Hello everyone! I know that it has been quite a while since my last post. I was preoccupied with working, racing bikes, and have an awesome summer. Anyways, I'm back again with the final part of my three part foray back into blogging. The first part that I posted was all about my year racing with Hagens-Berman U23. That post was focused on my riding and time spent immersed in cycling. My second post was centered on my first year at the University of Minnesota and my decision to step away from cycling. This third and final post is about the past two years of my life. These two years have been great, and I hope y'all enjoy another trip into the "way-back-when" machine!
Where we last left off I had just started summer break after my freshmen year in college at the University of Minnesota. It was a turbulent year to say the least. I had just come off of failing three of my four classes. On top of this, I made the decision to stop riding bikes altogether. Menard's had just hired me to stock shelves from 5 to 9 in the morning on top of my job at The Bicycle Chain.
That job at Menard's was aneye opener. For one, waking up at 4 in the morning to go to work was awful. On top of that, the job was utterly mindless. I would grab a cart, go fill it up with boxes of freight, find the correct isle for the freight, and stock the shelves with said freight. Repeat those 4 steps for a few hours and you're all set. Exciting, I know. The one bright side to the monotony of this job is that it gave me quite a lot of time alone to just think. Most of my mornings were spent wandering the plumbing section of this fine home improvement store, thinking about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I thought about whether or not college was for me, what I wanted to study in college, and how after I left this job I would avoid walking into another Menard's ever again.
I did learn a few comical things about Menard's when I was working there. I learned how irritating the "save big money" jingle is, especially when they play it on the PA system every 10 minutes. I also learned that the go-to breakfast for my fellow employees at 5 in the morning was Mountain Dew and Doritos. A well-balanced meal for sure! Lastly, I found out that Menard's doesn't let their employees use a box cutter when opening freight, but we are encouraged to carry porcelain toilets up wobbly safety ladders.
My time at Menard's was not a fun one. On the flip side, my job at The Bicycle Chain was, and still is, awesome! I came into the job with very little experience of working on bikes. I knew enough to get a bike in and out of travel cases, but that was about it. During the summer of 2015 my main tasks were usually building bikes from boxes to be put on the sales floor and a few minor repairs. The owner of the shop, David Bole, was very helpful in learning how to work on bikes. My coworkers, Bob & Josh also helped me in figuring out the nuances of working on bicycles.
The shifts at The Bicycle Chain usually flew by because I would be having so much fun. Although I was fed up with riding bikes at the time, it was still nice to be around them. The only tidbit about working at the shop that I did not like was when guys that I had raced would come in. Whomever they were they would usually ask why I wasn't racing. Usually I wasn't sure what to tell them so I would just utter out a non-answer like "I'm just not feeling racing this year" or "I'm focusing on school". Luckily this scenario didn't happen too often. Besides this little inconvenience, The Bicycle Chain was a great way to spend the summer.
I spent the first few months of the summer wandering the isles of Menard's trying to figure out what to study in school. Finally, after many mornings of thinking, I asked Jim if I could shadow him at work for a day at Medtronic. For those of you who don't know, Jim (my dad), is an electrical engineer at Medtronic. Naturally, Jim let me shadow him at work. Upon seeing what an electrical engineer actually does in a normal day at work I was immediately smitten with the field. It's a career path that I feel beyond excited to work in and since that day I shadowed Jim I have had my sights set on graduating with a degree in electrical engineering. It felt awesome to finally find something that felt right to me, rather than something other people told me was right.
During the summer we also hosted to Australian riders for the Northstar GP, Ben Hill and Jake Magee. It was a great time hanging out with riders again and seeing Ben get the yellow jersey on stage two keeping it for a bi. Watching the races was a good time, but there wasn't ever a moment that I wished I was racing in it.
The rest of the summer passed by without consequence as I just tried to work as much as I could. I went the whole summer without riding a single time or ever feeling the urge to get out and ride. After 12 summers of racing it was quite a change, but it was not one that I regret in the slightest.
Towards the end of August I moved into my new apartment in Dinky Town on campus. I was ready to hunker down and get set on a path for academic success. To add on some motivation, I was on academic probation after failing 3 classes, so if I had another lack luster semester I wouldn't be finding myself at the U in the spring.
The fall semester went quite well for me. I was able to get good grades again and enjoyed every minute of it. It was especially satisfying seeing my academic advisor go from telling me that "Maybe this University isn't for you.", to "I knew you could do it", within the space of a few months.
As far as bikes were concerned, I really didn't think about them ever. I still rode to class everyday, but I only went out for a "training ride" twice in the fall. One of which was the Swanson's "Turkey Ride" on the River bottoms. That ride was a blast even though it was a 4 hour ride on muddy single track with file treads. It was one of those odd rides where you roll to the car and think about how awful it was from start to finish, but it was somehow still fun in its own way.
Anyways, spring semester started after winter break and I was once again in "school mode". Going to class, studying, taking a test, repeat. It started to feel very similar to my days racing bikes where I would settle into a routine and keep it up indefinitely. The school routine worked out perfectly and I was really enjoying it. However, one day in the spring I was just really bored and did not have any homework or studying left to do. I had my bike with me in my apartment and I decided to go for a ride. There wasn't really a switch inside me that flipped and said "You should go out and ride right now". It happened more out of boredom than anything else.
I went on a quick 90 minute ride and really enjoyed it. Yes it was early March and it was cold and windy, but there was something about it that was plain old fun. I tried to get out for the same 50K loop a few times a week throughout the spring. With each ride I would enjoy it a little more and start to get those same feelings on the bike that I got so many years ago when I started riding. It wasn't a chore anymore like it had been for the past year or so, it was something I could enjoy once again.
