2024 Update- the Blog is Back!

And, I’m back. It has been more than a year since I last posted an update, but here we are. Far too much has happened since I last checked in to cover everything, but I’ll go over some highlights, lowlights, and give you an idea of what I’ve been up to the last few months and what the future holds!

The winter 2023 Nations Cup season went poorly, and I failed to qualify for the finals of either the Omnium or the Madison in both Jakarta and Cairo, suffering from a gut infection and what in retrospect was a distinct lack of training. I returned home to Saint Paul to reset in April, and then headed back to Europe in May, moving myself to live with my friend Willem in the quiet town of Wageningen in the Netherlands, one hour east of Amsterdam. This move brought me closer to my road team, Jan van Arckel, and provided a great central location from which to race track across Europe. I spent the summer racing in six different countries across Europe, and saw some huge improvements on the road, racing in the Dutch Topcompetitite series, the U23 Road Series, a U23 Nations Cup, and some UCI racing. On the track front, I only raced at two top-level C1s, but found that a road-heavy preparation did wonders for my track form and enjoyed all time best performances, beating Elia Viviani, the 2016 Olympic Champion, and Aaron Gate several times in the process. But, after receiving non selection calls for both the Pan American Championships and the World Championships, I was feeling burnt out and lost.

February and March- from left to right: an unexpected venture down a road that led to a Spanish military base buried in the side of a mountain in Mallorca, some crazy humidity in Jakarta, and the obligatory photo on a camel in front of the Pyramids in Cairo

May- road racing in the Netherlands and France with Jan van Arckel, and trying to rescue a family of ducklings that ran under our team car on the highway in Belgium.

June and July- from left to right: 2nd on GC at the Sei Giorni delle Rose in Fiorenzuola d’Arda, Italy, the San Bernadino Pass on the Italian-Swiss border, my first C1 win in the Scratch in Dudenhofen, Germany, waving to the crowd after the win, and waving to the crowd after winning the scratch at the Six Days Night in Oberhausen, Germany, with good friend Jan-Willem van Schip gesturing to me behind. Credit Jasmin Honnold

I stopped my racing season at the end of July and took some time off before embarking on a week-long solo bikepacking trip from Berlin back to Wageningen via the German-Czech border. I covered 1,203km in 44 hours of riding that week, staying in hostels and cheap hotels. I packed a set of casual clothes, two cycling kits, a toothbrush, and tools to fix my bike. It was by far the most freeing period of time in my life. Each morning, I only had one objective, which was to make it to my destination. I highly recommend solo bikepacking for any and all who may be interested.

August- from left to right: I crossed these signs marking the former east/west German border many times, it’s hard to see in this photo, but I stumbled upon the Oberwiesenthal ski resort on the German-Czech border, somewhere I would love to ski someday, a peaceful view from a curb I sat on during my travels, sunset from a high plain in Adolfov, Czechia, and my setup. I traveled light!

In late August, I returned back to the United States, this time to Brunswick, Maine, to finish my last semester at Bowdoin College. My last semester at Bowdoin had been the spring of 2022, so most of my entering class had graduated. I was immediately lost, thrust back into an academic, sheltered environment, where life seemed far easier than what I had known for the previous 18 months traversing the world in pursuit of cycling. This was difficult at first, but became far easier after my introduction to the Peucinian Society by good friend Michael Bagnoli. Peucinian is a literary society at Bowdoin dating back to 1805 where I immediately felt at home and made some wonderful friendships. In concert with my switch back to school, I also changed coaches, moving on from my coach of seven years, Colby Pearce. Colby brought me from a fifteen year old kid with dreams of racing a bike as fast as he could to a 22 year old (semi) professional cyclist racing professional six days and beating Olympic and World Champions. Beyond the progress I made within the sport with Colby, he was, and continues to be, an incredible mentor and thoughtful friend. Thank you Colby. I decided to work with Taco van der Hoorn going forward. Taco, a Dutch World Tour professional cyclist with a BS in Human Movement Sciences, was a friend of mine, and before I left the Netherlands in August, we had a brief conversation about him possibly coaching me. We decided to go for it in mid-September. I have been making huge progress and learning with every training session since then.

September and October- from left to right: a view from Georgetown Island, riding on the Maine coast is excellent, The Androscoggin River from one of my favorite roads, and a student-faculty ride with three students and five faculty! Kelly Hoffman, Eli Shifrin, Barry Logan, Mark Battle, Roosevelt Boone, Ta Herrera, and Jack Bateman. The cycling community at Bowdoin is small but wonderful.

The fall semester flew by, with classes in biochemistry, history, jazz and sociology, and working in Bill Jackman’s Evolutionary Developmental Biology Zebrafish research lab. I took a quick trip to Geneva over Thanksgiving break to race the Quatres Jours de Genève, and then finished up my last two weeks at Bowdoin in early December. I have one remaining online class to take this spring before I officially graduate from Bowdoin in May with a BA in Biology. In all, I have spent five years as a college student. I spent only four full semesters physically at Bowdoin, only six enrolled, and the rest of my courses came from transfer credit. This has been far from the collegiate journey that I imagined when I came to Bowdoin as a cross country ski racer in the fall of 2019, but I am beyond proud of myself for completing it. There are many people to thank who have helped me get there (some of whom read this blog!) but key among them is my Dad, who as a college professor himself has provided me with endless guidance and support these past five years. Thank you.

The Bowdoin Art Museum, a wonderful place to sit on campus

Since I left Bowdoin in early December and moved back to Wageningen, I raced my first full professional six day season, racing the Rotterdam, Bremen and Berlin six days. I finished the season placing fourth overall in Berlin with my Dutch partner Philip Heijnen. It has been an incredibly sharp learning curve, riding small, bumpy tracks and struggling to understand the ins and outs of proper technique and race craft. The community of racers has been wonderful though, and frequent guidance from competitors such as Jan-Willem van Schip and Yoeri Havik (reigning madison world champions) has been key in my progression. During this time I also completed two solid road training camps in Calpe, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, where the weather was far better than the cold, wet, and gray of northern Europe.

December and January- from left to right: being thrown in by my partner Clément Petit at the Rotterdam Zesdaagse, my first six day win with Clément Petit in the 100 lap chase at the Bremen Six Days, the obligatory shot with Didi the Devil at the Berlin Six Days, and a post race massage by Gunther “Bossie” van den Bossche in Rotterdam after it took us ten minutes to lap the field. Credit Rotterdam and Bremen Organization

January and February- from left to right: the beach in Calpe, Spain, some training shots thanks to Jake Inger who joined me in Spain, and a mustache update in some excellent light for all those interested. This shot was at the end of a 71 hour ride-time, 2.5 week training camp, so I was more tired than unhappy if my facial expression concerns you.

I’m in my final stages of preparation for the Hong Kong Nations Cup in two weeks, where I will race the Omnium and Madison with the US National Team. Along with the upcoming Pan American Championships in Los Angeles and the Milton, Canada Nations Cup, these are the last qualifying races for the 2024 Paris Olympics. With only one Omnium spot certain for the US men, I will be giving everything to make the best case for myself for selection. I’ll head from Hong Kong to Los Angeles for a few weeks, then up to Toronto for the Milton Nations Cup, which I will race with my UCI track trade team, Chaney Windows and Doors, and finally back home to Saint Paul for a few weeks in mid-April for the first time in a full year.

I’ll be back with more soon(ish)

Peter