Summer Part II: a Road Win and Track World Championships

Picking up from where I left off on my last post, I traveled in late July from the Pordenone Six Day to Belleville, France. Belleville is a tiny dairy farming village of less than fifty people high in the Bauges mountain range in the Alps. My longtime host family in France, the Richieros, have a small home there to get away from the commotion of their main home near Grenoble. They generously let me use their Belleville home for the week. I needed a break after the physical and emotional strain of racing, missing Olympic selection, and a few crashes, so I decided to take five days off the bike. My routine that week was relaxed. I would wake up, eat, sit on the balcony and read, eat, go for a hike, eat, sit again on the balcony, and go to bed. It was wonderful to disconnect in the mountains, and be two minutes away from a 2,000 liter vat of fresh milk and a full cheese cellar where the local farmers make Tomes des Bauges.

Scenes from the Bauges. From left to right: my view from the balcony, the high altitude summer pasture, and the Lac d’Annecy

From Belleville, I traveled south, back to visit my coach and good friend Taco in Andorra. There I had a productive training block and had a lovely time exploring the roads in Catalunya, which surrounds Andorra’s southern border. Taco was also back to training at full volume and intensity after 16 months of a severe concussion, so it was great to finally train with him. In my second week in Andorra, my friend from the Bowdoin ski team, Christian Gostout, who now lives in Bilbao, joined me. Christian and I have now explored Spain, France, Andorra and the Netherlands together. It’s great to have a friend from a different era of my life that I can still see regularly! After 2.5 weeks in Andorra, I was feeling fit and ready to get back into racing, so I headed back to the Netherlands. Upon getting back I started the largest race block of my life: 11 race days in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium over five weeks. Nine of those race days were on the road, and two on the track.

From left to right: a nice ride with Taco, some hail from a brutal storm I was caught in (shoutout to Thymen Arensman for saving the day and inviting me inside), a gravel road heading from Catalunya back into Andorra over the Port de Cabús, horses making their way past on the same road, riding with Christian, and Christian with a sculpture of Tamarro Dino, a mythical animal that protects the forests of Ordino from “the attacks of evil dirt.”

Over the past few years I have often struggled racing in close quarters on the road, and to a lesser degree on the track. These difficulties are compounded when racing in the Netherlands on narrow roads with 170 other guys all fighting to be at the front. At speeds nearing 60kmh on flat roads, riders on all sides of you are often just centimeters away. There is no way to adequately communicate that experience in words. While I have often been physically strong enough to perform well in road races, I have missed many opportunities due to poor positioning. Cycling is physical. Racing requires bumping, pushing, and occasionally shoving other riders out of your way depending on the situation. My difficulties were far more mental than technical, so acknowledging that fear was a major step forward. I began to push myself more and more to go for the gap, ride in the gravel on the side of the road to pass other riders, defend my space, and let go of my brakes. This generated real progress in those five weeks.

Life in September. Some racing shots, number pinning (credit Anouk Boogerd), pre race chats with team director Rob Kroonen, heat training in a chemical waste suit (gross), and a standing ovation at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam for the Mahler Academy Orchestra who played Mahler’s 5th and Rachmaninoff’s 3rd.

On the fourth week of the race block, I raced the 175km Clubcompetitie Classic Omloop Ooststellingwerf in Oosterwolde, Netherlands. The leader of my team, Jens van den Dool, was leading the season-long overall classification. So our goal was to defend his lead in the race series. Conveniently, this meant that the more people lower in the classification (including me) finished ahead of him, the fewer points would be available to his direct competitors. After a hectic, attacking race where few people wanted to work together, I followed an attack with 12km to go, riding with two other riders to bridge to the breakaway of ten riders. 

Once in the breakaway, I quickly realized I was the strongest rider there, and went to work taking long pulls and motivating the other riders. The peloton sat up soon after, and our gap increased rapidly to 45 seconds. With 4km to go it looked like our group would hold the gap to the finish. At 2km to go it was a certainty, and I knew exactly what I had to do. As everyone else slowed down and started marking each other, I went straight to the back of the break, wound up my sprint, hit my highest five second power of 2024, and went full gas to the finish, winning my first European road race. This was a massive achievement for me and a huge mental breakthrough. I have to thank my team, Jan van Arckel, for their superb support and confidence these past two years. One of our directors, Jeroen Meijdam, had told the team that he would retire at the end of the season unless we won three classics. With Jens’ wins in the Omloop van der Zeven Heuvelen, the Dutch amateur National Championships, and my win in Ooststellingwerf, Jeroen now has one more year left with the team!

Victory! With Jens also taking home the overall season long classification, this was a huge day for Jan van Arckel.

In the middle of this race block, I was named to the US National Team for the World Track Cycling Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark. This will be my second Worlds after Paris in 2022. I will compete in the points race on October 18th, and the Madison (with Colby Lange) on October 20th. I am grateful and excited for the opportunity. Based on my final preparations these past few weeks, I am in the shape of my life and eager to show what I can do.

I would like to close out this blog with a huge thank you to Shimano and Mark Ebner for their support of my cycling career. Our partnership has greatly helped me acquire the equipment I need to perform at the highest level, and I am honored to work with such a legendary brand of unsurpassed quality as Shimano.

Training with Taco and Jan-Willem, a training selfie for good measure, and an idyllic day on the dijk next to Rijn river.

I’ll be back after Worlds with a recap and some stories from my post Worlds travel adventures.