Bicycle Racing - The Junior Years

Let's pretend I just started this blog
Never mind that I have had this blog for quite a while - the complete lack of posts for over a year is a clean slate, in my mind. I won't erase the old posts, since I wrote em, and I felt em, but I'm making a fresh start. Odds are, you're going to have to put up with a bunch of posts about bike racing. I've found it again. Seems worth recapping my sordid past in this sport (long post).

First up - my junior years...
June 1986: during the presidential physical fitness test during the school year, I failed to complete a pullup, and also walked the last half of the half-mile. I weighed 152 lbs., which is exactly what I weigh right now, but I was 5' 2" tall, versus 5'11" today. I was a tub (as are many boys at age 12-13, but still)! Perhaps this is why my mother was willing to pony up $100 to buy a Huffy road bike (27" wheels, black and white, I think it was a Huffy "926") from one of my friends who was not so gravitationally endowed, and wanted money for basketball camp. This was a lot of money for my mother to spend out of the blue - she was a single mother, running a graphic design business out of the home. Thank you Mom! I promptly rode the bike the 4 miles to my friend Allen's house. I thought I was going to have to quit on the only small hill, after 2 miles of the trip (I didn't know I could shift gears). I made it there, and drank like a gallon of water. Man, did my ass hurt in my bermuda shorts. Allen, on the other hand, was thin, and rode his bike often with his parents, who were into touring. He had a snazzy Rayleigh technium bike made out of aluminum alloy. It was much lighter, and simply functioned a lot better than my bike, but who cares? The next day, he took me on one of his favorite rides, a 12 mile trip to Stillwater, MN for breakfast - 99 cent all you could eat french toast, if you got there by 8 AM on Sunday. We left at 7 AM, and if not for Allen's constant encouragement, and letting me draft, we never would have made it that day. Thus began a regular ride, all summer long. The freedom of riding the bike was so intoxicating, that we rode almost every day. By the end of the summer, we could leave at 7:20 and still just barely make it. We practiced rotating, just like we saw the pros do in the Tour, which we watched religiously on ABC's Wide World of Sports. Phil Liggett had hair, and Greg Lemond was our great hope, but the Tour was all about the rivalry between Hinault and Lemond. That Tour is ingrained on my memory forever, as is 1989 - but that's another story.

September 1988: Meanwhile, Mom noticed my enthusiasm for riding, and was presumably quite pleased with her now healthy and happy son. That Christmas, I received exactly the same bike as Allen rode, a blue Rayleigh technium! I had to swap out the handlebar tape in order to prevent confusion between the two bikes! I went with the fashionable neon green cork ribbon. I didn't ride much that Fall, but I joined the cross-country running team, as did Allen, and while we didn't completely suck, it was clear that my riding legs didn't exactly translate into running legs. I improved from a 30:01 5k to a 23:29 5k that season. I also joined the XC skiing team, and learned to skate ski. By the end of that season, I was the best boy on the JV team, which isn't saying much since I think we had a total of 8 boys and 4 girls, but I was starting to discover that maybe I had some ability when it comes to endurance sports.

June 1989: I was 15, and able to get a part-time job. At Tartan High School, I met Mike Plante, who was racing as a junior, and had a job at North Country Bike & Ski, about 5 miles from my house. He also had a friend who could drive, and they took me to "the shop" in Saint Paul, Grand Performance. I have had a seriously loyal relationship with this shop, but I didn't know it would happen then... What was awesome about this shop was the consignment bikes. I was entralled with the array of racing steeds, hanging all over the shop, with prices that seemed in reach. I vowed to buy one of these bikes and replace my Rayleigh, which while infinitely better than the Huffy, was not a "racing bike".

I applied to work as a mechanic/salesperson at the aforementioned North Country Bike & Ski, at the suggestion of Mike. They told me to come back the next day. I came in and hung out. They told me to come in the next day. This went on for about a week. Finally, Joe, one of the managers, took me to the back of the shop, pointed at a big cardboard box, and said, "assemble that bike in less than 30 minutes. If I can ride it, and everything works, you can have a job." He then sat on the counter, and started a stop watch. I had never been the back of a bike shop. There were strange and wicked looking tools everywhere. I'd never seen a bike stand. And, upon opening the box, I was sure I would fail. It was a Trek 820 - Mountain Bike! I'd never touched a mountain bike. In fact, I think the only ones I had seen were during the previous week loitering around the shop. But, I pulled out the partially assembled contraption, and noticed that the bike stand had a clamp that looked like it might hold on to the top tube. I put it in and clamped it down. Joe said, "Interesting." I tried not to notice. It must have been obvious I had no idea what I was doing. But, I gave it my all. I somehow figured out cantilever brakes, adjusting the pads so they didn't squeak. I adjusted the derailleurs, which were "indexed" - I had heard of this, but having only used friction shifting, I struggled a bit until I discovered the cable tension barrel adjuster. Anyway, I got the thing together, minus air in the tires, right when Joe called, "Time's up." He allowed me to fill the tires, using the compressor. I am sure I pumped them up to something like 50 psi, and was only lucky that I bumped the valve with my foot - otherwise the tube would have blown not long after. Joe took the bike out the back and disappeared. He came back, about 5 minutes later, riding a wheelie through the front door. When he got back to me, where my jaw was on the floor, he said calmly, "OK. you're hired. Come back tomorrow - you'll work 10 - 2, 3 days a week, and 10-5 on Sundays."

I was in!

