My cycling life-cycle

A lot of people ask me how the hell I got into track riding. Here goes:

I was a 200m sprinter in high school. I had one of the fastest times in the state my Junior year. Regretably, I didn't run my senior year due to lack of motivation and being preoccupied with girls. That's life.

After I graduated, I tried to stay relatively active, but didn't really have any structure. I played basketball and flag football with friends, lifted weights occasionally, and jogged when I felt like it.

When I was 19 I met my (future) wife. One day, she wanted to go for a bike ride, but I didn't have a bike. We went to the local bike shop to look for a new bike. Just when I had picked one out (like a $300 GT), her sister called and said that her husband had a Specialized Stumpjumper he'd sell me. At the time, I had no idea how a used mountain bike could cost $400, but I figured it would be worth it.

There's something about having nice equipment that automatically makes you take a sport seriously. I started doing Wednesday night club MTB rides, just having fun. In 2002 I decided to enter my first race, the "Boo Blast" at Monticello. I won the beginner race by about 10 minutes, got scolded by the promoter (how the hell was I supposed to know?), and I was hooked.

That winter I bought a road bike (gotta keep up with Ted). By "bought a road bike", I mean I traded web-site work for a road bike. My training was all over the place (more on that in a different post), but I was able to keep up with the Tuesday night "fast" group rides regardless. The riders I started out with would eventually become the Grandstay team.

For 2 years, I did the group rides, rode when I could, raced occasionally, and generally had fun with it. I would always do well in the sprints, but didn't have the endurance for anything longer than a 30-minute crit. Not knowing anything about training, I burned out big-time at the end of 2004.

It took me about 5 months to regain my motivation. I bought "The Cyclists Training Bible", and set up a training plan. By "bought", I mean "borrowed from Ted". See a pattern here? Yeah, I'm cheap. Anyways...I made my best progress ever on the road during this time, but lost a lot of my sprint power.

Last year, I convinced Ted to come to the Intro Velodrome classes with me, and everything seemed to click. The simplicity of the bikes, the complexity of the races, the feeling of diving into turn 3...everything felt right. When I did my first flying 200, I knew I was in deep.

I bought a track bike 2 weeks later, and I haven't been on my road bike since. I've converted my 'cross bike, which doubles as my commuter, to a fixed gear. I hired a real coach.

I still haven't shaved my legs.