Colt Peterson is highly successful up-and-coming junior racer from Orange County, California who now calls Boulder, Colorado home. He was kind enough to answer a few questions related to racing and group rides:

Tell us a bit about who you are and how you got into cycling?

This season I am a second year under-twenty-three road and track cyclist.  I now live and go to college in Boulder, Colorado.  I got started by my dad who proposed the idea of me riding a bike to help with my cross training for soccer.  So I gave it a try with him and his old friends on their Saturday group ride.  I had no concept of drafting or anything like that so they dropped me when it was windy and there were some hills.  I could not believe my eyes, I was getting beat at something competitive by old guys.  I started riding a bike more and playing less soccer.  Eventually riding became much more fun than soccer.

As a junior racer, what has been your path to pursuing racing at a higher level? What advice would you have for other juniors looking to reach their goals?

I have always tried to race with racers that are better than me as well as doing bigger races.  I believe this will help somebody become a better racer and get good experience.  I think that as a junior I really learned a lot from some of the more experienced riders in my city, I tried to soak up everything that I could learn from them and apply it to my riding and racing. 

What are you most proud of so far in the journey?

I am most proud of my win at the Tour de L’Abitibi as a junior racing for the USA National team.   

How has having mentors or people support you been instrumental in reaching the next level?

Having family, mentors, friends, training partners, and more people to look up to have been huge.  It is always nice to have a good group of people to keep you on track and keep your head in the right place.

Where are you now? What’s your next big goal(s)?

Right now I am focusing on the road.  I am living in Boulder, Colorado like I said before which I think is the best place in the United States for a road cyclist to live.  The terrain is amazing, the training groups are awesome, and the people are all so active and healthy.  A couple of my big goals are to win a National Racing Calendar race this coming season, to podium in one of the events at USA  U23 Road Nationals and to win a collegiate national title for the University of Colorado.

Any advice for cyclists looking to do group rides or improve in group rides?

Ahhh, group rides.  I love group rides when they fit into my schedule!  I would say always try to ride at the front of a group ride.  It is the safest place and you can learn some valuable things such as pace lining, proper etiquette, staying alert, safety rules and more.  Staying in the front and putting in some great work is also solid training.

How can we follow and support you? (your blog, twitter, FB, etc)

You can follow me on twitter at this username: @coltpeterson45

You can follow my blog site at: http://coltpeterson.blogspot.com/

Or you can like my Athlete Facebook page by clicking HERE.

Thanks Colt! We’ll be following and supporting you this season – best of luck!

The temperature’s dropped, the days are shorter, and the germs are going around. Usually around this time of year,  I’ll inevitably wake up with a scratchy throat that signals the beginning of a cold. And I hate it. In addition to the discomfort and general loss of energy that comes with a cold, I also know that this usually means I need to slow down on the cycling to give my body a chance to recover. I happen to live with a germ-growing petri dish in the form of a 3 year old boy who seems to come home from pre-school more often than I’d like with a cough or sniffles. Even without your very own little Bacteria container, you most likely suffer from a similar fate. Of course, precautions can be taken: getting enough sleep, washing your hands, dressing appropriately for cold weather, etc. But what do you do when a cold finally arrives?

Here’s what I do the moment I feel a cold coming on:

1. Start on Zicam. Immediately. It’ not a cure and it won’t take away your cold but it will shorten the duration. You can get Zicam in RapidMelts, Chewables, Nasal Gel, or Mist Spray. I prefer the Mist Spray
2. Mix 1 packet of Emergen-C’s with Orange Juice 3x day. Emergen-C’s are a vitamin supplement filled with Vitamin C and D in a fizzy drink mix.
3. Sleep with NyQuil. It works. If I could, I’d sleep with the stuff all the time but I hear using it for more than a week isn’t that good for you.
4. As a general rule from what I’ve heard from my doctors over the years, if your cold remains above your neck (throat, sinuses, head) then you can still continue to ride, albeit easily. Don’t go out and do your hardest interval sessions when you’re still sick but keep the legs moving. Probably stay away from Group Ride hammer-fests.
5. If your cold is below your neck (lungs, body aches), then take a few days off. Seriously. Just put the bike away for a few days. If you continue to ride, you’ll only be hurting your fitness and lengthen your time of recovery. And I hear that riding with sickness in your lungs like bronchitis can actually cause longer-term damage beyond the initial illness.

I try to be as consistent as possible with this treatment all the way through to when symptoms finally go away.

Please take note: I am obviously not a doctor nor is any of this advice based on scientific research. But I’ve found that it works well for me. Consider it advice from a fellow traveler. If you’re sick beyond merely a simple cold, please by all means go see a doctor and take their professional advice. I’m also not pushing the above products nor do I get a kickback from manufacturers if you go out and buy them (though that would be nice). All I’m saying is that they’ve worked for me and lessened the duration of my inevitable colds so I can get back out on the road sooner.

