Prepare for a pedal-powered adventure as we ride alongside local cycling legend Jason Waddell. From a childhood playing sports to the thrill of pedaling past the finish line as a top-tier cyclist, Jason's journey is nothing short of inspirational. With an unwavering passion for the sport coursing through his veins, Jason shares with us his relentless pursuit of his dream, and the sacrifices he made along the way.
Join us as Jason narrates the formation of the Mathis Brothers team and the grueling hunt for sponsorships. He delves into the highs and lows of professional bike racing; the exhilarating thrill of sprinting for victory juxtaposed with the humbling experience of dropping from first to 25th place in a time trial race. Jason brings to life the roller coaster journey of a professional cyclist, in an industry constantly on the move, with stories of his international racing adventures and his role as a mentor to younger cyclists.
As we pedal towards the finish line, we discuss the evolution of bike racing in the US, picking up on the impact of the Lance Armstrong era and Jason’s favorite bike races and riding experiences. Jason, with his wealth of experience and unyielding dedication to the sport, provides invaluable insight for aspiring crit racers and shares his thoughts on the qualities that make a good bike racer. So, get set for a thrilling journey into the heart of professional cycling, peppered with life lessons, motivation, and advice for those looking to follow in Jason’s tire tracks.
Prepare for a pedal-powered adventure as we ride alongside local cycling legend Jason Waddell. From a childhood playing sports to the thrill of pedaling past the finish line as a top-tier cyclist, Jason's journey is nothing short of inspirational. With an unwavering passion for the sport coursing through his veins, Jason shares with us his relentless pursuit of his dream, and the sacrifices he made along the way.
Join us as Jason narrates the formation of the Mathis Brothers team and the grueling hunt for sponsorships. He delves into the highs and lows of professional bike racing; the exhilarating thrill of sprinting for victory juxtaposed with the humbling experience of dropping from first to 25th place in a time trial race. Jason brings to life the roller coaster journey of a professional cyclist, in an industry constantly on the move, with stories of his international racing adventures and his role as a mentor to younger cyclists.
As we pedal towards the finish line, we discuss the evolution of bike racing in the US, picking up on the impact of the Lance Armstrong era and Jason’s favorite bike races and riding experiences. Jason, with his wealth of experience and unyielding dedication to the sport, provides invaluable insight for aspiring crit racers and shares his thoughts on the qualities that make a good bike racer. So, get set for a thrilling journey into the heart of professional cycling, peppered with life lessons, motivation, and advice for those looking to follow in Jason’s tire tracks.
What is up cycling Oklahoma? Thank you so much for tuning in for another episode. We have had some amazing feedback from the last episode with me and Alan and we will have more of those coming soon and I can't thank you enough for all the feedback. I know I've had a ton of people reach out to me and say funny things and great things, and I know Alan has to be shared with me. So thank you so much for listening to all the episodes and any feedback you have positive or negative, 100% let me know. Let Alan know, even if it's on any of the other episodes I'm.
Speaker 1:I want to hear how we can make this better. I've had some good ideas for guests and so we have some really good ones coming up, and so I just can't thank you enough for all the feedback and for all the listeners. It's been. It's been super cool and been fun to hear what people say, also with the Alan co-hosting theme. If you have things that you think we should cover or topics that you think that we are dumbasses should go out and do, please let me know. We have some ideas working, but would love some feedback and some ideas of things that we should talk about, discuss maybe some stupid things that we should go try to do and report back on and give feedback on. So we're open to any and all ideas because we want to keep those really light and really fun and talk about the crap that everyone talks about but no one really wants to say. So if you have ideas of topics or things that we should do, please let me know. Or, alan at the gravel dock on insta, let us know what we can do to keep that entertaining and fun.
Speaker 1:The other piece of business here, before we get into our next episode, is this podcast. I mean clearly cost money and takes a lot of time to do, which I absolutely love. But really the listenership it's a very niche podcast so clearly it's not gonna be tens of thousands of listeners, but we do have a very solid base of listeners every single episode and I would love to find someone to help cover the expenses of this podcast. I'm not looking to make money for myself. I'm just looking for a way to cover some of the expenses because as this continues to get better and better, the podcast is gonna cost more and more, so at this point it costs me probably.
Speaker 1:I mean roughly to pull the curtains back probably between 700 and a thousand a year to put this on and to do it, and that's not including equipment and those kinds of things. So I'm just looking for a way to help offset some of those costs. So if you have ideas, if you know of a business that would like to help sponsor this or ways that we could make some money on this to help cover some of the expenses, that would be amazing. Plus, if we had some extra cash on this, we could do really cool episodes and things that have ideas for and Alan High's ideas for. But you know, those things cost money. So if you have ideas, if you know of any way that has ideas or you would like to get involved somehow, please reach out. Let me know what you're thinking and I'm here to listen and I'm hopefully have some things working.
Speaker 1:But you know, those things need to come through and we'll wait and see. All right, enough business talk, let's get into the next episode. This is a great one. Jason Waddell is a local racer who most people if you are a racer or into cycling you have heard of Jason or you know Jason or have raced with Jason or seen him race. He has been a local hero, local legend for many, many years.
Speaker 1:I've known Jason for many years but we've only known each other casually and basically with really strong acquaintances. I know him from all the races. I see him quite often. We talk and and keep it pretty simple and short and we say hi every time and Jason's always been a super nice guy to me. So I appreciate that and he his lovely wife Lauren has always been incredibly nice to me and so sitting down with Jason I knew he was super fast back in the day.
Speaker 1:I've heard all the stories but I didn't know how of a bat, much of a badass Jason was in his peak and in his prime and how much he traveled and raced and the things that he gave up to make those dreams happen. So it was very eye-opening to listen to what it takes to be at that level of a racer and the work and dedication and lifestyle that these guys and gals live to achieve the fitness and the race results that they do. So super cool episode. Jason kind of lets it all out there and it's a really fun episode. I mean man, he gave his life to two riding bikes and to push in the limits and so and had some great results doing it, and it's really really cool to hear some of his stories. So I hope you enjoy this one. Please give me any feedback that you have, open to any and all ideas, and thank you to Jason for sitting down and spending some time with me to record this episode. I think you're gonna really really like it. And it is man. It's a good one. It's a wild one when you hear what it takes to be at the top end of a cycling sport. So hope you enjoy. Thanks again for listening and please subscribe, tell your friends, leave feedback, leave reviews. All that stuff helps the podcast grow and get to more listeners, so thanks again.
Speaker 1:Alright, mr Waddell, this is going to be a great episode. I'm super excited about this but, as you, as I told you whenever we before we started, no one has ever given me cues for a guest ever. I mean, i think this is like episode 35 or something and I mentioned to people like, oh, i'm gonna have so-and-so one, and they're like, oh, that'll be a good episode. I mentioned to several people I'm gonna have Waddell on and they're like, oh, ask him this story, ask him about x, y, z, so some of it we're just gonna preface up front. You may not answer and that's fine because that's gonna make it funnier, but so we have some good cues up for you later on in the episode. But most people in the cycling world in Oklahoma City and in Oklahoma in general know you or know of your name, or know because you've been around doing this for a long time. But for people that don't know, you give a quick introduction.
Speaker 2:Jason Waddell, born Oklahoma City, moved to Mustang, oklahoma, when I was about four. I believe it was graduated from Mustang in high school.
Speaker 2:92 started racing BMX when I was 13 the track out by Yukon no, that track didn't exist, okay, it was Trosper Park okay, no longer there. And then it became Sooner Pearl, which is no longer there. Right, and I raced BMX till I was about 18 or 19, started doing a little bit of motocross racing at the same time, got a mountain bike to train for fitness for the motocross racing kind of fell out of the BMX, did motocross and mountain bike racing for a number of years.
Speaker 1:I was gonna save. With that background, it's a prize. You're not more into the mountain bike scene well, i was for a long time.
Speaker 2:Then I quit racing motocross race mountain bikes, got a road bike to train for the mountain bike racing and was doing kind of road and mountain bike and I remember going to my first road race which was howlet motor speedway. What a great place to have a race raced on the track. It's actually not that great but really yeah, and then I don't remember if I won.
Speaker 2:I don't remember, but I remember I got money and I remember there was a payout and I'd been winning like old mountain bike tires and gloves at these mountain bike races, and I was like they give you money when you went on the road. Mm-hmm, it's like I'm pretty good at this, let's do that. And so then the focus switched to road, and I think I did that pretty exclusively. I might have done a handful of mountain bike races after that, but it was pretty much exclusively road at that point did you just race like kind of local scene on the mountain bike stuff?
Speaker 2:no, I did Kansas, missouri, arkansas, texas, i think I got. I got up to an expert in the mountain bike and I would, you know, a couple of top fives at expert Texas races and, you know, won the tour de dirt, i think one or twice me and four Smith used to go round and round.
Speaker 1:Force is gonna love that cuz. I know force listens because he sent me cuz we're gonna record if he ever comes back into town.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's okay and then comes up often yeah so multiple states?
Speaker 1:good, yeah, did with the BMX staff. How competitive were you in?
Speaker 2:that raced all over the country. Okay, raced from Illinois down to Georgia, out west to up north. Did you know? national races, grand nationals, all that stuff you make money on that. No, no, it was all under 18, amateur stuff, gotcha you and Stacy ever talk about the.
Speaker 2:You know she was coming up as I was getting out. I she would have been like three, maybe four. She was really young when I was getting out. Right and the same with Dustin Green, who does a lot of gravel racing now hit he was, he was just starting.
Speaker 1:Whenever I didn't realize he did BMX. Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, it's amazing how many of our strong cycles in our community had BMX roots. Yep, a lot, very much was Malot, did he race?
Speaker 2:I believe Brandon did, but it was already out of BMX by the time he would have started gotcha. Yeah, was Charles still racing? Charles? me and Charles used to have a lot of battles.
Speaker 1:I always tell people me and Charles long.
Speaker 2:We used to. We used to throw some elbows on BMX racing back in the day.
