2025 Winter in Review

After returning from a December family holiday visit to the US, I spent the first two weeks of 2025 at home in Wageningen: a not-so-nice reminder of Dutch winter weather. It’s rarely unbearably cold in the Netherlands – certainly not from my Minnesota perspective – but the constant gray, lack of sun, wetness, and temps just above freezing take their toll. My two herb plants unfortunately died quickly. In mid-January, my Dad came to visit, which was lovely. We spent a few days in the Netherlands exploring Wageningen and took a nice trip to Amsterdam to eat Georgian food and see Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique at the Concertgebouw. From there, we drove to Bremen, Germany, for the Bremen Six Day. After just two weeks of preparation post-holiday break, I had low expectations but was excited for some fun racing on a 166m velodrome. Paired with the German rider Moritz Malcharek, we formed part of the mid field in Bremen, but were able to sneak in a Madison win. I also won the individual elimination on the last night of racing in Bremen. Although not the most hotly contested race, I was beyond proud of my progress, since the elimination has been the trickiest race for me to master. For my Dad, it was his first time seeing me race since 2019, quite the shift from watching Thursday Night Lights at the Blaine, Minnesota NSC velodrome to the ÖVB Arena in Bremen. My Dad was blown away at the energy and density of the crowd, watching us race from 7pm to midnight on four straight nights. He reported that 80% of the spectators were holding a beer, and another 19% were holding two beers!

Some action shots from racing in Bremen and the soigneurs that make it all happen- thank you Luc and Robert. Credit SixDays Bremen.

Some track shots. The velodrome itself is portable and is fully taken apart after racing every year. On the right your can see the underlying structure of the velodrome.

On a completely different note, the day after Bremen finished, I passed my Dutch driver’s license exam under bizarre circumstances. The Dutch DMV, called the CBR, is beyond backed up, so exams are scheduled six months out. So when I saw a cancellation for the day after Bremen at 8am, I took it. This meant finishing racing at 11:30pm, packing up and showering directly after, and leaving Bremen at 12:30am. To let me sleep, my Dad (very kindly) drove the full 3.5 hours back to Wageningen, arriving at 4am. I went straight to bed, and woke up after 2.5 hours of sleep at 6:30 to get to the CBR in time for my 8am exam. Somewhat delirious, I passed! At a 49% average pass rate, the Dutch exam is much more difficult than exams in the US, so I was enormously relieved to have passed.

From Wageningen, I left for Calpe, Spain for two weeks of training in the sun on beautiful roads to escape Dutch winter. I was lucky to be joined by Jake Inger and fellow track cyclist Roy Eefting. The two weeks passed quickly and it was nice to get in steady training for the first time since before the World Championships in October.

Training in Spain. Perfect roads, sun, good company, and one flat. Credit Jake Inger.

With just three days at home in Wageningen afterwards, I left on my next adventure: a 3.5 week altitude training camp in Paipa, Colombia, to prepare for the Nations Cup in Konya, Turkey in March. Finding a high-altitude location to train during the European winter is hard, so Colombia is an attractive winter altitude training spot. We enjoyed consistent temperatures from 16-20 degrees C (60-70 F) for our whole stay. The trip was mostly organized by Taco van der Hoorn; we were joined by two of his teammates from Intermarché, Dries de Pooter and Georg Zimmerman.

Shots from Colombia. The roads were often dirty, and we rode a fair amount of gravel, which resulted in far too many flats. Credit Taco.

I had been to Colombia once before, in 2022 for a Nations Cup in Cali. But due to security concerns then we couldn’t leave the hotel or track, so I never properly experienced the country. This time around we spent a day in Bogotá and took a nice walking tour before driving three hours north towards Paipa, a vacation and cycling hotspot for Colombians that was nearly void of foreign tourists! In Paipa, we slept at 2,680 meters (8,800 feet) above sea level: ridiculously high. I have previously spent time at altitude in Boulder and Colorado Springs, Colorado, but this was a different level –  literally. I spent much of the first week exhausted; it took some time to accept that this was normal. The roads around Paipa were beautiful: there were climbs up to 3,800 meters (12,500 feet), a 1.5-hour lap around a lake at 3,000 meters (9850 feet), a long road to a coal mining town, and much more. The traffic was intense at times, but the cars were respectful of cyclists, and we got lots of friendly honks and waves. Just as I was getting into a good rhythm, I got serious food poisoning and an ensuing fever, and was out of commission for a few days. This brought my tally of trips to South America and food poisoning or illness to three for three. Just as I recovered from that, I had a freak crash in training, striking Georg’s pedal and launching myself off my bike at 45 kph. Luckily I just had road rash and was able to finish my six-hour ride that day. My last week of training in Colombia went well. Huge thanks goes out to Román and Rodolfo Torres for helping us with logistics and providing good company during our stay. Interestingly, Rodolfo, who is a European ex-pro and second place finisher on a stage of the 2015 Vuelta, is now the mayor of the nearby town Busbanzá, so he was incredibly well connected. I will certainly be back!

More shots from training in Paipa, and some exploring in Bogotá. The landscape at bottom center is at 3,500 meters. In Europe or the US, you’re usually looking straight down a mountain from an altitude that high, but in the Andes, we were just on a high plain. Credit Taco.

Continuing the trend of not being at home, I spent another enjoyable three days in Wageningen, and then headed to Sittard in the Limburg region of the far southern Netherlands for a U.S. national team prep camp before the Turkey Nations Cup. This post is full enough, so I’ll share all of those adventures in my next post. Stay tuned.