Do you have any home remedies that you’d like to share?

Ride on…

Shane Perkins is a beast. He’s also the Keirin World Champion with his eyes set firmly on London 2012. It’s still cycling that he competes in but it looks dramatically different than what you and I do on a regular basis and doesn’t look anything like what we watch on Versus every July. Shane is more defensive end or linebacker than mountain goat and spends as much time in the squat rack as he does turning the pedals. But man is he fast. Check out this video that details his training and be amazed:

Ride on…

As everyone looks forward to a new season of racing, the beginning of one season always seems to herald the tradition of looking back at the previous season.

Prolific author and great cycling commentator John Wilcockson of Velonews drops some wisdom on us all and reviews last year’s greatest stories in the world of cycling. Here are four of his picks that stood out to me as great moments of the past year:

1. Most Exciting Day of Racing- Juan Jose Cobo and Chris Froome trading punches on the Angrilu in the Vuelta
2. Most Exciting Bike Racers – Cavendish again winning 5 stages of the Tour and Philippe Gilbert winning anything that he wanted to.
3. Chris Horner on Sierra Road.
4. Cadel finally winning the big one (if you’re not already counting Worlds).
5. Domestiques winning Monuments (Flanders, Roubaix, Lombardy, maybe even San Remo if you consider that Matt Goss wasn’t even HTC’s #1 sprinter).

What stood out to you? Any predictions for this coming season based on last year’s results?

You can read the full story at Velonews HERE.

Ride on…

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning year round without fail, there’s a core group of seriously fast bike riders that throw down on the same training loop around Woodside, Portola Valley, and Los Altos Hills. Around here, it’s just called the morning ride. It starts in Palo Alto but the regulars ride over from towns all around the area. For those that don’t frequent this hammer-fest, the ride is usually spoken of in relatively reverential tones simply because it’s the fastest ride in an area with a whole lot of fast riders. Of course, there’s a debate out there that the seasonal Wednesday night Valley Ride is quicker and there are those that say the morning ride is too short, just a quick burn. The Noon Ride is certainly longer and more social, definitely hard. But if you do the morning ride regularly, you’ll have spent more time going anaerobic than on any other ride. It usually hurts. A lot. But there’s no better training to get fast than to ride with the fastest riders you can find. The morning ride is the realm of local pros, Cat. 1/2′s, accomplished masters racers, and a few hacks like yours truly. The most challenging aspect of fast rides like this is that you have to do it regularly to get used to the suffering but you have to endure the suffering to get through it regularly. Either way, you’re going to suffer.

The traditional start is at the Starbucks on University Ave in downtown Palo Alto around 6:15am but a significant number of riders comes up from the Los Altos area and riders filter in throughout the early stage of the ride. In particular, there’s a group that sits at the corner of Clark Way and Sand Hill, picking up the ride around 6:30am while another group waits 5 more minutes up the road at the corner of Santa Cruz Ave and Sand Hill (corner of Santa Cruz/Sand Hill can be seen in the ride map below).

The early, short climb up Sand Hill is taken at a leisurely pace with conversations still going in the early morning light. The ride crests Sand Hill and descends towards the overpass of the 280 freeway and the momentum takes the group up to the first dig of the ride. Climbing back up Sand Hill towards Portola Valley is where a few riders always begin to punch it. Up and over and down again, past Whiskey Hill, and into the face of a short 12% lung-buster. This is where a few riders always attack. Now onto Portola Valley, the ride takes a very fast, sweeping right hand turn up to Mountain Home Road, a twisting and rolling backcountry lane where the suffering really sets in. A left on Woodside, a right into the “maze (see map),” and the hammer is definitely down. The ride rolls through the back side of route 84 and back onto Portola Valley where the strongest riders take turns pulling through, often dropping riders dangling off the back whose lungs are busted and legs are popped. A left at Alpine, right on Arastradero, and onto the climb up Page Mill to Altamont. Mercifully, the ride stops and regroups for a moment at the corner of Page Mill and Altamont. The descent through Los Altos Hills is definitely not for the faint of heart. Narrow, twisting, hairpin, country roads lead the group back to Foothill where many riders end their ride at the Los Altos Peets. A smaller group hoofs it up Foothill back to Palo Alto and surrounding areas.

Like I’ve often said, the best way to get fast is to find out where the fastest riders are and go there. On the San Francisco peninsula, the Palo Alto morning ride is it. If you’ve never done this ride and you’re considering it, just be aware that there’s definitely a pecking order and good Group Ride etiquette is a must. This is one of the safest rides around because it’s fast and strung out, most everyone knows each other and is familiar with one another’s tendencies. But like any ride, if you stick with it, respect other riders, and ride safely, there’s no greater rush or workout than blasting through empty roads before most people are even out of bed.