Speaker 1:That's funny all the way back in the late 80s and you know, the first couple years in the 90s that's weird that you have like just grown your whole entire life with these people and then, like, i mean, clearly a lot have gone, come and gone through it, but there's a core group that have been together for 30 years. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's incredible, it is wild. Yeah. So it makes a little bit more sense because I came into this world significantly later I mean, it would have been 15 years ago, or whatever I said, man, this people like are so close and have such good like, so much connection to each other, which makes more sense now and you realize that you guys been together since you were children. Yeah, essentially, so makes more sense. So you got into the mountain biking. That was fun. Then you got into the road racing and that's when it clicked. Yeah, then then you were just full blast. Yeah, was it mainly road or or crit and road is how was the combo of?
Speaker 2:credit, create an road. There was no, there was no distinction. You did, i didn't just do crits or didn't do road races, i did everything, including stage races, were you?
Speaker 1:fairly successful at it. I mean you clearly your first race. You had success, but was it like man? this was what I was meant to do yeah, i went from a so I went.
Speaker 2:I was a four. I don't think I ever raced as a cat five. Back then I was a four and then I remember racing through the spring and then in the summertime we went up to Super Week in Wisconsin, which is a two week long criteriums and road race schedule now it's called Dairyland, i think, and I was there for about five, maybe six days and the officials told me if I wanted to stay and race anymore. Then I had a cat up to a three.
Speaker 2:Okay, because I got like first, second or third in all of my cat four races and they said if you're staying, you're a cat three now and I said, well, this is my last day, can you punch my license? let me race the cat three race perfect. So the last day I got I won the four race and then I got like third in the cat three race gosh and then for the rest of the year the cat three races.
Speaker 2:Back then we had tour Kansas City, we had the Oklahoma City Velos stage race, we had Gateway Cup, all of these fall races. Some of them don't exist anymore. I didn't, and then the hot air in hell and I didn't place worse in third in any of those cat three races my gosh and then we were on the way home from Gateway Cup in St Louis Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I remember Randy Soto, who some people won't know, but the old-school people will know. He had Walt Hupsteads phone number in his little black book. Rolodex and Walt was our USA Cycling or USAF official back then.
Speaker 2:And so we called Walt from a truck stop pay phone because there was no cell phones back then drove by Walt's house on the way home to Norman and got my USAF license stamped with a little star, to make me a cat too. for the next year I went from a four to a two in one year, essentially.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, and I love the way that it happens. Some dude has to physically stamp your card.
Speaker 2:The little hole punch thing. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's great. So that summer clearly you raced well. Did it come natural to you, or were you just putting in crazy time and the results were showing themselves? or was a combo of both?
Speaker 2:I think it was a little bit of both, and how old were you? That would have been 94, 95. So 20, 21.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's early 20s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Yeah, I was living in. I just moved to Edmond to live with a buddy of mine and was riding and training up there. And then all the fast guys lived in Norman the Stephen K, Gus T Torch, the Ryan Peterson's, all of that crew and Randy Soto included. And so I moved to Norman and bought those little ratty little duplex on the east side of the tracks in Norman and was basically eating rice and beans and working and racing and just So you were all in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i was all in. I literally moved, so I could get better at racing.
Speaker 1:That's crazy to think that you would do that for racing bicycles in Oklahoma At especially at like an older age to where it's like.
Speaker 2:At 20, 21. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, yeah. What was it about? were you like passionate about other stuff like this? Like clearly you're an Uber type A guy? Was it just this that caught your attention? or like, growing up in your life Was there a bunch of other things, like when you found something that you were just all in on, whatever it was.
Speaker 2:No, i think. I mean I was as a kid. I played a lot of sports. My mom had me in all kinds of sports. I was probably an ADHD kid. There was no riddling back then for us, we just The sports.
Speaker 1:We just did sports.
Speaker 2:And so I did everything basketball, baseball, soccer, football, the whole bit And I think my last year of organized sports was probably around junior high. Early high school. I was playing football and soccer And then I kind of just drifted away from that as I got better at BMX.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so you were whatever you found, that was your thing. You were pretty locked into. I mean, were you like Uber driven in the BMX thing as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, i mean it was, it was get out of school, go ride your bike all the way till the street lights came on and then go inside. Did you ever do like tricks and stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, you know half pipes and do some street ride and stuff. Yeah, i feel like you kind of have to if you're on the BMX thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of part of it. There were guys that focused solely on the racing, but there were, you know, you kind of dab a little bit of both of everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you get your CAT2 license. And at this point was it just like full blast and were like this is the thing that I'm chasing. Or was it like still hanging out with my buddies this is fun, we're going to travel to the races and it's going to be cool. Or did you, at this point, have a set of like? I want to see how far I can take this.
Speaker 2:It was pretty much a see how far I can take this. I took a little break from school. Part of it was my choice, part of it was the school's choice. That's a good way to put it. Me and me in college didn't agree the first year I could, i should say So I had a little self-imposed break of a year before they would let me come back early on.
Speaker 1:That was nice of them to focus on your training Yeah.
Speaker 2:They encouraged me to ride my bike more. So I took a little break from school and I was like, well, if I can't go to school I might as well dive right into this. And I think that was about the time I sold my truck and I bought an old panel van to like, convert it, put bikes in and have a bed in it and sleep in it.
Speaker 1:The van life before it was van life, the van life before it was van life, Yeah exactly. It's like a like a old, like rock star like story of like a garage band trying to make it and hit in the road with their van and living in it, yep, doing whatever it takes. So once you got the Cat 2 license, how long were you Cat 2?
Speaker 2:I think I cat it up to a one before the next end of the next year. I want to say it would have been it probably would have been summer the next. So I probably spent six months as a Cat 2 before I was a Cat 1. It was somewhere around that time.
Speaker 1:Because now there is a few organized teams locally and I know it was completely different landscape back then and the racing scene was completely different, which that is something I want to touch on, just to kind of get your opinion on how things have changed in the years of cycling and racing and stuff. But were you on a team at that time? Were you racing independent or just with the local guys? How was that? How did that work?
Speaker 2:I mean it was independent. We were on CRC out of Normand Canadian River Racing Club, and there was a handful of us that raced together Randy and Gus Teessor when he was around, and some of the and some of the other guys, but it was. It was pretty much a solo endeavor rather than a handful, a couple of handful of races. There was no like six guys getting in a van. There might have been six guys in the van, but everybody was doing something of their own sort. Gotcha, but you know a lot of it was just me and like one other person I know the one person that traveled with me the most was Stephen Kay. Okay, but up until I think 2003, maybe 2002, me and Stephen were never on the same team, even though we train together every day and race together every weekend.
Speaker 2:we were never on the same team Interesting.
Speaker 1:So do you ever, guys, find yourself battling and you're like I know what your strengths and weaknesses are and you know mine?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean it was. it never really came down to that. I mean it was always. I mean we always a lot of it. You would just, you know, especially like a local race, you know you would just combine is like, hey, let's just work together, right, but at a bigger race you couldn't really dictate it that well, because everybody's on that upper level Right.
Speaker 1:At what point did you? was it when it once you? so I do the cat to phase. Clearly you had a lot of success if you got it up that quickly. Was there any big events during your cat to stage that were like man, that was a cool one. I can't believe I pulled that one off Because that's when, like, i feel like I mean as an outsider, that's not a like a bike racer. Cat three is like where it's like livable but work to be competitive and be good at it. Yeah, but a lot of people can get to a cat three at least, just like be in the field. Yeah, but to go from a cat three and cat two, i think is whenever it dramatically shifts to being like you better be focused and you better be sharp And this is a job. Yeah, because it's significantly different.
Speaker 2:I always tell people cycling is the easiest sport to be good at and the hardest sport to be great at.
Speaker 1:That's very true statement, very true, yeah. So did you change anything between the cat three, two and one phase, or was it just more time on the bike and just more experience?
Speaker 2:Just more time on the bike, racing every race I could find. And to go back to your question about what I learned as a cat, to my first big pro race was the tour la flore down in Mississippi. Okay, it was like 125 mile road race. I'd never done anything like that in my entire life.
Speaker 1:That's a long road.
Speaker 2:I show up at the start line and there's just pro vans everywhere and all these guys I've been seeing in the fellow news magazine and everything, and I'm just like, oh my God, oh my God And I remember somebody had told me some advice early on is, and I tell people this now no matter how hard they're going, they have to slow down at some point. Just hold on. Just all you got to do is make it through until they slow down, and then it'll be fine. Right? I remember through that race I think I said that to myself like 145 times that they had to slow down at some point.
Speaker 2:Never, no, they never slowed down. But I remember I made it to the split. I made the split and I can't remember if there was a break. It's been so long ago. I've hit my head many times since then. But I remember I got like 20th in the sprint or something like that. Something It would have been maybe 23rd or whatever it was. But I remember thinking, oh, i could see the guy that won And it was just like that moment. It was like all right, no more ice cream, no more eating a whole pizza after a big training day. Now it's serious.
Speaker 1:Right, And it really truly just flipped like that for you It really did.
Speaker 2:It was like I can do this, I can compete with these guys if I just tweak a few things Right And was that what it was?
Speaker 1:It was just like the small hard things, because clearly that stuff is not the easy things to get rid of and or to tweak. But it was like I'm doing 90% of this stuff really well and right, and now I just got to clean up the final 10%, or was it like I got to completely continue to push everything?
Speaker 2:It was composed to everything But you just had to get rid of the stuff that you knew was a detriment. Yeah, Like I had a thing. This is going to be funny. I had a thing when I was like a mountain biker and I first started out road racing for Orange Sherbert. Every week when I would do my grocery shopping on Mondays, I would go a little tub of Orange Sherbert and then snack on it throughout the week, And one time I was just like can you imagine how many sugar calories are in that? And then I just that was one of the things I cut out.
Speaker 2:And then at some point I got a scale so I could weigh my pasta and my oatmeal and all my foods and count my calories and training diaries how many calories in, how many calories out all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So then you got really dialed in focus. Yeah, then it got stupid. Yeah, did it go too far, or was it what it needed to be?
