Bicycle Racing - The Undergraduate Years

OK, I realized this one was going to be "the collegiate years", but that implied I raced for the U of MN's cycling team, which I did not (I think it started up while I was a grad student). I think it also would have been too long, since I raced while an undergraduate, and as a graduate student, and the two periods were distinctly different.

The Undergraduate Years
The most distinguishing characteristic of my undergraduate years was a total conversion to mountain biking. I sold the Centurion road bike to Ryan Kuehl, the younger brother of a high school friend, Nathan Kuehl (who now lives about 5 hours away and is still racing road). I had quit North Country in favor of working for my dad (general contracting) and mom (systems administration) since the pay was better and the hours were more flexible. I enrolled at the University of Minnesota and eventually became friends with Nate Marks, who was in to mountain bikes. He had a buddy with a red Gary Fisher mountain bike that needed a new owner, so I cobbled together $400 and bought it. Thus began my introduction to riding off-road. Nate took me on trips to the local loops at Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan, MN, along the Mississippi River Road in Minneapolis, and various other parks and hidden places. My first ride at Lebanon Hills began a yearly trend that lasted for several years. It was springtime, and the snow had just melted. We made a trip to Lebanon Hills, which, not surprisingly, is full of short steep hills. The total loop is short, so you do it many times, and if you're obsessive like me, you time each lap to see how they compare to the others. On the loop, there's a section of three hills in rapid succession, and at the top of the third hill, which I hammered as hard as I could, I threw up all over the trail (I was still rolling over the hill when I lost control of my digestive tract). I stopped and sat there, panting, and drinking water. Eventually, I felt better and continued riding the loop. I did four more laps, each one within 15 seconds of the previous lap. Aside from throwing up, it was the most fun I'd had in a long time (in a sport). I vowed to do this every weekend.

The next weekend, Nate and I went to Lebanon Hills again, and we noticed that near the end of the loop, where there is a long downhill right turn, someone had built a jump. We rode back up the hill, and gave it a shot. Nate was far more of a trick rider than I, and he made the jump look easy. I hammered down the hill, pointed the front wheel strait at the middle of the jump, and launched. I felt like I was in the air forever, and when I landed, I even managed to control the right turn and not crash into the trees just off the trail. However, my bike felt "wrong" - I was bouncing up and down, like I had suspension in the rear (which I did not) and when I looked down, I saw that I had cracked the seat tube right at the bottom bracket, along with one seat stay. The only thing holding me together was the head tube welds, and I was slowly going up and down like a see-saw. I rode the bike to the parking lot, and Nate and I pondered what to do. Then, it hit us - there was a lifetime warranty on the frame! We had to think of a bike shop that carried Gary Fisher, and drove straight there. The guys at Freewheel Bike in Minneapolis were totally cool, and only asked me if I'd been in a race. I said no, so they said they could get it replaced no problem. One week later, I had a new, much nicer and newer model frame (I went from steel to aluminum), and with a few replacement parts, I had a significantly sweeter ride.

Racing
It was inevitable that I would try racing on my mountain bike. I'd become friends with another bike lover, Tyler Bennett, who bought a GT mountain bike after I nudged him that we should go riding. We rode the same areas as I had with Nate, and Tyler was the one who suggested we give racing a try. It was November, and there was a race on Thanksgiving weekend at a local park, so we vowed to show up as long as it wasn't snowing.

You can see that in 1996, in November, in Minnesota, the field size was tiny. I think there were a total of 12 riders in the Mens Beginner's division. I'm the second from the left, in the grey t-shirt, and Tyler is the tall one in pink (I mean, mauve) next to me. Everybody was freezing, since it was super cold. Yes, I forgot to remove the saddle bag.



The race was a short loop that involved a stream crossing, a steep hill, and some singletrack woods. You can see in the picture on the right that
the hill was a run-up, which I guess makes this my first cyclocross race too. That hill was long, steep, and slippery. The downhill was fun, although the weeds were pretty thick and had a tendency to grab your feet as you went through. I lost sight of Tyler early on - he generally would get way out in front of me, and if there were enough hills on the course, I would slowly grind my way back. I was still really a road rider, with no technical mountain bike skills, but Tyler had a knack for the singletrack. In this race, I never caught him owing to me making the wrong choice at the stream crossing. We had the option of a off-camber traversing cross of the frozen stream, or a steep down and up through the gulch. I chose the up/down every lap except the last one, and was pretty unhappy, since the off-camber was much faster, and required no dismount (or soaking wet, frozen foot). Somewhere around the middle of the race, the field was so strung out that you rarely saw anyone. Still, I had a ton of fun. Tyler won a prize, and I wasn't last.

We did a number of other races at Buck Hill, which had a weekly series, and a couple of other courses in the area. Neither of us had any podium finishes, but we consistently started placing near the top ten.

However, in addition to mountain biking, Tyler and I were getting into Rock Climbing, which was more interesting to Bree (girlfriend at the time, now wife). Within a short amount of time, I was doing much more climbing than riding. Turns out that these two sports will be trading off time from then (1997) until this day. I look back on my mountain bike racing years as a great time, combining my love of the outdoors with my love of pedaling two wheeled machines. But, I wouldn't trade the climbing years for riding years either - both have a strong hold on my heart.

Next up will be the revival of the roadie in me - beginning in 1998...