Tour de Todd

A few weeks ago I did a roundtable discussion about road racing, where it's at and how do we bring it back to its glory days here in America.  Within that discussion junior racing was brought up by Jame Carney, John Eustice and Dieter Drake spoke about getting back grass roots efforts, local efforts to draw in more kids to the sport. 

Freddie Rodriguez was listening. He got me in touch with Sean Wilson. Wilson is a professor a Loma Linda University School of Medicine.  But he's also the head registrar with the Redlands Bicycle Classic, He's a Level 1 Coach, former top level racer, director of the GS Andiamo Junior Cycling Development Program, and He's the founder and President of the Youth Cycling Association which I urge you to look into. 

In this episode Sean and I discuss junior racing, efforts to recruit and funding. 

Les Barczewski was born and raised in West Allis, Wisconsin. He and his brother Leigh started out as speed skaters and quickly progressed through the ranks. By 1974 he was competing at the juniors worlds. In 1979 he was 3rd in sprints beating Jerry Ash 2-1. His brother Leigh won that year.  In 1980 Les was a member of the Olympic track team but it was boycotted. 1981 he becomes national sprint champ beating Mark Whitehead. 1983 it was a silver medal in the match sprint at the Pan Am Games. 

Tandem sprints was also a big deal with Les. He either teamed with his brother Leigh or Nelson Vails. He and Vails won a national title in 1985 and a silver medal the same year at worlds. In 1986 he turned pro but the end was near. He got 7th at the Pro World Sprint Championships. Koichi Nakano won. That same year Les was the pro world record holder for 200 meters and then he retired.  

Les is currently living in Mexico. This year he'll be inducted into the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame. 

In this episode of the Tour de Todd Cycling podcaster have our first annual roundtable discussion. The topic? What's  happened to road racing in America, is it dead, how did it die and what needs to be done to bring it back. 

Joining me for this discussion is Charlie Issendorf, the former top amateur has over 400 races he's promoted in the New York area like Floyd Bennett Field to the Harlem Skyscraper criterium. Then there's Dieter Drake, the founder of the Tour of the Catskills to the Tour of the Battenkill. Next is John Eustice, a former pro, race promoter and TV analyst, and last but not least is Jame Carney, he's a former Olympian, worlds team member and current coach of Piedmont University Cycling Team. 

Yanto Barker began racing at 15. Some people would say he stared late. But by the time he was 18 he was a junior national champion. He got picked up by the GB national team which helped him transition into the U23 ranks seamlessly. He did the U23 worlds multiple times. He even moved to France to race. Riding for three separate teams. 

Yanto turned pro for DFL in 2005. Yet in 2006 he retired. His love of cycling and racing brought him back in 2009. At first he raced as an independent for a company he created called "Le Col." From that point on he sponsored every pro team he raced for with his premium clothing company. Genius. Once back racing full time he was doing races like Kurne Brussels Kurne, the Dubai Tour to the Rutland Classic. In 2016 he decided it was time to move on and pursue his goals in business. 

In comes "Le Col," his clothing line he had been working on since 2008. Le Col is now one of the top premium cycling clothing lines in the world. Le Col currently is the clothing sponsor of the World Tour team Bora Hansgrohe.  

Eddy Gragus was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His family eventually moved to Tampa, Florida. He got into cycling in his senior year of high school. He went to Colorado to visit his brother and saw the Coors Classic. Then he went home and while riding his bike to school he was passed by a group of racers from the University of South Florida. He says the second time it happened he jumped on the back and they simply couldn't drop him. The group was so blown away they actually started taking him to races and he killed it. 

Eddy ended up winning several races for a junior world's camp at the OTC in 1986. He ended up getting a letter in the mail to attend. He went and got hammered but he ended up moving to Colorado right after graduation. 

Eddy would continue to race and train in Colorado but didn't take it too serious. But a chance meeting with someone who had a few connections to race in France changed his perspective. He raced in France for a number of seasons and even won some races. He actually got to race with the national team. 

Winning the Tour of Yugoslavia helped Eddy get a pro contract with Montgomery Bell. Eddy won a number of races during his pro career like stages in the Tour of Willamette, Tour of Poland but his big win came in 1996 when he won the U.S. Pro Champs in Philadelphia. 