My grades in the spring were even better than the fall and I was able to make the Dean's List. I'm hoping there's a special club for wayward kids who went from academic probation to the Dean's List in 12 months.
The following summer I elected to take summer courses to expedite my delayed college career by a bit. I was still riding most every day and just keeping it fun while going to school and working a few days a week at The Bicycle Chain.
Then we came into The South Side Sprints. When I stopped riding after my freshmen year, I did so expecting that I would never pin a number on again. When I started riding again I did not do so with the intentions of racing as I don't think racing adds to the enjoyment of cycling. I was just riding for the sake of riding.
The week of the South Side Sprints I figured "why not". I messaged Jim that I wanted to race and he got my trusty HED Stingers all glued up and ready to go. I wasn't riding for a team so I was went with the blacked out "unattached" look. I had no delusions about how I would do in the race. All of the riding I had been doing was just for fun, no training, no intervals, just spinning around to enjoy it. To be honest, my only goal for the race was to finish, but I wasn't even sure that I was capable of that.
Onward to race day. Jim, Carla, Maren, and Charley (Maren's Husband) all came out to watch the race and have a great time while sipping some margaritas next to the course. I lined up for the race not really sure what to expect, as long as I finished on lead lap I'd be happy. The whistle goes off and Hollywood made his token move to take the hole shot. I let him get a bit of a gap before bridging across and making a solo move. Although it was a meaningless breakaway, coming through that finish stretch alone is still etched in my mind as one of my best memories of cycling, especially after a tough "retirement" from racing the previous year.
On a comical note, this memorable moment was followed by an incredibly dumb one. Turn 2 on the course was a downhill left hand turn, nothing crazy. However, I had totally lost the feel of cornering at high speed by myself. While still of the front, I went into the corner way too hot, locked up my front wheel for a second, which caused my rear wheel to kick up, and proceeded to take the worst line possible through the turn. Luckily, I stayed up and turned like less of a cat 5 for the rest of the race.
Eventually I was brought back from my solo move and I was pretty glad as I was starting to go a bit cross eyed from the effort. I sat in the field for two or three more laps to recover before attacking once again. This time, 4 others came with me and we were working quite well together. The group was cooperating great and Jim was giving up time gaps every lap. To my satisfaction, the gap grew and grew continuously. We continued to rotate smoothly until the race was stopped due to a crash on the back side. This was a bit of a problem because I wasn't confident that I would be able to hammer right away after a restart. Luckily, the officials gave us the gap back properly and the break was able to maintain a good pace. With about 10 laps to go, I started feeling real bonky. Thankfully no one in the break knew that, but if the group started attacking itself, I would've been shelled without a doubt.
The attacking started just like I knew it would coming into a lap to go. Nick Kimpton brought the move back and proceeded to lead out most of the final lap. Coming into the last turn I took the inside line and tried to box in Chris Anderson as I knew he had the best sprint in the group. I opened up the sprint early and Chris was able to come around me with ease. My initial reaction to the results was more humorous than anything. I found it funny that after more than a year off from racing I was able to hop on the bike and score second place at the state crit. I was stoked to take second, but I was even more stoked on how much fun I had from start to finish. Say what you will about talent, results, training, tactics, etc., but I think no amount of any of those 4 things can make bike racing fun.
My family was pretty excited with the way the racing went. Especially since, like me, they didn't expect any sort of result. Another thing that I found to be quite cool was the number of people that came up to say "congrats" or "Nice to see you racing again". Yes, this happens a fair bit at any race to a lot of people, but this race stood out as there were junior parents saying it, fellow racers, officials, and so on. It truly felt like the Minnesota cycling community was happy to see that I was pinning a number on once again.
After South Sides I raced a Tuesday night crit at the state fair and had quite a blast. Then it was back to school for the fall. One day when I was working at The Bicycle Chain Brandon Krawczyk came in. He mentioned that he was going to start a new local team. A team with modest ambitions that wasn't looking to be the next "super team", but rather a team of like minded guys that all know racing is just a hobby. Brandon offered a spot up to me and I gladly took it. That team became my current team, Borah Factory Racing. I'm not going to go into detail about this season as I intend on writing a "year in review" post during Thanksgiving break that will chronicle all my riding and racing adventures that happened in 2017, so keep on the lookout for that!
I also want to take a quite a bit of text to go through and thank a few people that helped me over the past few years, both when times were good and bad. First off, there's my Parents Jim and Carla. They have been there every single step of the way and have never been scared to tell me when I wasn't applying myself guide me in life. There's also my sister Maren and her husband Charley. Maren has been around bike racing as long as I have and Charley isn't far off. They have been to countless races and always try to enjoy themselves. On top of that, they let me watch Packer games at their house, so there's that too! My grandparents, Tom and Connie, much like Jim and Carla, have helped me every step of the way. They have sponsored 2 different teams that I have been on, knowing full well that it rarely leads to any business. Finally, to shy away from family, I've got to thank Chad Macy. I've known Chad forever and he's one of the best guys I know. He's always been a blast to ride with and incredibly supportive when it came to any of my endeavors in life both on and off the bike. There are of course dozens more that I need to thank, but I can't thank every one in one post unfortunately!
Thanks to all of you for reading these 3 parts of my blog. I hope you enjoyed it and that it gave you a bit of a glimpse into what my life has been like for the past few years. I know my writing could use some work, but that's why I'm not an English major. Keep on the look out for my year end wrap up in the coming months!