Speaker 2:No, it never went too far, but I got really good at it. One year I tried to get real skinny. I wanted to see how skinny I could get And I hadn't seen my parents. I'd always try to have dinner with my parents once a month because with racing and traveling it was just. It was hard. And I remember we met for Zio's over on the South side on South Meridian It may still be there, i don't know And I remember walking in to sit down for dinner and my mom just looked at me and she goes Jace, are you okay? Oh no, and I'm like what are you talking about? mom? Fine, got back from racing and we're all tired. She's like you just don't look well, are you eating enough? And I guess I'd gotten so skinny from the last time she'd seen me that she was like concerned.
Speaker 1:I had an eating disorder And like a health issue.
Speaker 2:And then I mean to be fair about that time. I was probably hovering around 6% body fat. Oh my gosh, and it was. It was yeah, it was bad, yeah, but I could go uphill like nothing else, but you could race, that's a fine line, it was a very fine line.
Speaker 1:It was funny. I just did a race last weekend and the guy like it was mountain bike on off-road race And I caught this guy and I knew he was from Bend, oregon. I had looked him up beforehand. He's a young, a little, quite a bit younger than me, but tall and super skinny. And I looked at a Strava stuff before the race and he had a bunch of FKTs on trail running. So of course the first part of the run he just crushed my soul. But I caught him on the technical stuff on the mountain bike So I pass him. I go passing As soon as we hit an incline.
Speaker 1:I could hear him coming. I'm huffing and puffing about to die And he comes up behind me and I'm like just let me know when you want by. And he's not even breathing. I can't even function. And he's like no man going up, it's fine, you'll get me on the technical stuff. And I'm like you're such a jerk. He goes I'm a little guy, hills are no problem. I'm just thinking I hate everything about you right now. Oh, it was miserable. And then afterwards he's like I think I need to do some upper body stuff because that beat me up really bad. I'm like no shit, dude, you were a rail but he just floated. It was awful to be the fat guy on the other side, but I get it. So whenever you went to Kat 1, is this whenever you really started getting on to like bigger teams? Or what? did you go to a pro before you kind of started making that transition Because you raised, like Uber, high level for a long?
Speaker 2:time. Yeah, you know it kind of it kind of blended a little bit. I stayed. I was kind of like what we? there was no real privateer pro back then, but you could be a Kat 1 and do almost all the pro races, ok, and I was getting paid and or support from sponsors. So I was getting paid to race my bike. I was getting everything for free. And then that was about the time that we started Mathis Brothers, ok, and so Mathis Brothers was what now was like a domestic elite team.
Speaker 1:So that team was like the real deal.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, we had some. we had some amazing results and we took it to some people for quite a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and was it was mainly everybody from Oklahoma or this part of the country?
Speaker 2:Originally yes, ok, and then we expanded. We picked up one guy from Arkansas, then we picked up some guys from Texas And then, as it grew and grew, became a pro team. We picked up guys from Boston and Ohio and Texas.
Speaker 1:So how big was that team Like how many members did you guys have?
Speaker 2:The first couple of years we only have like a little four or five man hit squad OK, it was all just four or five, six, just gunners, like there was no fluff, there was nobody that was on the team, just because they needed to be on the team because their daddy knew somebody.
Speaker 2:It was everybody was a hitter. That's awesome. And then we came a pro team. We had to put some younger guys on there to meet the requirements for ages and stuff like that. But yeah, those first couple of years of Mathis Brothers Man we who put that team together.
Speaker 1:Was there like a team manager that helped you put it on? I ran it.
Speaker 2:But as far as getting the sponsorship, it was a conjunction of and I may leave somebody out, but if I remember correctly it was Peter Erdos, chris Duroi and then Laurie Boren, who worked for Bill Mathis at the time. Who was who was writing? I believe those three and a little bit of me. Somehow we got in with Bill Mathis and got some of the sponsorship dollars to start a team, gotcha, and we had the club, and then we had the elite team separate Gotcha. Yeah, ok, because I want to get through your journey.
Speaker 1:And then I want to backtrack to some of these stories and dig into some of the stuff. So you guys, at this point you're, are you a one or a pro? at this point? Well, one, we weren't. Mathis Brothers was never a pro.
Speaker 2:Until later. but we were doing all of the pro races. OK, But technically your card still says one, even though you're still racing.
Speaker 1:Technically, we were just Kat once, but there was no difference. There was no difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think I want to say one year, maybe 2003, it was.
Speaker 2:We were a domestic elite team but on the national racing calendar for, like people that go Redlands and Athens, twilight and all those races that you were in you know you were in the people that go Redlands and Athens, twilight and all those races that you've heard about I think we finished. Our points total was higher than four other pro teams. Oh my gosh, as an amateur team, that's crazy. Yeah, and I think me and Steven individually finished in the either the top 20 or the top 30 in the national ranking calendars for the year.
Speaker 1:Holy cow, and as amateurs, So were you guys getting into those events?
Speaker 2:Well, we were Yeah, because they were pro one races.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:And so we were getting into the events and we would get points for placings And I think in 2002 or 2003, i had like nine top 10 finishes and in our secrets, holy cow. And a couple of those were top five.
Speaker 1:So you guys were going all over the country to the biggest races And we're flying 10 times a year.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I went at the airport on Friday, flying home midnight on Sunday night Yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to get into the nuts and bolts of that piece here in a sec. So you guys? so was that kind of like the peak of your cycling existence was the early 2000s? Yeah, OK, Yeah. How long did you well? were you working at this time or back in school?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was working the full time of the whole time. I worked for lock supply company in 90 would have been 95, right when I kind of got a mountain bike and a road bike. They asked me if I wanted to be a truck driver because I was 21. I can get my CDL and I was working in the warehouse driving little city routes and these box trucks and stuff and I'm like, well, how much does it pay? They told me how much it paid and I'm like hell, yeah, I want to do that, i'm in.
Speaker 2:And so I started doing that And after like two months of doing that, doing all the little BS runs and filling in for other drivers, just one guy left, and it was all. The routes were based on seniority The longer routes you got paid more. And so there was one little bitty short route that went to Shawnee, old Mogie and Broken Arrow, ok, and that was considered the short route. Oh my gosh, but three or four stops on that route. And so I got it because I was a low man on Toliband bolt Right And I would leave out every morning at around 6 am, give or take from the warehouse, do my rounds, be back at the warehouse about one 30ish drive straight home, change clothes and go ride my bike. And so I drove that route from 96 through 2004. Oh, wow, ok, and so I did that all while I was racing.
Speaker 1:OK, which actually was like a perfect job.
Speaker 2:It was a perfect it was an absolute perfect job. I had great bosses there. One of the people who was the vice president the president is now a cyclist Tammy Bryant, her husband.
Speaker 1:Russ, i did her bike fit. Yeah, she was such a nice woman.
Speaker 2:They were, they were, he was a truck driver. Oh, really At the same time I was.
Speaker 1:And she was in the office. He was so nice. Yeah, they're great people, great people.
Speaker 2:It's funny to see them riding bikes. now, you know, with my history, But so I did that all the while. And then, when I retired from racing at the end of 04, i was like I think, like fifth on seniority out of like 15 drivers, oh my gosh, But I still had the lowest paying driver.
Speaker 1:You're like I don't want to move up.
Speaker 2:Well, I, but I was not racing anymore.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So that was going to go back to school and finish my bachelor's degree, and so I. the next route that came open was, i think, northwest Arkansas, and so I started. I went from driving 270 miles a day to almost 490 miles a day, oh my gosh. Yeah, and then with multiple stops in Northwest Arkansas and coming back, so it was a bit of a change, no kidding.
Speaker 1:So during that handful of years, when you were racing at like your top level some of the races that you were going to do, clearly you were having results, you guys were making money racing and living that racing lifestyle. What made you want to step away from it? Because you really only had that peak window for a handful of years.
Speaker 2:It sounds like Um, cycling is something I love Absolutely. I mean I'm still doing it Right. I mean I've been doing it since the in the 80s.
Speaker 2:So I mean, it's something that I love, it's it's something that's it's inherently, fundamentally, that I need in my life. Um, but I knew at some point that I wasn't going to be able to do it anymore, like even when I was like 21,. When I first started this process, i was like I know, there's a limited amount of time that I can do this, and so what I did is I just told myself, i will ride until I feel like I'm done or I can't progress any further. Um, and so I did. You didn't want to just hang on? and No, i wasn't.
Speaker 2:I was never going to be the guy that hang on. I was never going to be the guy that you know decided to give up everything to pursue the dream just for the, the hope that I may win one more race. I was always the guy that, like, i'm going to go as far as I can, but at the same time, i'm going to keep my job with my benefits. Um, and during the entire time I was racing, once I was allowed to go back to college um.
Speaker 2:I went to O, triple C, and I would take one class every fall semester at the off time of the season Right, and so I would literally race all year, work all year, and then I would take one class every fall just to keep chipping away at school. Because I knew eventually I was going to retire Gotcha. And I actually retired at the end of the three season, and then we got a contract to race again in 04.
Speaker 1:And so I'd actually have retired in 03, but raised one more year back and finish it off, man, and so I was considering that timeframe and then, like I said, it was a short window. How much were you training, like hours, wise, and like how did that look? How would did your training schedule look at that time?
Speaker 2:You know it would vary. Um, i did a lot of what we call periodization training, where I would do like three week pyramids and then I would take a rest block, so starting sometime in mid to late November, because we raced all the way into October. Back then, like there was, we would be going to South Carolina for the Michelin classic in October, like the second weekend in October is when the season of season.
Speaker 1:Season, yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And then there was a stage race in Anderson Texas, that was like the end of September, the first of October, and then there was a stage race in Padre Island around that same time. So we raced literally from the second week in February to the second week in October, not like what they do now, um. But you know, starting in mid November, late November, i would do like three week blocks. I would start out at like 14 hours and then 16 hours, and then 18, 19 hours and then eight hours, right, and then the next one would be 16, 20, 22 and then 12 hours, and so over the winter. That's how I would build up, right. And then once the season started, man, you're just doing in a toll.
