Steve

I'm an engineer with a track cycling addiction.

I don't speak Italian.

That's important to know, because, like many cyclists my age, I started riding after seeing Breaking Away, arguably the best American cycling movie ever made. It's interesting to note that while the protagonist spent a great deal of time on a road bike, the story itself was about the "Cutters" team competing in the Little 500 - a track race. So it goes with me. While I spend a gret deal of my training time on a road bike, I am first and foremost a track racer. A "wheelman," to use a term from long ago. A trackie. Or, as roadies like to say, just certifiably insane. One gear, no brakes, and high speed. It's rarely boring.

I began racing in 1984, and remember Alexi Grewal winning gold in the Olympic road race. More to the point, I also remember seeing Mark Gorski and Nelson Vails go head-to-head for the Gold medal in the Match Sprint. The owner of the local shop, who sponsored the club I raced for, had always been bugging me to go and race the track, because I had a killer sprint (and little else). So away I went...

I was hooked - track racing was everything I was looking for in cycling, and I lived for it. Match Sprinting was everything I was good at, and it was all I trained for. For four years I raced in the Elite categories, winning several State and one National championship. Then I met Stacey. Life, and reality, intervened in my racing "career."

Fast forward 14 years - overweight, I started riding again to get healthy, and I (naively) thought I could be happy with "just riding." Stacey just smiled. Or grimaced. I'm still not sure which. It was exactly six months before the “training races" started. Four months later, I was back racing on the track again. Several moments of somewhat limited glory ensued.

It’s now a year and a half since I started riding again. I’m training, and training hard. Harder, in fact, than I ever have in my life. Won’t be “just a sprinter” anymore. This year’s goal: the Kilo. One minute and change of lung searing, leg bunring, eyeball tearing pain. Sounds fun to me. I don’t know where the road (or more accurately, the track) I’m on right now is headed. I do know that I am going to see exactly how fast I can go on it.

Ride with me.