What has been your most embarrassing moment?
This would have to be following the conclusion of the 3rd Annual Tour of Columbus. I was exhausted, having completed my first stage race with average temperatures over 100 degrees. Had I been more experienced I probably would have brought food with me to eat immediately after completing the event, but as it was I needed to find something to eat on the road home. A Sonic was the first thing on the road, so I decided to stop there, famished. I pulled into a parking spot, and heard a rubbing metallic noise. The first thing that came to mind was that I had rubbed a wheel on the curb. Slightly disheartened, I backed up and tried parking again, which is when I heard the huge bang. The rubbing noise had been the top of my saddle rubbing againsted the corrugated aluminum roof; the bang -- the sound of my roof rack being ripped off the top of my car as my bike refused to dislodge from the roof. The next hour was spent trying to figure out how to get two bikes into a VW beetle, with the remnants of my roof rack, all in front of a curious crowd of locals. It all worked out in the end, and I always travel with the sunroof open now to remind me that there`s precious cargo looming overhead. I have to thank the engineers and designers at Airborne, Mavic, Reynolds, and Thule, because despite the damage my car received, my roof rack, Ksyrium wheels, fork, and frame escaped unscathed.
Do you train? What does your schedule look like?
In the past my training schedule has been planned out week by week, but I have lacked the development of an annual training plan. That is changing this year, and I`m excited to be developing to an entirely new level as an athlete. My schedule will be based largely off of what I`ve learned from the "Cyclist`s Training Bible," with some slight modifications to better incorporate racing tactics, as I do not believe this receives nearly enough training time.
Music?
I am not particular in my general music tastes; I like something from every genre. Some of my lasting favorites have been Dave Matthews Band, The Cranberries, Beethoven, The Guess Who, Led Zeppelin, and Jethro Tull. I`ve played piano for about 15 years, guitar for a little over a year and a half, and I played trombone for 7 years in hich school.
Why do you compete?
Competition to me is much the same reason I am an engineering student. I am an incessant tinkerer; I will not leave something that is good enough alone, because I know it can be better. I take that on in every engineering project I do, and I attack myself with the same motivation in competition. I know I can do better. Always. Competition gives me a way to test myself, to provide place markers so that I can meter how much I have improved.
Do you like to travel? What's your best (clean) road trip story?
Back in High School I was recruited by the West Virginia Youth Symphony to do a tour of Europe with them as their principal trombonist, as their usual man couldn`t make the trip. We toured Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and Brno, playing a few times at each place over the course of a few weeks. I recall a time we were eating lunch on a boat on the Vlatava. We were traveling about Prague at the time, and we all had backpacks with us. Someone grabbed a water bottle out of their bag and began to drink from it, but they were promptly apprehended by the waiter, who emphatically stated repeatedly that drinking from a bottle of water was "Impossible!" It was my first exposure to a language barrier of the sort, and it took us all quite some time to realize that he was trying to explain that we were supposed to drink their water, not the water we brought on board.