Speaker 2:You're just. You know, you might throw a motor pay session in there during the week if you've got an easy race on the weekend. And then we had the training crits out at the airport, um over in the industrial park, but a lot of it was just rest and recovery. Yeah, once the season got going because we were, we raced every weekend. We didn't, you know, we didn't do one race a month like they do nowadays.
Speaker 1:Kids these days, well, it's just different. It is different, it's, you know, the cycling scene is so different.
Speaker 2:The cycling scene is different. The trainings are a little different. You know, we didn't. we didn't have power meters and the training tools that they have now, And so you can focus your training a little better than we did. We just went out and raced.
Speaker 1:That's how we trained. Do you remember your biggest block or your biggest week, or one of what I mean like hour wise?
Speaker 2:I know, i know a couple of times I did some 30, 32, 33, 34 hour weeks, like that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sounds miserable. Yeah, just getting on the bike at two o'clock every afternoon and riding till dark, and then, you know, locking out some big rides on the weekends.
Speaker 1:That's what stupid is you're like. And then we go do big rides on the weekends. Yeah, What's the longest ride you've ever done? You ever done any of the stupid stuff which had? Well, we did Bermuda one year. You did part of that I did. Did you complete it?
Speaker 2:No, i did not complete it. I that's a great story too. Go ahead. I don't remember how many miles I made it. I think it might have. I don't even remember how long that route was.
Speaker 1:I think it was like 400 and something I think I made 300 and something.
Speaker 2:It's on my Strava. You can look up my longest ride on Strava if anybody wants to look at it, it's on there. But I remember in the middle of the night we were somewhere between McAllister Mears and headed back towards Seminole. We're on this two lane road in the middle of nowhere, the van's following us and it's dark and nobody's talking. And I remember looking over at Chad Hodges and Chad said how are you doing? or something to that effect. And I said, man, i'm doing okay. And he was like good, me too. And then Chad said he looked over like a mile later or some point later and he goes. I wasn't there anymore.
Speaker 1:You were good until you weren't I was done.
Speaker 2:And he said his whole motivation went out the window. at that point He climbed off his bike as well.
Speaker 1:That ride And I know what we talked about on Chad's episode. But basically you guys rode from here kind of by Tulsa and made a big loop Yeah.
Speaker 2:Basically, we rode to Tulsa Route 66 ish, and then went down the east side of the state down to McAllister, around the lakes and all that and then back up. Did anybody finish? Chastine finished it once or twice, laurent Massant finished it once, but maybe Paul the last year, but I'm not sure. Yeah, that's nuts, it was, it was, it was diamond nuts And it was one of those things. It's like you know all these people that come in to psych me and I was like, oh, you got, we should bring back beer and mute. I'm like you guys have fun.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm, none of us are doing it again. No, nobody. No, i finally learned your lesson. Yeah, finally, good for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you went back to school, chipped away at it, got that, and I think it's so funny listening to the first part of the story of your college career and how everything started to where clearly it went and where you ended up now, after you stepped away from cycling, did you still stay involved in state training or, just, like man, i'm just going to pack the bike up for a little bit and focus on life and try to get things together.
Speaker 2:My last race in 2004 was a San Francisco Grand Prix. Went out there, that's actually on a question.
Speaker 1:Oh, boy, oh and I don't even know what it says. It just says San Fran.
Speaker 2:Oh, boy, um so.
Speaker 1:So go ahead and tell that story if you want to.
Speaker 2:Well, i mean, i don't know which one somebody was referencing, but it may be this story, because I've told this story before. I was done with racing. At that point I was done mentally, physically, i just didn't want to touch my bike. I got home from San Francisco Grand Prix with my bike case, open up my bike case, pulled my dirty clothes out of the bag in the bike case And I zipped the bike case back up. I didn't unpack my bike for I think was like eight months.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. It may have been longer than that, because I think the next time I rode my bike was like the weekend before the fall.
Speaker 1:Foliage tour T-shirt ride down in Norman, which was in the fall of the next year.
Speaker 2:Wow, you were done, i was done.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mentally, physically. I just didn't want to touch the bike because it's such a stress. People don't understand how stressful of a life it is The training, the traveling, the racing, everything that goes into it.
Speaker 1:Well, getting into that like, let's talk about what it was like to be a pro. Because people see the Instagram pros now and, right or wrong, whatever they portray and put out on Instagram as this is the life, or they're seeing people like Ted King or maybe Payson, because he's got this big van and he's out doing his thing And it's a completely different thing than what the nuts and bolts of, like what 98% of people that are racing in every sport at that level, of people that either do it and they're not at, like, the top of the top or they're just doing it because this is what they love to do and this is their hobby and this is how they enjoy it. But let's talk about the grind of living that pro bike racing world. It's hard, especially in putting together a team and getting sponsors and dealing with all that stuff. There's a whole piece of that puzzle.
Speaker 2:Well, even before that, you've got to get to that point where somebody's willing to give you money and give you stuff for free.
Speaker 1:And the fact is they're not giving you money to make you rich, they're like helping you, basically just live.
Speaker 2:You're either getting all your expenses paid for, or you're getting your expenses and a little stipend, or you're getting a salary and expenses and equipment, whatever you know, or some combination thereof. I mean I bought a van to live in when we went to races and we would sleep in the van because it was expensive. We were racing every weekend. I mean that adds Like how much did you race?
Speaker 1:Like what was the peak that you raced?
Speaker 2:I mean in two thousand Two thousand three, i did. I think I did seventy seven individual races and that would be like like, uh, like, ok, oklahoma City Pro Am, it was a Friday, saturday, sunday, that would be considered three races. So I think in that year, two thousand three, i did seventy seven races.
Speaker 1:That's ridiculous. In between February and October ish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know, within that, you know there's some driving, there's some flying, but, um, you know, before I got to that point where I had the money to do that many races, even doing 40 or 50 races a year was hard because it just it's expensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not like you're making a lot of money if you win anything, no, i mean you're making, you know, a couple hundred dollars at first.
Speaker 2:If that, um, you know you're sprinting for fifty dollar preem so you can buy gas on the way home. Um, and I know people that did that. I mean they would literally sprint for a preem in the race knowing that they were about to get popped because they knew they were going to be there at the finish to make any money. Um, but you know a bottle of Vand to sleep in, i mean, and we had a two burner Coleman cook stove and we would bring rice and beans with us and with tortillas, and that's what we would eat. And cliff bars, because we had a cliff bar sponsorship. Nice, i mean, i remember there's. There's some photos floating around of me and Gus T T sort washing our dishes in the Mississippi River, living in the van in a parking lot of a casino Oh my God, living the dream and then like, bumming a shower every couple of days. If we could, from you know one of the rich masters who happened to be there that we knew, oh my gosh, yeah.
Speaker 1:What a wild, like I mean, in having the time of your life you had to I mean at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the time it was just. It's just what you did, right, you know. Looking back on it from it, from a place of comfort now, it's like holy crap Yeah. You know I could never do that now, But at the time it was like that's what you had to do. You had to go to these races and test yourself, to get seen from, you know, sponsors and other teams and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:At the peak of it. was cycling paying for your lifestyle or was it just basically paying for cycling, like were you really making any money or was it? Okay, you were at the peak of it. That's good Yeah.
Speaker 2:There you know, i would say the last four or five years, no, the last, at least the last five years from like 2000 to 2004,. Those race seasons it was I was making an actual profit off race winnings sponsorship money, salary money and all the rest of it. Okay Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so what was like a typical, let's just say. I mean you could pick a couple of your bigger races or races that you guys peaked for or really wanted to go after. What would like that week look like? and or like surrounding that event look like Like whenever you were racing hardcore there towards, like in the middle of it all. What would like a week leading up to a race look like, Because clearly 77 were you racing every single week? Yeah, For the most part.
Speaker 2:Oh, i remember I forgot to follow up on that. So the race season, basically it was a second weekend in Texas in February it was like in Ronde Vinceli or whatever it was back then and it went all the way through the middle of October. The only weekends that I didn't race were Easter, and then I would take off the second or the third and the fourth week of June, just to give yourself a break. That was my mid-summer break. That was, i mean, literally that was the only time we had to get old Good play.
Speaker 1:No, really, it didn't just because you just loved it so much just that.
Speaker 2:I mean, i, i still race now because I love to compete, right? I? I don't care if I win anymore, like it's. It'd be nice to win, but I'm not gonna go out and kill myself to train to get to the point where I can, you know, have a chance of winning every race. It's a healthy balance. It's a healthy balance. I do it for the love of the sport. I love helping other people, i like doing other things, but then, mm-hmm, all I wanted to do was win. Mm-hmm, all I want to do is race and all I wanted to do is win my win and win races. That's it. How often did you?
Speaker 1:win, because it's not a sport where, as I mean, it's like golf, i mean you only win sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think the most races I ever won in a year was maybe five or six. That's why yeah, i mean scattered with the monks that was a bunch of second through fifth places, right, but some of the races that I won the most money at I never won mm-hmm interesting.
Speaker 1:What was the biggest race you ever won?
Speaker 2:Biggest race I ever won would probably be the Friday night race at hotter and hell, when it was still a pro race, when all the pros were there, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about hotter. That was that your first was because so you have good memories and and fond memories of hotter and hell. We still.
Speaker 2:I still remember everything that happened in the last half of that lap Wow, everything to the, to the infinite detail, and that was your first win. That was my first pro, one win in 1998.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, nice. So what made it Like, what made it happen for you there, like what was the magic that happened to that week?
Speaker 2:It was. I Don't know if there was anything that made it happen. I just realized throughout the course of that year in 98 that I was getting a lot of fifth places and seventh places and fourth places at these big races and I couldn't figure out why. And I I was a good sprinter and I was there with the pros, but I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get up into the podium in the top places with these pro guys, mm-hmm. And then I just it all of a sudden, it just clicked, is like oh, the sprint is over before the sprint starts.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by that, if you're not in?
