This interview was originally published
on the Easy Riders Recumbent Club's website.
A HUGE thank you to Shelly Mossey of New York, NY for suggesting we do an article about Fast Freddy Markham!! My mom sent Freddy a letter, along with a sheet of questions, a mini-cassette recorder and a pile of tapes. What my mother received in the mail about blew our cleats off. Fast Freddy filled three 90-minute tapes, forwarded numerous photos and newspaper articles. My mother then transcribed the tapes over a period of many days. We are thrilled to be able to bring you the following article...
Laurie
Hi Connie, Hi Laurie...Well, I see you sent me just about everything I need to have to get this done, so I don't see a problem, so here we go.
You've sent me questions and that's going to cover a lot of territory so I'm going to start with those and after that I'll just add whatever comes to mind. So we'll start from the top.
How old were you when you got your first bicycle?
I was probably 13 when I got my first 10-speed bicycle. I wanted a motorcycle, and I wanted to go car racing, but my dad (a doctor) and my mom (a nurse), that was tough, I couldn't convince them. Well, my mom eventually convinced me to get a bicycle. Now if she'd seen some of the stunts I did on this bicycle she might have gone ahead and got me that motorcycle, but the rest is history. So, she was basically the one that pushed me off on a bicycle.
What I used to do was I had friends and 3 older brothers and I would get them to take me up to the top of these mountain roads. I lived in Los Gatos, California at that time, and the city is ringed with tall mountains (twisty mountainous roads) and they used to drop me off up there and I'd race them down. It was great fun! I lived for that kind of speed. I found out that racing a bicycle downhill took an awful lot of skill, and it's very hard when your tire contact patch with the road is less than a dime. You have to be very smooth and very precise on a bicycle. You don't get a lot of leeway. If you make a mistake going down, if you start sliding a bicycle you're not going to last very long, so you have to be very smooth and very precise and I loved it! It filled that void that was missing from motor sports.
Well, somewhere along the line I ran into a friend that I'd gone to school with and he had raced his bicycle a few times. He eventually suggested that I take up bicycle racing. I was like, "Bicycle Racing? Wow, I didn't even know that you guys had a sport." I liked the idea and joined the Las Gatos Bicycle Racing Club, and soon I was racing my bike. I think I got 3rd in my first race, and a few races later I won my first race. It turns out I had a sprint, I didn't even know what a sprint was back then, but everybody said I had one. I was pretty much a phenom more or less. That first year, I think I won about ten races and I was a hit. And I was hooked.
It just went on from there. Just couldn't get enough bicycle racing and couldn't get enough riding. You know, like I say, if you want to be a bicycle racer, you gotta' ride a lot of miles, miles, miles, and more miles. Miles are like dollars, you never really have enough of them.
I've been on a lot of bicycle racing teams, probably too many to even go through. I rode for Schwinn, I rode for Bianci, I rode for Campagnolo, just to name a few. I rode for Specialized, some big teams, some small teams, some better than others, and they were all good teams. They all gave me the experience that I needed, and they all got me places and got me to races. I'm thankful to each and every one of them.
Now somewhere around 1978 I met Gardner Martin. Gardner who had been racing HPV's for a couple of years finally got to the point where he decided he needed a real bicycle racer in his machines. Up to this point he had just been using local riders more or less and somebody suggested, "Hey go to the San Jose veledrome. You can find some real bicycle racers over there." Gardner, being as smart as he is, took them up on it, packed his vehicles into the truck and showed up at the veledrome one day, where I was training. Now my coach at that time was Jack Disney. He was an awesome man - 7-time National Sprint Champion and couple time Olympian. He suggested I do it. Well, he really didn't have to talk me into it, because like I say, I was a speed-oriented person. Anything anybody could do for me to make me go faster they probably didn't have to talk me into it. I wholeheartedly jumped into it. I really kinda' liked the looks of the first HPV I ever saw. It was called the 'Belly Bike'. You laid down on your stomach, wiggled down into this thing and yeah, it went pretty fast! That first year (1978) I went 46mph for 200 meters, which was quite a few seconds faster than I could do on my track bike. It was cool. I liked it.
After that I was hooked. That very first speed-meet that I went to, that was a tough one. Everybody who was really somebody in the U.S. racing scene at that time took part in that speed meet. We had a lot of competition, a lot of camaraderie. We had a lot of fun!
