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- I've been road racing and coaching
for a combined 8 years. I fell in love
with bikes in the eighties as probably
any kid would dreaming of racing BMX
bikes. At the age of 13 using my
paper route money I funded my new
obsession with bikes. My parents
thought I was crazy spending every
penny I had and few I didn't have on
bikes. Though I blame it on my Dad
who rode his bikes to work and
maintained them himself. I had all the
tools at hand to work and build my
addiction. As 18 years approached
I found my self looking towards road
bikes, but as any eighteen year old, cars and girls started to become more
interesting. Back in 88 I remember thumbing through Bike Nashbar catalogs,
they sold a brand of bike called "Ciocc". I remember how cool I thought it was
that there was a bike spelt almost the same as my last name.
- Fast forwarding to 98, yea I know a big jump. Well in short the previous 10
years only brought one thing I like to talk about and that would be my
beautiful wife. The rest pisses me off to think about, because we all would
like some thing redo from the past and those 10 years would be mine.
Anyhow back to 98, 50 pounds heavier and smoking better than a pack a
smokes day. I awoke one morning and said this has got to !@#$ ing stop.
Soon after I stopped at my local bike shop and purchased a mountain bike. A
mountain bike, if you know me I don't talk to fondly of mountain biking or
even cross. Though it was a mountain bike that brought me back to cycling,
they were cool like BMX, but fitness would quickly become my focus.
Another morning a few months later, "I think it would be cool to do the Edinboro
tri-athalon." Money being tight I needed a road bike, a friend gave me a 83
Gitane touring bike. As the tri-athalon approach I had not registered yet. I
had been doing some running, but hadn't swam at all. The week before
Edinboro my dad said "if you want to do it I'll pay for it." Now you could look
at this as time number two that I can blame my dad for my relapse of my bike
addiction.
- On this seventeen year old bike I put down a 1:05 bike time. I won't mention
the swim or the run. I now decided it was time for a real bike. Went to local
bike shop and had to put it in layaway. After talking to the owner about the
tri-athalon he invited me to one of there Sunday group rides.
- "Holy crap!" That was my first thought at the group ride. My 83 Gitane, me
and a bunch of guys that had expensive bikes and looked way more
conditioned than me. If had a Heart rate monitor it would of probably broke
at that moment.
Two hours later, I had been told by the ride leader to slow down because the
guy that made me crap my self at the beginning was completely cracked.
A Miller Genuine Draft later I was completely addicted. This was my new
sport and I would not be giving this up. It was that point that I knew I had to
learn everything I could about cycling and training.
- So here 8 years later I'm now trying help others at the sport I love.
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