Speaker 2:the top three, depending on the course Positions, going in the last one turn or two turns. If you're not there, you don't have a chance. You don't have a chance, gotcha, you're gonna end up where you are. You might gain one place, mm-hmm, but you're not going from fifth to first Gotcha, because there's just not enough real estate and everybody else is going to thermax, mm-hmm. And so I remember I just said I'm just gonna I found myself in a position with three turns to go, i was in like fifth place and It was the defeat.
Speaker 2:I think it was the defeat pro team at the time and they had Roberto Gadgioli who was you know what a great name And all of the things that come along with him. But I just remember, with on the straightaway before two turns to go, i had a 54 11 on my bike at the time, mm-hmm, and I put it in the and I put it down in the 11 and I just jumped as hard as I could and I knew, if I beat them to that two turns to go, that those two turns were too tight and they couldn't overtake me right and I just went as hard as I could and I remember Making that right turn to kind of go up the little hill. I remember my tires were both sliding, i was literally in a two-wheel drift, headed towards the curb on the outside of the corner and And then Eventually the tires just caught like they stuck. Oh my gosh. And then I kind of straightened it up and cranked a couple of times, went through the left turn and then Sprinted to the finish line and like Roberto was coming up on me, he was right there, mm-hmm, like right beside me, and I want it.
Speaker 2:And I just remember thinking, oh So in order to win one of these things, i'm gonna have to almost die. Yeah, and that Formed my mindset. Going forward from that point forward is like if you want to win a pro race, you have to almost die.
Speaker 1:And And from the outside looking in, because they talk about it every time you watch a race on TV about the sprinters and especially as they age, you know, like on the world tour level, how they just don't take the risk anymore.
Speaker 1:And it's the young guys game and all this kind of stuff and like guys start making money or have families and they're like Hmm maybe they just don't do what they used to do, and it's that little bitty Difference between like your tires drift and you're like I don't want my tires to drift. Yeah, i mean, that's the difference, for, like riding a bicycle to win a couple hundred bucks?
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it just the thrill of it? Or like what is it because I don't have that. I don't have that thing? Yeah, because it that's not a trainable thing, that's just an inter internal thing. What is it That? is it just like the thrill, the adrenaline rush? are you an adrenaline junkie outside of racing?
Speaker 2:I mean, i'm not I wouldn't say I'm an adrenaline junkie. I think it's just the thrill of competition. Uh like, there are people that like to compete and there are people like to win at all cost, are you?
Speaker 1:like that in everything, or were you then?
Speaker 2:I was then absolutely single-minded, single focus. I want to win, you know, no matter what, no matter what, and I'll You know, within reason, i will do whatever it takes to try and win every race, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Were you, like that, off the bike?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit. I, I Wouldn't, i wouldn't like me Now, mm-hmm, if I met that self, right, yeah, but that's what it takes 48 year old Jason, uh-huh, would not like, yeah, 25 year old Jason Gotcha. we would not get along, uh-huh, even though we're the same person. right makes total sense and you know, i, i was, i was a straight-up asshole. I Was, i was a cock sure, little asshole back then and. I had no problem saying that, because I was right. I was single-minded, single focus.
Speaker 1:I'm a bike racer and I don't care about anything else was The rest of the guys that you were competing with the sprinters at that level. Did everybody kind of have that same mentality attitude? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was. There was a. There was a level of mutual respect among sprinters, because we do an inherently dangerous thing right, but you had to gain their respect before they would show you that respect, understood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, makes sense, yeah. So whenever you were going to these races Oh what, before we finish up with the hotter and hell, you just said something about a time trial. Oh, I need to hear that story because that's exactly the response whenever the story came up, and I don't know what it means.
Speaker 2:So I need to hear what that means. Oh, so I win the Friday night race And because this is like an omnium situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Back then it was a, it was a, it was a crit, a road race and a time trial, and so I win the, i win the crit and going into the road race, i think I got like fourth or something like that, and so I have the leaders jersey. Well, the last day was a 20 K time trial, 12 miles, whatever it is. Well, i'm this is still like I was just a, a cap for like a couple of years before this, you know. And there's like national time trial champions there, like Eric Wahlberg, the Canadian national time trial champion.
Speaker 1:Did you even have a time trial bike?
Speaker 2:I had to borrow one, okay, julian Dean, who went on to race a tour with Mercury and a couple of other people, the New Zealand national time trial champion, josh Kent Bostick, and all these, all these guys that were like for real, real, they were real pros.
Speaker 1:And so. I start last because I'm in the leaders jersey. And I've at least. You couldn't get past that That's true.
Speaker 2:That would have been less embarrassing than what happened, oh no. So I'm going out and I'm giving it everything I have And I'm just I feel like I'm pedaling in mud, like I'm going nowhere. And we get to the turnaround point and the motorcycle pulls up beside me. It was an out and back kind of thing. He pulls up beside me and he's like you want to know time splits. And I'm like absolutely not, Just leave me alone. And I remember coming in to the start finish line They were already doing the winners jersey presentation without me.
Speaker 1:You were still in the course and you were the leader.
Speaker 2:I was still in the course.
Speaker 1:That's a good one, and I was just like huh all right.
Speaker 2:And I think I finished like 25th overall.
Speaker 1:I dropped from first to 25th. That's how bad it was. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:It may have been. it may have been further down the 25th Oh my God, that's awesome. I couldn't, i then and now I couldn't time trial myself out of just when you think that you are like man.
Speaker 1:I think I'm figuring this out.
Speaker 2:No, I had no illusions.
Speaker 1:No, I know.
Speaker 2:I had no illusions, going into that time trial, that I was going to do anything other than not embarrass myself and I embarrass myself.
Speaker 1:Good, humbling experience. Everybody needs it. Yeah, why, why is it so different for a sprinter and a time trial?
Speaker 2:They're just fundamentally different disciplines.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just can't hold that power for that same reason Usain Bolt probably couldn't do a marathon with crap. Yeah, you just couldn't.
Speaker 2:It's just different.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Different training, different muscles, just everything is different.
Speaker 1:And it just you couldn't. It was so far up different, and 12 miles was still too far.
Speaker 2:And I was so still like, in the grand scheme of things, new, yeah, i didn't have that endurance and that the muscles, the bank to pull from.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it just wasn't something that I ever trained. I don't think I even rode a time trial bike before I did that time trial. How often did you ride one after? Never, i never. I've never owned a time trial bike in my life, even when we were racing, i would always borrow one. That's funny. Yeah, i see why. Yeah, i would do it, but I never owned one.
Speaker 1:That's good. So, talking about wrapping up your racing career, do you ever travel over? You didn't travel to Europe, nope. Never raced over there, nope. Where did you travel outside the?
Speaker 2:country to race. The only time I traveled outside of the country is actually when I came back to racing in 2010, 2011. Right when I was almost finished with law school, I was racing with a park place out of Texas and had a bunch of young kids on the team and they were. they got invited to go down and do the Welter Uruguay South America 10 day stage race And they're like you want to go And I'm like sure.
Speaker 1:Have you ever done a stage race that long?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i've done. I've done 11 days at Super Week, which is now Darryl, and I've done a bunch of five and seven days here and there. So but it'd been years before that. And so I was like sure, i'll go down there and do this 10 day race with you, Like, and I had to get permission from my law school professors. I'm like, hey, i'm going to be gone for 10 days in the middle of the semester.
Speaker 1:To go around my bicycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to go around my bicycle and went down and did that And you know, first stage I think I was like seventh And I was like sweet, sweet And then it got worse from there. But I was still in the race And I think we're on the sixth or the seventh stage And I think I was the only one left in the race from the team.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Like all these kids and a name.
Speaker 2:Some people will know Justin Williams was on that team. That's funny.
Speaker 1:He went with us. That's hilarious.
Speaker 2:I think he was like 16 at the time. Like he was a baby He was a baby back then And so it was a little too much for him at that age. But I think I was the last one left in the race at that time And then we were getting ready to in. It rained, I think every day. It was like the monsoon rainy season, miss Rammel.
Speaker 2:Just there's a photo of me on the bus going to a race start and it's raining outside And I've just got this look on my face like I'm dead.
Speaker 1:So when you're the only one racing, what are the other guys doing?
Speaker 2:Most of some of them are traveling along with us, But I think some of them they put on early flights and send them home.
Speaker 2:I can't, i can't remember. I remember we were going to start the seventh stage or the sixth stage and it was pouring, raining. It was lightning and thundering, like with the stark town we were in, like the water was coming up over the curbs into the shops We were hiding out from the rain before the start. And lightning is like hitting light poles where we could visibly see it, and then they get on the megaphone saying we're going to start. Why?
Speaker 2:not Because somebody translate for me because I don't speak the language And I'm like what are they saying? He's like, oh, they're telling us to go start And I'm like it's lightning.
Speaker 2:It just hit that hole that I can see, and like there's like 30 guys underneath the start banner, and then everybody else was like no, we're not doing it, we're not doing it, we're going to wait for this to clear and then we're going to ride. And they started the race in a torrential downpour, with lightning literally hitting the signpost in the town square where we were starting. Oh my gosh. And like 30 guys rolled out and then a bunch Everybody else, like the big teams in Uruguay and I think maybe an Argentina team they all protest said no, we're not starting, we're just going to ride the stage. And so they waited like 10, 15 minutes and we just rode the stage. They rode it fast, but we rode the stage altogether. We all finished together. And then, about a kilometer before the finish line, all of the big teams down there stopped us. We all stopped, we all took off our helmets. They all took, they took off their helmets.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what the hell was going on. You just did whatever.
Speaker 2:I'm not only. I think it was the only green go left in the race, or might have been one or two other guys.
Speaker 1:But you have no idea, i have no idea what's going on.
Speaker 2:Every takes off their helmets And I'm like well, if everybody else taken off their helmet, i guess I'm taking mine off too.
Speaker 2:And so we rode the last cable that helmets cross the finish line. And then the UCI officials kicked us all out of the race because we raced without our helmets and cross the finish line without our helmet. And it was a big thing in the papers like newspaper. They were all over the hotel and there's this photo in the front page of the newspaper or I'm sitting there and I'm just looking like this. I'm like I don't know what's going on, I just want to go home.