In your own words, how did you get to that moment of breaking 65mph on a bicycle?
Well, that was 1986. My first full season was 1974 and I raced out of the Northern California region (which was at that time the toughest bicycle racing region in the country) and was in very tough competition. If you could make it in Northern California, you could make it just about anywhere. I did a lot of training, a lot of miles in those early years. I probably rode 250 miles a week. It doesn't sound like a lot now. By the end of my racing career I was up to about 400 a week and I can say now that probably still isn't enough if you want to be a pro racer. Now a days it's probably 500 a week. But I raced a lot, rode every weekend, rode everywhere and I just covered a lot of races. By 1976 I was put on the Olympic Team and I was made a member of the USA National Cycling Team, which allowed me to race a lot of international races. Between 1976 and 1980 those were (I'd say) the hay-days of my upright racing bicycle. I rode in Europe a lot, all over the United States and did the toughest racing you can imagine. My specialty was sprinting more or less. I was not a pure sprinter but I was very fast. I was never the Tour de France type of racer. I suppose I could have gone that route, but back then I was more fascinated with speed and liked track racing more than I wanted to ride my bicycle all day long. So that's where my passion was, going as fast as I could. Like I say I got around. I did just very tough stuff, it was a lot of racing and you know that foundation made me very strong. I was what they called a kilometer racer when I made the Olympic Team (a kilometer time trial specialist). A 1,000-meter time trial is basically a full sprint for just over a half-mile and it's a tough one. It's one of those events where you start off like you're only going to go as hard as you can for a 100 feet, but in the end, you go as hard as you can for a 1,000-meters. Somewhere along the line you die a horrible death out there on the track and you just gut it out until you cross the finish line. Being a kilometer rider was a perfect person to ride human powered vehicles and go after the speed attempts, because that's basically what it was. You get going and somewhere along the line you just sprint as long and as hard as you can and you get as much top speed as you can. It wasn't easy. Being a kilometer racer was probably the toughest event that you could possibly do on the track, next to the individual pursuit anyway.
Please tell us exactly how Gardner came to know you. What did he see to make him believe you were the one that could pilot the Gold Rush to such speeds?
Well, I think I was the first guy that got in that bike that didn't crash the darn thing. So he knew instantly that was a start. After that first race (where I finished 2nd), I went 46mph in 1978. We barely lost to who was (at that time) the guy who'd been winning year after year. Gardner felt pretty good getting 2nd place to him, so he felt encouraged. Since I didn't crash the thing he knew I had potential. The next year he made a few modifications on that bicycle and I went back in 1979 and we won top speed for a single. In doing so, we became the first person to ride a bicycle over 50mph. Now nobody at that time had broken the 50mph barrier more or less. Even streamlined tandems hadn't gone over 50mph, no two-wheeled vehicle had broken 50mph, but we did it. Gardner knew that we were on our way. That landed my 1st entry into the Guinness Book Of World Records. That was really something. You know it was one of those deals where it grew on me; it wasn't that big a deal until I actually saw my name in the Guinness Book of World Records and then I realized, "Hey, wow, that was a pretty good accomplishment!" I immediately said, "Yes," to Gardner. He didn't have to talk me into it, anything to make me go faster.
I had never ridden a recumbent before and I actually rode the 'Belly Bike' for a couple of years. It was several more years before I actually got into the Gold Rush. The story is, after 1980, I bounced around a few years. I went to a couple of other teams, I tried a couple of other human powered vehicles, but by 1983 I was back looking for a ride from Gardner. Now he had hired a guy named Greg Miller, a friend of ours, a good racer, and Greg was his #1 rider at that time. So by the time that the 1983 Speed Championships came along, Greg Miller basically got the best bike. I was the #2 rider, and I got their older version. Well, they had a few bugs with the new bike that Greg was riding. I went out in 1983 and proceeded to win just about everything. The only thing I think I didn't win was top speed that year, but I won the hour, I won all the road races, I won the veledrome race and set a world record there. But being his #2 rider, the next year in 1984 Greg Miller got his pick of vehicles again, and what's he do?
