In it

After getting in plenty of minutes with Sven at our recent UCI spring Cyclocross Commission meetings, I was able take a quick side-trip to visit a “resting” Sven Nys at his not-so-humble abode in Baal. I never let pass a chance to talk to the guy about all the good stuff: training ideas, his new team, coming to race in the U.S., the stories behind, for instance, his recent battles with Pauwels and the other Belgies on his way to overall GVA victory in Oostmalle.

As seems to be our custom, the big concepts come up. This time, our conversation turned to Motivation.

Before the trip, I had been thinking a lot about Ted Ligety, our country’s best male alpine skier for the moment, and his recent comments on the topic: “I’m still always fired up and I always charge, but it’s not the same as it should be. If you’re racing World Cup and you’re risking your health and everything, you should be in it 100 percent. If not, then you have to have the discipline and maturity to say when, because you probably shouldn’t be doing it.”

So where does Sven find it? How does he stay in it?
I mean, honestly:
42 races with 14 wins [the most] [again] for 2010-2011 season.
Overalls in GVA and Super Prestige and world number 1 (UCI ranking).
After how many years of dominance?

“I don’t know where it [the motivation] comes from,” Sven says, with a smile. “But I do know that right now, I’m in my off-season for three weeks and, every day, I look up at the sky, and when I see the sun, I go ‘man, maybe I will just get out on the bike for a little bit’ or ‘I’m eating this piece of cake. Should I be eating it?’ I miss the bike everyday. I know I must forget about it for these three weeks, but it’s so hard. I live for the bike.”

The drive. Even in the off-season.
Burning strong would be the operative understatement.
I ask him about what happens to it in three years time when he puts down his cleats.

“It’s gonna be very hard. For me, the most difficult thing is I can’t imagine not to be an athlete anymore. That’s the hardest part. To be so in tune with your body. To be living for it. It’s an honor. I’m gonna need to take some real time by myself to do some reflection when I retire, because it is not gonna to be easy.”

So, I ask, “You acknowledge, maybe more than most, that it’s a privilege to be a pro athlete? That you don’t take it for granted?”

“Absolutely.”

“Another thing,” he adds, “a guy like Erwin [Vervecken], he’s doing a lot of great things for the sport and I hope to do the same [when I retire], but Erwin and I are totally different people. He hasn’t ridden much since he retired, but I’m wired totally different. For me, after I retire, I’m sure I will be riding. Because for me, the biggest joy is to work, work, work for the bike. Remember, every day, especially in summer, it’s no party out there. Hard work. But, I must have it.”

And, like many of our conversations over the past five years, Sven senses we need some concretes to go with the abstracts.

So our dialogue turns to the specifics we both love talking most about: technique, new drills, what was going through his head when Stybar attacked him at Worlds 2011.

He then gets up and flicks on the giant flat screen and cues up the key moments from Saint Wendel.

We watch.

“You see, here, I was thinking…”

Then he tells me he’s going to send me a film he’s putting together for the new guys on his new team for their first session together next Wednesday.

For Motivation.

Working on some of Sven’s book translation

42 races. 14 victories. 5 bikes. On the rack. For now.