Speaker 1:But yeah, they kicked us out, so the only like 30 people got to finish.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They did not play. No, because when they try to do that stuff like in Europe, like in the grant, like a world tour stuff they usually just like Yeah.
Speaker 2:So UCI rules in South America are different than UCI rules in Europe. Shocking, yeah, shocking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, South America rules. I think you kind of just like they don't play They do what they want.
Speaker 2:So that was. That was an interesting race. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:That's a wild story.
Speaker 2:So you just like packed up and like okay, well, they put us on early flights and we went home.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's weird, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Okay, there's a lot of fun though. Sounds like it. Why it lasted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no kidding. So you went back to school in six years.
Speaker 2:In between racing, you went back to school and went back and 04 retired, started at OU in spring of 05, graduated from OU December of 06 and took a year off to finally, for once, enjoy myself. Mm hmm Bought a bass boat, played a bunch of golf was still working at the time. Mm hmm Plied for a bunch of law schools and then went to law school Nice.
Speaker 2:And then I always intended on going to law school, but I had to get the racing out of the way first. Yeah, so it wasn't something I just did on a whim. I always intended to go to law school, right.
Speaker 1:It was just had to get to that slower way to get there. Yeah, and so when did you graduate law school? 2011. Okay, and then your journey from there has been. Now you have your own practice, yep, and what kind of law do you do now?
Speaker 2:I do personal injury litigation and what we call bad for bad faith entrance litigation. So if your own insurance company denies your roof claim from storm damage or your cancer treatment policy or whatever it is, if they don't handle your claim fairly, you can sue your own insurance company for not handling your claim in good faith.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So how are you? it makes total sense that you're in the field, that you're in, knowing how type A and driven you were in your other thing. Have you been able to take the lessons and the experiences from bike racing into this new adventure in your life, or do you just kind of see how they just kind of melt together?
Speaker 2:No, i took them into this new adventure. Like you know, whenever, whenever things get really busy or I've got a lot of stuff going on, you just you hunker down and get the work done. I always had a quote on my fridge when I was racing and it was a quote from Gary Player the golfer, and it said the harder I train, the luckier I get, and that's always been my motto The harder I train, the more I train, the more results are going to come. And that's the same way with law. The harder I work, the more I research. The more I investigate, the more I focus on, the more I'm going to see things that are going to help me get a better result. Yeah, and there you just love in the law life, i love going to work. Every day I do, i do, i wake up and I want to go to work. I don't think I've ever said I don't want to go to work today.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's a good place to be, yeah. So now you, you race for fun, but you still have some seriousness to it. When did you kind of get back into? because you did kind of take a little bit of a break there and didn't like race super competitive like until you would like jump into stuff like last year at Tulsa Tough, you kind of jumped in last minute. This year you are going to race Tulsa with some focus. Was there a time or a switch that you're like okay, like I'm clearly not going to go back into these 30 hour weeks, but I want to keep sharp and still show these guys I can do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I came back in 2010 to start racing again because my buddies in Tulsa, manigny, chad Cagle, they asked me to come back and race because they were doing this thing with Park Place with these young kids to help the young kids out teach them how to race.
Speaker 1:Was it weird being the old guy.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Did you embrace that and enjoy it? No, I was still competitive.
Speaker 2:So when I came back I raced Okay, i mean, we won the Matrix, crit and Dallas. I won a bunch of other races. I think I finished sixth overall in the pro. one race at Tulsa. Tough one year, from like that 2010 to like 2015, 2016 time frame?
Speaker 1:What kind of hours were you putting in at that time when you came back?
Speaker 2:You know, probably 12 to 16.
Speaker 1:So you were able to pull off of the bank and being smarter and the old man miles. Yeah, yeah, did you just see the race differently at that point and just race it?
Speaker 2:differently. No, i might have raced it a little differently because I couldn't do the things I used to do, but I was still competitive. you know, still getting top 10s and pro one race at Tulsa Tough And then you know, getting into that 2016, 2017, 2018, i kind of started seeing that it was kind of it was going out a little bit.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't that I wasn't mad. I wasn't like, oh, i need to train more. It was just kind of like, oh, i'm going to do some master's racing now. And then I kind of took a step back from it and I was like, okay, that's just where we're at, that's where I'm at. I'm going to focus on my career, focus on my practice, do some master's racing occasionally. If I ride my bike, great. If I don't ride my bike for four or five days, so what?
Speaker 1:I don't care, And then so is that kind of how it is now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how you know. when COVID hit in 2020, you know, i'd kind of I'd hurt my shoulder in 2019, so I didn't race the fall, the summer and fall of 2019. And then COVID hit and then 2021. And then last year I just, you know, i got a call six weeks before Tulsa like hey, you're racing, i'm like crap. So I did a little six week crash course And then this year I decided to train a little bit because we had some of the young kids on Omnia Dempsey Swentez and Seth Lassley and Tulsa And that's who you're racing with now. Yeah, that's how I'm racing Same group of guys, just different team name Gotcha, it's always been the Tulsa Tough and then me, chad Cagle, manatee and me and those guys We brought these young kids on and I was like you know, i've got, i've got enough that I can get in there and give a little bit at a couple of these big races. And so I trained.
Speaker 1:Do you now with your role in going and racing with these younger guys? do you feel like I'm unstable in the competition? Yeah, we're going to rub elbows and I'm going to show you how I can do it. Or is it more of like? or do you actually like mentor, help, coach, teach? Or is it just like? you know what they can figure it out as they watch?
Speaker 2:Kind of I'm not, i'm not. I make no illusions about where I am now. I I'm not getting in there throwing elbows on. I'm trying to teach them like the hard way about it. It's like I get where I'm at.
Speaker 2:I've accepted my role. I have no problem whatsoever. Um, you know, and I'm more of a I'm more of a hands on person. I was like follow me around for these three laps And here's what we're going to do, or here's the strategy for the race and that kind of stuff. That's what I'm trying to do And my fitness hasn't quite got there yet, but it's coming And so I figure, you know, this summer and this fall, and then definitely going into next year, I'll be able to contribute more.
Speaker 2:But I'm still building it up from where I was coming from, what I was in.
Speaker 1:November. Right, and so you see yourself racing pretty competitively for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for at least another year probably, and then we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Do you have any aspirations of going to do like a national championship level kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:No, no I tried to win nationals as an elite and never did it. So I have no desire to go try and win masters national As an old guy. Nothing, zero, none, zero. Why is that? I couldn't do it And I didn't accomplish it at the elite level. I stood on the podium twice One year, actually set up in the final straight, so I wouldn't have to stand on the podium in third place and got sixth, so I wouldn't have to stand on the podium. So Because?
Speaker 1:it was winter nothing. Yeah, it was winter nothing.
Speaker 2:Technically I still on the podium three times at elite nationals. But I just I set up and I just feel like I don't need, i don't have anything to prove. I don't need a master's national championship because I don't need to prove to a bunch of other 48 year olds that I'm better than they are. I don't care anymore, right, i just want to race and have fun. If I win, i win. If I don't, i don't. Okay.
Speaker 1:I like it. I like it. We're going to use some of your hot topic story things that people have shared with me as for part of your yard sale thing, but is there any races that you want to talk about or hit on anything that we haven't, that we haven't brought up to this point?
Speaker 2:You know I had a love affair with Superweak, which was in Wisconsin, it's now Dairyland. Some of the same races, a little different format, but all the crits were 100 K. The crits were 100 K, 62 Maw crits. How, how big was the course? The shortest one was a kilometer in Kenosha.
Speaker 1:So you did 62 laps, a hundred laps.
Speaker 2:So the lap board? miserable. The lap board showed 99 on the start line And so the rule was at Superweak and any of the courses. That was the shortest course Awful, But the rule of Superweak was you never looked at the lap board until you were done with one water bottle.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:Okay, because you would be just struggling and just flying And then you would look up and there would only be like seven laps gone And it would be showing like 68 laps. You'd be like oh my God, oh yeah, my word, that's wild. And then all the road races were 100 miles or 110 miles or whatever they were, and it was like two weeks of race on like this. That was, uh, yeah, two weeks Weekend, weekend weekend, So three weekends, but it was.
Speaker 1:Gosh, yeah, wild Yeah. Did it have a big payout up there? You know the payouts weren't that great. I mean there's just, everybody went. It was just kind of one of those big Yeah.
Speaker 2:They would have. You know, there were, you know, German pro teams and Dutch pro teams and South American pro teams and everybody would come and, like you know, pros would come in and come out. Like you know, with Lance Armstrong dropped out of the tour when he, before he, found out he had testicular cancer, He dropped out of the tour and came back and did some of the Superweak races.
Speaker 1:So if you were anybody here, you were there, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I remember one year Christian Vanderville dropped out of the tour and he was from Illinois and so he went back home to Illinois and they came up and did a couple of the Superweak races Crazy So I mean. And then Caddell Evans was there when he was a pro mountain biker racer for Volvo Cannondale. So, like you know, you would get on the start line and there would be Tour de France stage winners and Volta Espana stage winners and guys that have won classics, cool. And then you would have, you know, a cat two from Peoria, illinois, you've never seen before in your life because they were all pro one, two races Right.
Speaker 2:And so you look at over this kid and you're like, oh my, you have no idea what you're about to experience.
Speaker 1:You're like poor guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, that's wild, so yeah it was a lot of fun And you know some of my, some of my best memories of bike racing are Superweak because we did it every year from 96 to 2004. And we stayed with the same host family and their home. We're still friends with them. Cool Um, they're great The beamsters. They're great people.
Speaker 1:So it's just an awesome like adventure for riding your bike for a couple weeks Yeah, every summer, yeah, every July. It was kind of like the buildup for the fall season. So fun.
Speaker 2:And you know, i, i think and I'll say this as a caveat I think I'm the only Oklahoma to win a pro race at Superweak.
Speaker 1:Really, i think that you know of.
Speaker 2:That I know of. I don't think Greg Saunders and Tulsa ever won one And I don't know of anybody else that ever won one of the pro races at Superweak. Wow, but I won the road race up in Green Bay, man, on my birthday.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, how fun was that.
