Louavill USGP’s

It’s always great to see the traveling ‘cross community again at the first USGP’s, this year to Kentucky for some solid bike racing both days. And that’s really what it is–bike racing. Driving your bike as fast as you can in whatever conditions avail themselves.

I’m always especially motivated to see the younger riders and how they’re going. It was cool to see a quarter of the elite men’s field comprised of espoirs (23 out of 88) and to know that over half of those 23 have raced cross in Europe, either at the camp or worlds. What’s more, two of the top five elite men and all of the the top five espoirs on both days are eurocrosscamp alumni. That’s a pretty clear indicator that the camp is meeting its goal to help develop top American riders.

On both days, seeing U-23 riders I’ve spent real european time with–Chance Noble, Danny Summerhill, Nick Weighall, Bjorn Selander, and Jaime Driscoll–duking it out brought a smile to my face. Killing each other out there is how they’ll get stronger.

And it was great to see the hungry juniors getting after it. Yesterday, it was USGP white leader’s jersey Luke Keough (undefeated so far in 07 cross) outgunning the strong Rad trio of Steve Fisher, Ian Terry, and Erk Emsky and coming-back rider Alex Coelho. And Saturday, it was super to see the local Kentucky guys Andrew Llewellyn and Clayton Omer in the top five mix. I look forward to seeing more of these riders during the season.

And, we’re starting to see some really interesting racing in the elite men with Tim Johnson, Ryan Trebon, Jeremy Powers and Barry Wicks really going to battle. Right now, these guys clearly seem to be at a higher level than the others and with that comes some entertaining smack barbin’ in and out of the press.
But, while I do work with Barry on his training, as national coach and a friend to all of these guys, I really am not too moved by the posturing. I guess I could entitle this part of the post “on any given weekend” because, really, these guys are pretty evenly matched. They all bring some super skill sets to the table and so it comes down to who has the best legs, and for me–the real barometer–the most desire, to go out and lay down the pain for an hour. What I look at are their systems and their levels and try to stay in the background and sculpt their planning, their energies, their motivation so that we can eventually have a strong worlds team. That’s the objective because a funny thing happens when you go to europe to race against the world–all of a sudden, who’s got the smack becomes who’s got the sack and you’re teammates and you want to go out and collectively feed off each other to blow down euro doors.