By 2001 Eddy says it was time to move on. He went to school and got a degree and his masters. He currently works for Amazon. Eddy lives in Colorado with his wife and two boys. He still rides but mostly mountain bikes with the boys. 

John DeLong fell in love with cycling at an early age. I think his love of the bike was nurtured through the simple fact his dad owned a bike shop. John met a kid who raced for the "Future Champion Cycling Club." He began heading up from Virginia to Pennsylvania to race and train with the club. John says he had a hard time with junior racing because it was too short. But once he started race with adults he did much better. 

His first season racing seniors was pretty tough. John says he went to college and thought about quitting racing for a normal college life. He stuck it out and continued to race. 

John eventually made it on the Saturn Development team which gave him a chance to race abroad. He says Belgian racing was his cup of tea. In 2005 John turned pro. John has participated in such famous races as the Tour of Rwanda, Unvest Grand Prix, and the Holy Saturday Classic in Belize. 

John Slover started racing BMX in Southern California. He says he got a chance to ride and hang out with some top pros like Eric Rupe to Byron Friday. He raced BMX until he was 22 years old. Once stepped away from racing BMX he went to roller skating and eventually started racing inline skates. Inline skating opened the door to racing a road bike. 

Once he witched to racing on the road he came across another group of talented riders like John Tomcat to Thurlow Rogers. When he started racing he won 15 straight races as a cat 4. Within a year he was a cat1. 

John became a top amateur in the county and began racing internationally. He fondly remembers racing the Tour of Guatemala. He even earned a pro contract but that was pulled out from under him. 

Years later and John is still racing. This time he's ripping off legs as a masters racer in Southern California. 

Peter Stetina raced 10 years at the highest level of road racing, the World Tour. This man had a great career racing a total 8 Grand Tours, Liege Bastogne Liege, to Strade Bianche to name a few races.

 In 2019 he decided it was time to do something else. He decided to race gravel races. He recently won the Grasshopper Adventure to start his 2023 season off on the right foot. Along the way he's telling stories, engaging with others, and drinking a little craft beer for the fun of it. 

Peter is a thoughtful man when it comes to answering questions so I hope you enjoy this interview. 

Andreas Muller was born and raised in Berlin, Germany. He started racing at 14 years old  which he considered late. At the time the scene in Berlin was full of crits, road races and track races every weekend. He didn't have to travel far to get his fill of races. Andreas says he wasn't very good when he first started so he's a great example of hard work really does pay off. 

He started getting results because of his sprint and his tactical fitness. Andreas was eventually picked up by the German national junior track team. Once on the national team he began to focus on the team pursuit. 

This is a man who has multiple German national championships in the Madison, points race, scratch and team pursuit. In 2007 he switched citizenship to Austria and the gold medals continued.  Andreas spent a total 10 years on the German national track team and another dozen with the Austrian national track team.  

Andreas' name is forever linked to six day racing. He's competed in Ghent, Moscow, Berlin to Manchester six day to name a few. 

Andreas retired after the Tokyo Olympics. 

Chris Lillywhite started racing when he was 14 years old. His first love was football. But he began to get into some trouble and his dad made the decision they were going to do something together so he bought them bikes. Shortly after getting a bike he began racing. In a two year span as a junior Lillywhite won 21 races and a national kilo championship on the track. From that kilo ride he made the national junior track team for G.B. From that point on Lillywhite's career began to snowball. 

Making the transition from juniors to seniors in the U.K. wasn't much of an issue for him. Crazy enough he didn't train much. Not because Lillywhite was lazy but because he held down a job while racing. So he was killing it racing purely on talent. He considered himself an all-around with a good sprint. Since he couldn't win to many stage races on GC Lillywhite says he focused on winning jerseys like best climber or sprinter. Some of his notable wins include the Milk Race in 1993, the British National Circuit Race Championships the same year to the Tom Simpson Memorial Road Race in 1994. Literally I can't name all of his wins because it would be long a prolific. 

Lillywhite doesn't think he fulfilled his talent. He says the money was so good in the U.K. racing crits he didn't see the need to leave and race on the continent. Let me make this clear...he got offers. 

Lillywhite's last season racing as a pro was 1999. He took a job working for the Linda McCartney Racing Team. He would eventually work with Team Wiggins. Currently he runs his own business and Lillywhite is still on the bike.