Speaker 2:Not very fun. No, i was by myself. It was one of the years I had to go up by myself because people were doing other stuff, mm hmm, and so I was in my truck all by myself up in, you know, canada basically in Green Bay.
Speaker 2:Way up there, i'm doing this road race in the middle of nowhere and I found myself in this break and I tacked the break, whittle it down, whittle it down, whittle it down, and then I won the sprint. And I remember thinking after the race I was like I don't know anybody celebrate, and so I've got this. You know, i've got this Superweak stage winners jersey. You know, i've got this big fat wad of cash in my pocket So excited And I'm like standing in the parking lot and there's nobody around.
Speaker 1:I have nobody to celebrate with.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm just like other than the guys I knew from racing. You know we're saying congrats or whatever.
Speaker 1:But you know none of my friends, none of your people, there's no Oklahomans there, there's nobody else.
Speaker 2:And I remember I left the race and I'm driving back and I've got to drive all the way back down to Milwaukee Cause that, where I was staying right, that's what that was close to where the next day was.
Speaker 2:And I remember I had to eat and I remember I was found a Frasoli's and I'm sitting in a Frasoli's by myself eating the worst spaghetti I've ever had in my entire life, but I was thinking to myself man, i just, i just want to stay just super weak, yeah. But at the time it was like it was like this conflicting emotions, right, and I still get choked up thinking about it.
Speaker 1:But that's like the true reality of a guy chasing the dream. Yeah, Yeah, Which the glitz and glamour cause. If you had Instagram back then you could post and do all the things like look how great this life is This, was this, was you know pre my space and all that stuff, but the reality is you're sitting in a Frasoli's.
Speaker 2:I think the first person I called was Eric Richardson, if you remember him from down in the name that owned Buchanan's and yeah, I think Eric was the first person I called.
Speaker 1:Wild. Yeah, it's just the reality of the situation. Yeah, before we get into the arts, one thing I did want to ask you about is you've seen bike racing change dramatically over the 25, 30 years that you've been involved in the road scene and the country and how it's evolved into. You know, gravel is a big thing now and all the things. What's your take on where cycling was then Cause I feel like that was like kind of the height of road racing in the US or could be explained that way for sure So where it's just dramatically different now. What is your take on that? I mean, there's no real question there, but what are your feelings on it?
Speaker 2:I think part of it is the Lance effect. I mean, he really put US cycling on the map, for better or worse, his methods of getting to that point, which he's admitted to, um, but you know, when Lance came along, it pumped incredible amounts of money into the sport. You know, there, you know we were having, you know, i know, like the Charlotte Criterium and was sponsored by Bank of America, and for the pro one race, i think it was a hundred thousand dollar prize list. Oh my gosh, for a pro crit. I mean it was just like wild. We had stupid amount. We had $25,000 crits every weekend. It was, i mean, it was there. Unbelievable Money was just flooding into racing.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, in like 05 and 06 and 07 and 08, you ended up with the tour of Georgia, the tour of California, all of these big US stage races that were televised and supported and everything. And then, once the truth came out, all of that dried up and all of the sponsors pulled back from road racing. The promoters couldn't get sponsors for it And it was really hard to put on a big bike race, And so I don't think that was necessarily the entire cause of it, but I think it kind of reached a peak and it kind of pulled back from that peak And then some other things came in and took over. But yeah, like a lot of the races that I did back then just don't exist anymore. Right, do you see it just going to be, it's just going to be different going forward.
Speaker 1:You think road racing will ever maybe not get back to where it was, because that was like maybe a magic time, but do you ever see an increase in that? Or do you think it's kind of where it's going to be? Oh, I think it'll come back. I mean, if you look back in the 70s with Greg LeMond.
Speaker 2:I mean the Red Zinger Classic and all the stuff that they had in Colorado. The big stage races, it just ebbs and flows. We just need another big American.
Speaker 2:You know another big American will come along or somebody will get a sponsorship and we'll have another big race and all the other people want to be involved in cycling. It just ebbs and flows And you know there's some races that are coming around now that didn't exist back then. That are cool races. So it just, i think it just ebbs and flows. I think road cycling is fine. Cycling is bigger than ever, especially on the recreational side, right, the racing side. I would say yes, because you know if you don't register on bike regs, like when it opens, you're not getting into the big races, right, that used to not happen, it's true. It used to be. You just showed up and registered the day of, that's true. You can't do that anymore, so that's different. So in that aspect, bike racing is alive and well. There's more racers maybe, i don't know. I don't know the numbers on it, but I think racing's fine, okay, yeah, interesting, yeah, all right Oh boy.
Speaker 1:And your questions are going to be different, because, yeah, because it's just just from what people have thrown out here, but I will go with some of the classic ones. What is your favorite piece of equipment under $100?
Speaker 2:$100 now or $100 in 910.98?.
Speaker 1:Your interpretation.
Speaker 2:Your interpretation. I would say my favorite piece of equipment back then that was under $100 was a nice pair of shorts.
Speaker 1:That was back then.
Speaker 2:Because you could get a nice. You could get a top of the line Pearl, Izumi or Ziridorna shorts for under $100 back then. Back then, absolutely, a nice pair of bib shorts to train in was worth its weight in golden.
Speaker 1:What's the hardest event you've ever done? Like maybe hardest for you and or maybe like the hardest, like it really was like that hard.
Speaker 2:I would probably say the US pro road race in Philadelphia 156 miles. Oh my gosh, went up Maniac wall 10 times And I remember the last time, the 10th time up the wall before they would do circuits, i was probably 15 yards, maybe 15 yards, off the back of the group and couldn't close it. Wow, And that was 130, 140 miles in, whatever it was, and I remember I was going as hard as I physically could go and I couldn't close that 10 yards And I just, i just remember riding them riding away from me, going over the top and then bombing the downhill And that was, that was probably the deepest I ever went, like in a road race. But there were crits that I went so hard that I don't even remember them, like I think I fundamentally just all the oxygen was going to my legs and my lungs And it was pulling away from my brain. Because there are crits that I remember finishing that I have absolutely no recollection of, like the last five laps.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, i don't have that cure. Yeah, i don't want that cure. Yeah, i think bike week was, or Dairylands I think it was your favorite event Super week, dairyland, super week, yeah.
Speaker 2:Super week. Yeah, i would say just for the nostalgia purposes. there were some crits that I liked better than Super week crits. Athens twilight was always a blast. It was good to see our new boy, evan McCork, doing good down it Speed week and Athens twilight. There was a race that's no longer around, called the first charter criterion in Shelby, north Carolina that I always had a love affair with. I just love the course. Never did well there but loved it for some reason. But yeah, those couple of those crits was probably the most unique grit was the Manhattan Grand Prix, not Manhattan Grand Prix. the New York Invitational. That was in Manhattan. That's cool. The start finish line was on Waters and Wall Street. How cool is that? That was pretty fun.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. Yeah, which favorite place to ride? It doesn't have to be a race, but just go ride Anywhere.
Speaker 2:Hmm. Just riding, just ride. No, no headphones, cell phone ringer turned off. Just go ride, just ride. Just go ride alone, with my thoughts, and think about life, or not think about life, and just go ride. Okay, I don't need to like, i don't need to have the perfect senior or whatever it is, i just, you just like to ride. Anytime I'm around my bike, my mindset is better You ever ride mountain bike again.
Speaker 1:No, you have any interest in it.
Speaker 2:No, because I just hate looting my bike up to go ride. Yeah, if I had a trail, it was within like 10 minutes of my house and I could just roll out of my front door and go ride my mountain bike. 100% I would do it, okay.
Speaker 2:But even though, skip is like, yeah, 10 minutes from my house, maybe I just I don't have any desire to load, load up a mountain bike and go do it. Gotcha Gravel, no, i want to. I mean, i'll probably ride gravel eventually, but I don't have any desire to go like race gravel because I just consider it's just a long, stupid time trial on a cyclocross bike.
Speaker 1:That's the way I look at it. Yeah, just tell me how you really feel about that.
Speaker 2:That's exactly how.
Speaker 1:I feel All right Again. These are like one, two, three. We got four more. These are. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Have you ever streaked out a crit? Yes, Do you want to get into that anymore, or just No, Okay, Gateway with a cowboy hat.
Speaker 2:So that's a good one, I like that one. So Gateway Cup is in St Louis in Labor Day weekend. Four races. Back then it was. It wasn't like a national counter race, but you would show up on the start line and there would be 20 pros you know, two from this team, three from that team, a couple of independents and then like maybe four from one team, And then you'd have all the best cat ones And I won the Friday night race on a bike throw against you would think he was a reigning US pro crit champion, Kevin Monahan for seven up, and maybe Robby Ventura was in there too, Bryce Jones, I can't remember exactly, but I won the first night and that was a little four man Mathis Brothers, hit squad, Myself, Nick Kearnan, Stephen Kate I don't remember who the fourth one was at that race.
Speaker 2:I'm probably going to catch some crap for that, but I can't remember the fourth person was Oh, david Winger, sorry, sorry, dave, dave Winger, down in Texas, who does the super squad routine. We won the first night and then the next day it was green tree, and this is the backstory about how the cowboy hat came to be.
Speaker 2:That Friday night, after winning the race we're still young and dumb We go out partying because it's kind of the end of season. So even though I've won, i've got the leaders jersey, we go out and party. I think it's college keg party. I think it's was it William and Mary's that was?
Speaker 1:I think that's what it is, yeah.
Speaker 2:There's some keg party and I ended up doing keg stands and I bought this cowboy hat at a truck stop and just it was a whole thing. Wake up the next day We go to this crit and I'm in the break and I get in a break two man break with John Lee Schwinn, who was a pro for a long time, super accomplished guy, the consummate pro, would always ride as hard out, could always ride as hard as he wanted. I ended up in a two man breakaway with him And I'm doing everything I can and I'm barely taking a pull. He's ripping my legs off, just absolutely eviscerating me, and I'm taking like one pull every three laps. I may have been taking one pull every five laps, i don't remember, but I know he was not happy with me. So I'm doing everything I can to hang on his will and we get.