Ride on…

Photo courtesy Michael Barry

Michael Barry is a pro bike racer, author, and blogger. His is an unusually articulate voice in the world of cycling and sport in general. Michael’s first book, Inside the Postal Bus, provides a great first-hand glimpse of what it’s like to ride at the top level, in particular during his years on U.S. Postal. Le Metier is hands down one of the best, if not the best, cycling books out there. Le Metier is french for “the craft,” and Michael goes to great lengths in describing the years of blood, sweat, and tears that go into a pro cyclist honing his craft. It’s a beautiful book in both word and pictures. Do yourself a favor, go out and get both books.

Recently on his blog, Michael does a great job of summing up everything that’s both immediate and transcendent about the Group Ride. Here’s a short excerpt but be sure to follow the link below to read the full post:

Like bragging at a dinner party about wealth, nobody appreciates a rider who constantly forces the pace to prove his strength.  Half-wheeling, the term used to describe a rider who is constantly pushing the pace half a wheel in front of the others, is an insult not a compliment. Group rides are not races. Good riders are in tune with each others’ abilities and the groups’ objective. At the right moment, when everybody is ready, the tempo will increase, the group will splinter, the strongest will surge ahead, and then only to regroup again at a designated spot.

Click HERE to read the full post at Barry’s blog. Thanks for the wisdom Michael.

Ride on…

OK, maybe not the best but it’s still awesome. Heads up on some language if you’re at work or have little ones in the room.

Ride on…

Here’s a repost from last year – but this ride’s one of my favorites and it goes down every New Year’s Day…

If you live in Southern California and you’re looking for a cycling experience to start your year off right, you have to make you’re way over to the Orange County New Year’s Day Group Ride. You can find out the start time, location, and route by clicking on the link. The vibe is fun and non-aggressive, what you would expect the morning after an NYE celebration. Everyone’s just happy to be out on a bike. It also happens to be my favorite group ride, pictured in this post and on the banner at the top of this blog. I lived in the area for a long time and always used to pick up the pack at Starbucks in Corona del Mar. Riders jump in all along PCH and by the time the ride hits Dana Point the group’s usually grown to a few hundred strong.

The ride has 2 rest stops, one next to the Dana Point harbor and the other at a 7-11 in Lake Forest. Riders will jump in and peel off all along the way but if you ride from the beginning and back to Long Beach it’s a hundred miles. If you’re not used to that kind of mileage, don’t worry too much. The draft from a group that size will drag you along. One year, we made it back to Long Beach in 4hrs 15min. I thought something was wrong with my computer. I actually felt fresh, not like I just rode a hundo. Explanation, easy: my nose never hit the wind, I wheelsucked the whole way…so did 250 other riders so I didn’t feel to bad about not doing a share of the work.

One of the unique aspects of this ride is that many of the Pro riders who live in the area come out for it. It’s still the off-season and an easy way to get 4-6 hours in the legs. For a Pro who’s putting in 4-6 hours of daily base miles, I would imagine they view this ride as a great way to break up the long solo days.

Pro’s aren’t out to make the ride Pro-fast. But it is cool to watch the way they handle themselves in the pack. I remember one year rolling along next to Tony Cruz, one of Long Beach’s native sons who would always show up for a local race when he wasn’t in Europe. I forgot for a moment that he rode the Spring Classics the previous year, Paris-Roubaix, etc until the group pulled into the second rest stop at 7-11. There was a line of riders waiting to get into the parking lot and, rather than waiting, Tony bunny-hopped the rock-strewn median at speed like it was an easy cobbled section in Roubaix. It was a big curb with a sewer. If I tried that, I’d break my frame, wheels, legs, probably more. Pro bike handling is impressive even in a 7-11 parking lot. Pro’s look like regular people for a minute until they do something on the bike that regular people can’t do. It’s easy to forget that Pro’s have superpowers on the bike.

It’s New Year’s Day, so the roads are virtually empty. Most normal people are sleeping off the night before. No one ever accused cyclists of being normal so, if you’re in the area, drag yourself out of bed and jump in.

Ride on…

This is definitely not scientific. But this is my favorite recovery drink and I’ve found it works for me. Chocolate milk with chocolate flavored protein mix added to 1/2 coffee cup of milkshake-style vanilla ice cream. There’s probably too much fat and nutritionists would probably shame me for the sugar content. But I love it. Around about the 3 hour mark of a long weekend ride, it’s all I can think about.

How about you, what do you use? Do you make up your own or go with a standard recovery drink?

Ride on…

Notice how Santa organizes his Group Ride: 2 by 2, no half-wheeling, pointing out road furniture. Here’s wishing all our Group Rides in the coming year are equally as smooth and fun!

Ride on…