I saved everything I earned. I think my Mom still has my first paycheck for about $120 dollars. Once I made it to $500, I asked my mom to drive me to Grand Performance. I was going to get a racing bike! When we got there, the shop manager Dan (who is now the owner), measured me up and announced that I needed a 54 cm frame. There were three to choose from, but only one in my price range. I bought a green and white Centurion "Ironman Dave Scott" (I had no idea who that was at the time) with Shimano 600 (Ultegra nowadays) and Look clipless pedals. I bought some Lake shoes, and since you got a discount on the bike if you joined the shop's racing team, I joined the team and got a jersey. My wife can still fit this jersey, and even wore it to her first race - again, that's another story...

On this bike, I was a menace. I trained like a fiend. I once rode 62 miles, by myself, with one water bottle and a snickers bar, in just over three hours (I would be extermely happy with this performance, even today). I still rode with Allen, but soon started leaving him in the dust (hey, we were teenage boys, best friends, but we still competed for everything). Our rides to Stillwater became crazy hill-fests, where we would do repeats of the infamous Myrtle Hill, after eating the french toast (which sometimes wanted to come up each time we reached the summit).

September, 1989: I entered a crit race in Minneapolis racing with the Juniors, and had one teammate - the previously mentioned Mike Plante. Two laps into the crit, it started sleeting on us. I laughed maniacally, and attacked the field. I nearly lapped them after being off the front for about 10 laps, and was feeling awesome, but then I got a horrible cramp in my right hamstring. I tried to pedal with only the left leg, but it was agonizing. The field caught me, and passed me. I dropped out right after they lapped me. Two laps later, Mike sprinted for 4th place. Mom took me home.

June 1990 - I entered the Iowa race weekend - it began with a street sprint. It was a one block sprint, in heats. The top two advanced to participate in the criterium later that day, followed by a road race the next day. We didn't have enough time for the whole weekend, so I was hoping to place well enough to get in the crit. I asked an adult rider on my team what gearing to use, but he rudely replied, "You figure it out." He must have thought I was in his category, which is ridiculous, since I was a junior, but maybe he couldn't tell with the helmet and sunglasses on. So I started in the big ring (52, which for all I know may have been illegal for juniors at the time) and the 14 in back. The gun went off, and the other 4 riders flew away from me. I was so overgeared, but somehow I managed to pass all but the first two by the end of the block. End of my race weekend.

However, that spring, I had met another Junior rider, Chris, whose mother became friends with my own. He and I rode together often, and he asked me if I thought I could go to a junior cycling camp in Wisconsin, run by the 7-Eleven team. I asked my mom, and she said it was way too expensive ($700 for the week, plus she'd have to drive me to Madison and pick me up a week later). I asked if I could do it, if I paid for it. She agreed, especially when Chris's mom offered to drive us there, if my Mom would pick us up a the end of the camp.

Chris and I were so excited. The camp was going to be staffed by members of the 7-Eleven team! When we arrived, we were greeted by Tom Schuler, Chris Carmichael, and a woman whose name escapes me (sorry!). The camp consisted of a ride each morning and skills clinic in the afternoon. The first day we had to do a time trial to seed us into four groups. We started alphabetically, and right when we got to the S's, the weather changed dramatically from calm and sunny to windy with thunderstorms. They started us 30 seconds apart, instead of a minute for the earlier riders, and even though I rode my heart out, the cross wind was terrible. I was sad to learn that afternoon that I was in the 3rd group, while Chris (whose last name started with G) made the second group. The 1st group was composed of much older boys, and as far as I recall, there were no girls. That evening I beat a kid in the 2nd group in a chess game that was apparently the highlight of the day - the kid I played was a complete jerk, but since he was a solid rider, people wanted to see him "put in his place" in some way other than on the bike. I still remember the cheer when I checkmated him.

Next morning we had breakfast, cafeteria style. We were told that since the Superweek series of races was going on (now called the International Cycling Classic, which is good, since "Superweek" was actually two weeks long), we could include one of the races in our camp. I didn't have enough money to enter a race, and was totally intimidated by the field sizes. The juniors field appeared to be over 50 riders, and was insanely fast. I don't remember a lot of the camp, except for three incidents. First, we did go to cheer for a couple of our camp-mates in the races. We screamed our lungs out for Neil, who attempted a solo breakaway on the first lap of a crit (Sheyboygan?) and stayed away until the bell lap. But, he scored a bunch of primes. And then there was Ian, who was 18. This guy was in the final 10 riders sprinting for the line, when the two guys in front of him touch wheels and go down. Ian has nothing to do but crash, right? No way - Ian bunny hopped both a bike and the rider laying under it, and won the race. Standing right next to me, screaming a the top of her lungs, was sixteen year old phenom Dede Demet (now Dede Barry, retired awesome racer). We all had an immense crush on her, and Neil even had the guts to ask her out that day - she declined. The final incindent that sticks out in my mind was the last training ride, which included some crazy hill repeats up to a water tower. What was amazing about this day was that I stuck on Tom Schuler's wheel for every repeat, and managed to beat him in the sprint for the top on the last repeat. He told me something along the lines of "you sure can climb hills for a midwesterner!"

September 1990: With no guidance for racing, and an increasing interest in females taking serious hold, I stopped racing. I continued to ride a lot, but did not enter any more bicycle races until I was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota.

Time to end this post - the next chapter will be "The College Years"...

Mom, if you're reading this - do we still have any pictures of me racing as a junior? (She just found the price tag from the Centurion the other day, which brought back some serious memories)