human Performance department covers a wide spectrum, from fitness to medical applications to sports performance.
“Students who choose this major naturally have some kind of passion or inclination to pursue those fields,” Ishay said. “They want to be coaches, physical therapists, physicians, or fitness instructors. They have a passion going into it, and we try to keep research topics fun.”
The ties that bind
The beetroot study also exemplifies the close relationship between Fort Lewis College and the broader Durango community.
“This research experience is always a collaboration between campus and the community,” Ishay said. “Whether that’s recruiting people for testing or bringing people to campus to be exposed to what we do here.”
For younger participants, like the high school students from local schools, Ishay said coming up to the college for the study provides a glimpse into the potential possibilities that await them in higher education.
While the researchers have a hypothesis about beetroot supplementation’s effect, Thompson said she remains cautiously optimistic about the findings.
“We’re using a methodology that will probably lead to a response,” she said. “But the challenges include variables like people’s training plans and diet factors. It’s always tough when you’re dealing with real people.”
As the testing phase winds down and analysis begins, the seniors are already preparing to present their findings at the undergraduate research symposium later this spring.
“We try to provide students with real-world opportunities, and that’s so rewarding for them,” Thompson said. “This group has dedicated themselves to it. They’re an amazing bunch, and their research has shown that.”
Back in the lab, one of the cyclist volunteers pushes through the 375-watt mark, legs burning but determined to set a new personal best. The seniors cheer encouragingly, just as if the cyclist is coming down the finish line with the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in tow. Whether beetroot powder proves to enhance performance or not, these students have already achieved their goal, Thompson said—conducting professional-level research that bridges classroom learning with real-world application, all while contributing to the scientific understanding of athletic performance.