Speaker 2:We lap the field, two of us, this super stacked field. We lap the field mostly because of him. We get within about five to 10 seconds off the back of the field and he jumps me and goes across to the break And pardon my French, but I shit the bed. I literally everything went out. My eyes went white, my face went white, everything was done, and so I couldn't cross it. Oh wow.
Speaker 2:I sat up, i just sat up, and then the field catches us. Yeah, so the field catches us like three laps later.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And so I've got all my teammates there Steven, nick and Wenger and they're like come on, dad get on, because they all call me dad. So, they, you know they're on the front like drilling it, Like they're going to lead me out thinking I've just something happened to me. They don't know. I was like dead. I had nothing left. So they're doing like this full blown lead out and it finished on a hill with like this little chicane And for for I'm a sprinter.
Speaker 2:So I figured out a way to do it And I was like third or fourth, going into the last two turns on this uphill which was like a chicane. You literally like had to lean over to one side and then immediately lean over to the other side and then lean back. The guys, the two guys in front, crashed. Oh shut up, They went too fast. So I come out of the turn and I'm like sweet, I just won another one. I shut up, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what happened to the guy that towed you around? I mean, i got second. Sorry, i got second, i won the field spread.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So I won the field spread, i got second And so I'm like I'm really in the overall now. So of course we go out and we party again that night. Right, why not The next day, the third day, the G road tour, the whole tour of the hill, everybody knows. Okay, the G road is in the Italian district in St Louis. I got like fourth or fifth, i don't. I remember that race. It's gone from my memory.
Speaker 2:We go out again that night, party in at some point during the night I get separated from my friends. I don't come home that night. I show up the next morning and we were staying with the guy that owns Big Shark bicycle company in St Louis, mike Weiss. Okay, super great guy, still friends with them this day. He lived on the course. It was in University City, down there by Clayton downtown. I show up about an hour and a half before the start, maybe not even that And I come strolling in and there's a Panera there and I'm going to Panera, i'm going to get food and I'm going to get coffee and I'm going to go back and try to put myself together for this.
Speaker 1:Your body is going to be wrecked? I was wrecked.
Speaker 2:I walk up, nick Wenger and Stephen are sitting out on the patio of this Panera like drinking their coffee. They're all kitted up, all fresh, and they looked at me and they were like, oh shit, like they knew I was in bad shape. So I go to the house and I'm pounding Gatorade and coffee and eating bagels and bananas and everything, and I'm trying to get myself in some sort of semblance of shape And I finally get dressed and they're doing call-ups as I'm rolling out of his front door because I can hear the microphone from where he lived. And so I rode backwards on the course and, of course, me, me and me. I direct my helmet over my handlebars and I wore the cowboy hat to the start line, so you're still the race leader.
Speaker 2:I'm still the race leader. I'm still wearing the race leaders jersey.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm doing it proud.
Speaker 2:So I come rolling out of the first corner riding backwards on the course. Everybody is lined up And as I roll up, Bilbo, who was doing the announcing, he just looked at me and he's like oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:And so, as I mean, you don't have what you would you gonna say about that, yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean, it was just one of those things, and everybody's laughing, everybody's cheering, and then they do the, the national anthem. And so I take my cowboy hat and I put it over my heart and there's a photo of me standing on the start line Oh my gosh, i got it all over my heart and everybody's all ready to roll And then the race actually went pretty well.
Speaker 2:There was a we missed the break and we had a thing we still do called Black Hawk down, like if the race has gone bad, everybody's going to sacrifice themselves for one person. It's basically Black Hawk down, go save that one person, no matter what happens, sacrifice yourself. And Stephen, nick and Wenger went to the front and drilled it to get this break back so I could save the overall, and Wenger was in front of me. We were going down the start finish stretch And I remember thinking to myself we're going too fast because it was a tight turn into an alley. And then it was another tight turn And I remember going down the start finish line, he's doing like 36 or 30.
Speaker 2:It's kind of downhill and I'm like we're never going to make the turn. And I just remember thinking that to myself and I'm like, well, I can't, we're catching the break. I'm going to be able to jump across to him when we get out of these turns, because they were right there And we made it through the first turn. And I remember I still remember this to this day I remember thinking we're not going to make the next turn, We're just not.
Speaker 1:This is not possible.
Speaker 2:And yeah, he laid it out smashed into a dumpster. I've laid it out smashed into the dumpster And the leaders I still have has holes in the back of it from where I slid on my back. But yeah, and then we get back in the race after the crash and I lost the overall by one point. Oh, shut up.
Speaker 1:Oh no, oh, that's awful, it sucks.
Speaker 2:looking back on it And you're like, oh man, you could have won the overall gateway cup, But man, we had a hell of a lot of fun Yeah some things are just more important. You know, at that time it was I mean, it really was It was like man, we're having a hell of a good time. That's awesome. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a good one. I think that's a good story to end on. I think the last thing I would ask you is now that you're working with some younger guys and on teams with some younger guys and you go down to Wheeler and you know, and I know you shotgun the back of the chicken and pickle ride and kind of just got involved in stuff. Yeah, what are some things that you would give some advice, that you would give to some younger riders, even if they're like cap three, four guys, some advice that would help them progress in there, even if they just want to be a good three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ask for advice. Ask for advice. Go up to somebody you know who's been doing it a long time. Go ask me, chad Hodges, evan Bybee. Go you know some guys in Tulsa. Go ask somebody for advice you know about a certain situation. They'll give it to you. You know, some are going to be more receptive than others, but if you're out there doing it, they'll help you, because we want everybody to be a better racer And I do it now like sometimes unsolicited- And I know from a good place Right.
Speaker 2:But that's not that good advice. And then there's the other unsolicited advice, which I'm well known for. But I've sought people out and said hey, i saw your YouTube video or whatever it was, and I saw you did this. Did you ever think about doing this? And when this happened in the video, did you ever think about doing this?
Speaker 1:you know What's one thing that you see people do over and over again in the crit racing scene Not the training or any of that kind of stuff, but just actual fundamentals of riding a crit race. That you see happen over and over again.
Speaker 2:Leave a gap going into the corner, you don't have to be right on the wheel in front of the guy in front of you, especially if you're eight or nine guys back. There's always going to be a little bit of an accordion effect where there's going to be a slow down and a speed up. If you leave about a half a bike length or a wheel diff gap going into the corner, you go through the corner at your full speed when they have to slow down a little bit and then you catch them on the exit as they're accelerating. And so every time that you don't have to accelerate your bike, you're saving energy And it's a flow thing. So many people these days don't know how to flow. They jam themselves into a corner, they try to pass somebody where there's no passing and then they have to accelerate and sprint up again.
Speaker 2:The flow of a race has been lost on a lot of people, especially in the lower categories. I see it a lot. I jump in the B race at Wheeler now and I sit on the back. After it's kind of settled down and the people that were going to get dropped get dropped, i'll jump in and I'll sit on the back and I watch, and it's always amazing to me how much energy people are wasting by trying to sprint up to a wheel whenever you can just slowly go up to it, and or trying to stick your wheel or your nose in somewhere that it's just going to cause you to have to expend more energy to get that Is that lack of experience or lack of just knowledge?
Speaker 1:Both Yeah, or skills.
Speaker 2:Well, not necessarily skills, because if they're in a cat three race, they've already got a decent amount of skills Right, But it's just lack of knowledge because nobody's ever told them how to do it. Like I was taught by old school guys the Randy Soto's and the guys that came before me that taught me how to race a race, how to read a race and look at a race and say, oh, don't go with that break, or go with that break or you know you need to be on this side going into this corner because of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Things like that. They just nobody's ever told them.
Speaker 1:I think from an outsider looking in, because I'm not doing a crit and like I think that's one thing that I see is missing with there's not a training piece to it. There's. They go race every week and they're getting that experience, but we don't have a lot of teams here or, like I know, originally when they had the wheeler crits down there, they had that cat five race or whatever. It would be the practice race and they would have a guy like Andy. I think maybe even you guys would sit in and ride with them and talk to them and teach them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:For a couple of hours And they've done that a couple of times. They still do the skills. Uh skills stuff. I know Chad and Evan make it a point to at least have one of those every every series, like yeah, they had one back in February or March, whatever it was season, right Yeah. And then they'll probably have one in the fall, and that's great. But it doesn't necessarily.
Speaker 2:being on a team doesn't mean anything if all of you are the same level right Like if you have a cat four team and they're all cat fours and you're all cat fours and you've all been racing a year and a half.
Speaker 1:You're all doing the same thing. You're all doing the same thing, and you're not actually learning anything.
Speaker 2:You're just a bunch of dudes doing the same thing.
Speaker 1:It'd be great for that cat four group to have a team manager, coach, whatever, to, even if it was just on like a Hey, this race, can you help us and talk to us? talk us through that, i mean, i think that would be low hanging fruit for guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah Yeah, We mean, you know, not attacking in a toe wind section you know, just basic things, basic things that people don't know. You just have to learn. You just have to learn, Yeah. Or somebody has to tell you Hey, that didn't work out because X, Y, Z Right.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to learn in bike racing, especially in curate racing.
Speaker 2:It's. I always say it takes three things. It takes genetics, the ability to suffer and the wherewithal to be able to critically and analytically think while you're anaerobic. Yes, those are the three things you need to be a good bike racer and willing to put it on the line.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, that's a suffering, and, yeah, that's, that's the suffering part of it.
Speaker 2:You can be super at two of those three things and you're just not going to have it. And if you can put those three things together in some sort of average, that's super high you're going to be a good bike racer.
Speaker 1:I like it. Yeah, cool. Thank you for taking the time. We did not mention your recent wedding.
Speaker 2:Yes, congrats, i see your ring. Thank you, i appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Married outside your. You definitely outpunted your coverage.
Speaker 2:So congratulations, absolutely She's way sweeter than you.
Speaker 1:So congratulations, thank you. I appreciate it So. But, yeah, thanks for taking the time and doing this, and hopefully some kiddos out there or some new racers will pick something up and come talk to you and learn some things. Absolutely Hit me up. Um, we got this.