World Championships and Beyond

Fourth place in the world. After 160 laps of the most pain I have ever experienced, I looked up at the scoreboard and saw my name, Peter Moore, next to the number four. It’s not often that race results fully reflect progress in training and development, but this year’s Track Cycling World Championships in Copenhagen was one of those moments. As I left off on my last post, I felt that I was in the form of my life coming into Worlds and the results certainly proved that. The Worlds during an Olympic year can be slightly less competitive than non-Olympic years, as some top athletes choose to rest, but the start list for the points race was still very competitive, including three Olympic medalists and many other strong riders.

Suffering. Credit SWPix

My plan was to wait for at least the first 60 laps of the race before launching attacks. At 160 laps (40km), the points race is the longest individual race in track cycling, and it shows. Riders who do too much too early suffer badly in the second half; in consequence, the race often explodes part way through. Unfortunately for me, my “hold back” plan was only a plan, and the actual race was quite different. Rolling through the pace line after just 25 laps I looked behind, and I had been unexpectedly gifted a 50 meter gap by the slowing peloton. Immediately knowing that I would never get this much of a gap with so little energy expenditure again, I committed to the attack and went for the lap. As I settled into the effort, I kept thinking to myself “this is really going to hurt, shit, shit, shit.” I took a sprint, and then lapped the field in nine total laps, immediately becoming the race leader. Just as I rejoined the peloton intensely needing to recover, the race accelerated. The next 100 laps were pure pain, and I only remember bits and pieces of it. Somewhere in there, I took another lap, blindly following a rider as he went off the front. With 40 laps to go, the peloton took a collective breath and I could finally recover enough to launch a few more attacks and pick up some more points in the second to last sprint. Three other riders had taken two laps, and one had taken three. Add in the points scored in the sprints and I came home in 4th, still in deep pain.

Too tired to stand after the points race.

I have too many thoughts and emotions to share in a short blog post, but I am proud of this result. Equal to the result, I am proud of my preparation. The day before the race, enjoying the fall weather sitting outside on a rock, I was content with the preparation and could say that even if I crashed out in the first ten laps, I enjoyed myself and the process over the last three months. My fourth place also happened to be the best US men’s mass start result at a World Championships since Bobby Lea placed 3rd in the scratch race at the 2015 Worlds in Paris. It is the 4th best US men’s mass start result since at least 2000. I am excited to continue my steady progression in training and life, and although the results will continue to not accurately reflect that at every race I go to (as they do for everyone), I have a lot more to give. Two days after the points race, I recovered sufficiently to race the Madison with Colby Lange. After a brutal race, we finished 14th.

Beyond the racing, my mom and brother made the trip from the US to Copenhagen, which marked the first time they had seen me race my bike since July 2019 at the NSC Velodrome in Minnesota. Add in Mark Stewart, a former racer at the NSC, his wife Laurie, and two friends on study abroad in Copenhagen, and I had six supporters in the stands. Having had no one explicitly supporting me at any of my races over the past five years, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it warmed my heart and gave me a little extra boost to finish both races strong. After the racing was over, my mom stayed in Copenhagen for two more days to explore the city with me, which was lovely.

A chance encounter with Mark Stewart two days before racing, and my mom and I.

Our exploration of Copenhagen included a trip to the Assistens Cemetery, where the graves of Søren Kirkegård, Hans Christian Andersen, and Niels Bohr are located.

I then headed north to Bergen, Norway, for a day, before going even further north via a five hour ferry to the small fjord town of Sogndal, where my friend Noah Eckstein from the Bowdoin ski team is pursuing a masters degree. Sogndal sits most of the way down the Sognefjorden, the longest and deepest fjord in Norway at 204km long and 1,308 meters deep at its deepest point. Using my poorly adapted cyclist legs, Noah and I ventured into the mountains on a small backpacking trip over a few days. It was beautiful, but left me sore for days afterwards. As I found out on our adventures, much of Norway is a giant peat bog: this makes for springy hiking: slow, but enjoyable!

The view from the Fløibanen funicular looking out over Bergen. Interestingly, the Bergen harbor is filled with ocean energy research ships.

Sogndal is gorgeous.

Some shots from my adventures with Noah.

I headed home from Norway and got right back into training with the winter track season quickly approaching. After a week of training, I returned to Copenhagen to race the Copenhagen three day with Swiss partner Niccolo De Lisi. The Danish don’t mess around. Most of them hadn’t taken any time off since Worlds, instead preparing specifically for this race. We averaged around 58kmh for the Madisons, which is ridiculous given that Nations Cup and World Championship Madisons average just 1-1.5kmh faster, and we weren’t using race wheels, tires, chains, helmets, and skinsuits. I set several heart rate records for 2024 on the first day there. By the third day I finally found my rhythm and took home a win in one of the scratch races.

Some racing shots and the only photo I’ll have with the soon to be retiring legend that is Michael Mørkøv. The organizer put us in the American jersey for the weekend! Credit John Holmer Nielsen and Skøvbolle photo

Finally a win. Credit John Holmer Nielsen and Skøvbolle Photo

Since then, I’ve had a week of steady training at home in Wageningen, including a nice two day bikepacking trip to the Western coast of the Netherlands. This week I’ll start the UCI Track Champions League, which I am beyond excited to be part of. Now in its fourth season, the Track Champions League is a novel take on track cycling as sport but also as entertainment. Each night there are men’s and women’s sprint and endurance races: two of each type, for eight races each evening. The 18 men’s endurance riders contest a 20 lap scratch race and an elimination race every night over five separate nights in Paris (November 23), Apeldoorn (November 29 and 30), and London (December 6 and 7). Racing can be streamed on HBO Max in the US, and on Eurosport in Europe. The TCL app and website are excellent as well, so go ahead and check them out. I am proud to be supported by the Dutch bike shop Plieger Wielersport and the Minnesota-based Bicycle Fit Guru as sponsors for the event.

I’ll post another update after Champions League with a recap of (hopefully) some nice racing, and a preview of the 2025 season, which is just around the corner.