Cycling is Cruel, Life is Beautiful

The last two months have taken me for a wild ride. I’ve enjoyed myself, suffered a lot, and learned a lot.

Let’s pick up where I left off in early March. My final two weeks in the Netherlands before leaving for the Hong Kong Nations Cup was the most intense training period of my life. Guided by my coach Taco van der Hoorn, we built a training plan that combined high intensity track and road sessions with significant heat adaptation training. Without offering excessive details, this resulted in (among other things) three total hours at over 450 watts over those two weeks. I have never spent more time lying on the couch exhausted than I did then. Travel to Hong Kong was smooth, and I arrived five days before the Omnium. If you haven’t been to Hong Kong, I highly recommend it. Of all the places in the world that I’ve traveled, Hong Kong is the most distinct. In the space of just a few kilometers, you can see the South China Sea, hundreds of sixty-story-plus buildings more densely arrayed than any other place on the planet, and pristine forested mountains. The contrast is stunning.

Some shots from some of my walks near the hotel.

I particularly enjoyed the ultra specific (and expensive!) fines detailed on signs throughout the city.

Final preparations went well, and I arrived on race day confident for the Omnium. The Scratch race generated perhaps the most pain I have ever been in on a bike. About halfway through the race, the Frenchman Oscar Nilsson-Julien attacked out of the paceline, which had been cruising steadily until he went. The other American in the race, Colby Lange, followed, and once the Italian Francesco Lamon came over the top I knew that the move was gone. I followed solo, and over the course of six laps slowly bridged to them. Once there, I could only take half-lap pulls as we lapped the field; at one point Oscar took an astonishing two and a half lap pull. Some people are just different. I finished second, which was an excellent start to the Omnium. In the Tempo, a major tactical mistake on my part saw me gain and then quickly lose a lap; I ended up 10th. The Elimination was over far too quickly. In the final Points race I managed to take a late lap, finishing the Omnium 10th overall. After great change over the previous six months with a new coach and an intense final semester of school, I wasn’t sure how I would perform. My 10th place confirmed the work I had been doing, but there’s clearly still room for improvement. The next day I raced the Madison with Grant Koontz; we lost two laps and finished 16th in the third fastest Madison of all time: 59.7kmh average for 50km.

Grant and I in the Madison, and some suffering while losing a lap in the Tempo. Credit SWPix.

That night, I had one of the more peculiar international experiences of my life. I was intent on exploring Hong Kong, and headed out with two of my Czech friends, Denis and Jan, and their Czech friend who was living there as the coach of the Hong Kong Women’s National Ice Hockey Team. At 1am, overlooking the whole city from Victoria Peak, I had to laugh. Here I was, an American, racing for the US National Team, living in the Netherlands, out with my Czech friends, on top of a mountain in Hong Kong. My life is strange, but I love it.

A walk through a local market, a trip on the Hong Kong subway, where interestingly the cars are not divided, and the view from Victoria Peak. It’s hard to capture how stunning this was.

The next morning I had a traditional dim sum lunch, and walked through the Nan Lian Garden. The last shot does a good job capturing the beautiful contrast between nature and city that is omnipresent in Hong Kong.

I went from Hong Kong directly to Los Angeles, for two weeks of training before the Pan American Championships, which were also in LA. I have to thank Annie Kristal, a close high school friend of mine, for letting me stay with her while there. Training went well, very well in fact, and I arrived at my final few days of training in the best form of my life. But, two days before the points race, while training in the Santa Monica mountains with Phil Gaimon, Phil and I both crashed on a damp spot in a corner on a descent. It was unexpected and unavoidable, just part of the risk that comes with cycling. Aside from significant road rash and a hit to the chin, I was more or less fine. Two days later I competed in the points race, and two days after that, in the madison with Grant Koontz. I (and we) won both in dominant fashion. The field sizes at Pan Am Championships are always small, so racing dynamics are quite different from Nations Cup racing, and strong riders are marked by everyone. Happy with these results, but mostly focused on the final Nations Cup of the year, to be held a week later in Milton, Canada, just outside of Toronto, I collected my Pan Am Champion jerseys and moved on.

A three part story. Phil and I laughing at the crash, because what else can you do? Leaving Phil’s with a broke bike, wearing Mavic podium shoes and Phil’s clothing to Uber back to Annie’s. A massive thank you to Elon Rubin of Giant Santa Monica for saving the day with some fast repairs.

In action in the points race. Credit Craig Huffman Photography.

Some shots from the Madison with Grant. Credit Craig Huffman Photography.

Thais Mollet, Jono Hailstone, and Burke Selbst, key national team staff members getting the job done! A quick note that despite the mustache, I don’t have a beard yet, just a bit of tape covering up my chin wound.

Over the next few days, I manifested increasing concussion symptoms. I didn’t deny them, but I was also in an impossible situation. Play it safe and not race, putting Olympic selection at risk? Or race, and risk both my health and a bad result? Having come that far, I decided to go for it and race the Omnium qualification. I found myself unfocused, unable to push, and suffering from a constant dull headache. Of equal concern, my peripheral and focal vision had somewhat separated. This was by far the most disorienting of the symptoms, and it felt like I was operating in some sort of alternate reality- incredibly dangerous during any kind of bike racing. Failing to qualify, I came off the track devastated, went to a hallway, sat down with good friend Jenn Valente, and cried for thirty minutes. Cycling is cruel.

Unsurprisingly, more photos are taken when life goes well. Here is an appropriately small shot of a nice pond in Milton from a walk on my last day there.

I was in the best form of my life, with Olympic selection on the line, and I was unable to race effectively. You can dedicate thousands of hours, your life, to something, and a single moment can deliver a sharp blow, potentially ending that dream. In cycling, you are often not in control. So too in life. What scared me most in the aftermath of the race was the idea of making the bet to do it all over again. At that moment I couldn’t imagine training, racing, dedicating four more years to prepare for the LA Olympics in 2028, when another crash, concussion, broken bone, you name it, could evaporate any hope of competing. As my former coach Colby Pearce says, “sport is training for life.” Making the bet is what makes life meaningful. To take some words from another friend and elite gravel racer, Innokenty Zavyalov, “adapt or die, adapt and die anyways.” The need to adapt is inevitable and constant. Adapting is also what makes life meaningful. This may seem bleak, but to make sport work, to make life work, you have to enjoy both betting and adapting.

These past two months have taught me a lot about myself. Do I enjoy winning at the highest level, and do I want to win at the highest level? Yes. But that’s not what drives me. I ride my bike not in spite of the risk, but because of it. In cycling, risk is amplified, both physically and emotionally. So, would I do it all over again? Absolutely.

As I write these words I am recovered and back in the Netherlands, living and training diligently for my next goals. Olympic selection is near, and although the likelihood I will be selected is not high, it’s still possible. Much of my 2024 season is still up in the air until that selection is made, so I’m unable to conclude this blogpost with clear statements about the coming months. In about ten days, however, I will return to Bowdoin for my college graduation. Now there’s something to celebrate!

A nice ride with Taco, and a return to some classic Dutch weather. At this point I have to admit that I like it.

The Bevrijdingsdefilé. Wageningen, where I live, is also where the Nazis surrendered the Netherlands to the Allies. Every year on May 5th, or Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day), a huge parade of WWII era vehicles and troops from several countries occurs in Wageningen with some 90,000 visitors in a town of just 40,000!

Keep betting and keep adapting,

Peter