Well, Gardner had gone and made a brand new vehicle for 1984 but Greg having had so many problems with the new vehicle the year before didn't want anything to do with it, so he took my vehicle (the one I had a lot of success with in 1983) and I started riding what was to become the first Gold Rush in the shape that we all know and love. What a gift for me! That bike, it was a screamer from the beginning. We went back to the Speed Championships again and I proceeded to win everything. The only thing I didn't win was top speed. I probably did win top speed that year except a timing glitch; a timing error (or a blatant timing mistake on their end) probably denied me the top speed title. I did win everything else. I set a world record in the hour, I set a world record on the veledrome, and the Gold Rush, as we know it was born.
You know it takes a little bit of time to get up to speed in these things. In the older days it took a lot more time because they were heavier, and in my early days my timing was off (it was a learning experience for me as well as everybody else). Being a sprinter and a kilometer rider, I had the gift of timing. It took me some time to learn how to get top speed out of a bicycle and arrive at the timing traps just when I had like given it my all. A lot of times I'd get to the timing traps and I'd still be accelerating. There were several other times I'd get to the timing traps and I was starting to lose speed because I've already like shot my wad more or less. So, you know it was tough.
Generally speaking what I would try to do is, if I had two miles to get up to speed, I'd float, I'd get up to about 50mph, trying to be as easy on myself as possible, and I'd get up to a point where I could sprint for about a whole 45 seconds to a minute, of like full throttle pedaling. Now if I did that from 50mph on, then I could arrive at the speed traps with as much top speed as I was going to get. Now that took many many, many runs to learn how to get that timing down, and I still had trouble with it for a long time. The more runs the better. It was just trial and error, trial and error.
When Gardner first met you did he have the DuPont prize in mind, or did he just want you to race his bicycles?
Gardner just wanted me to race his bicycles (remember that was '78), but by 1984, that was the year I was starting to come of age and they announced the DuPont prize for 65mph. Now at that time, I hadn't even broken 55mph and I remember thinking, "They may as well make the prize a million bucks, nobody's going to win that thing." Think about it, from 55 to 65 is a quantum leap. Sometimes you're lucky to go from 52 to 54mph. From 54 to 55 seems like a quantum leap. How the heck are you going to get to 65mph? To be honest with you I didn't think it was possible.
But Gardner did think it was possible. Gardner started making a new bicycle. What we would call the present day Gold Rush in its nice clean aerodynamic form. So he had it in mind, and we made a deal, and we decided to go after it.
It took many more attempts from 1985 on. We took this vehicle up to Mono Lake, California, and found a nice racecourse. It was about 1.8 miles long, not maximum legal downgrade, but close to it. Problem was, every time we got up there we had wind. I had a lot of aborted runs, a lot of runs that didn't qualify because the wind gusted too high. Several weekends I went up there I couldn't even make a run because the wind was too strong. Not much to do in Mono Lake. You get very bored, and very restless. One day, it was Columbus Day weekend (October '85) we finally got an opportunity to crack off a few runs. I made a run that was about 63mph that was disallowed. I had a run of about 61.5mph that was allowed, becoming the first bicycle to break the 60mph barrier. No two-wheeled vehicle had ever gone past 60mph on it's own power (on flat level ground that is).
So I was on my way, we were looking good and you know at this point I'm beginning to feel that I'm getting to know the Gold Rush pretty well. I'm feeling very confident, and I'm thinking that there's not much that this thing can throw me that I can't handle.
So now I'm starting to ride it in pretty good winds, pretty good crosswinds I may add. You ride it into a crosswind the way a sailboat goes into the wind, you know, they are banking into the wind. Well that's what I would do. Then I had a horrendous crash at about 60mph. You know I never looked at the Gold Rush the same way again after that, because suddenly I knew that it could get away from me. I realized that at these speeds even a little bit of wind was dangerous. What had been happening is through the years, the Gold Rush kept getting lighter and lighter and lighter. When this vehicle was 60 pounds it could go into some pretty stiff winds and not be affected. By the time it got down to 30 pounds it was a lot to handle in winds. It started to scare me, because you get to the point where you think you can handle everything, and you're thinking you're pretty good, and all of a sudden you realize you just got thrown a loop and you crashed. There might not be anything in the world you can do to stop that, and there might not be anything in the world you can do to stop that from happening again. So all of a sudden my eyes were opened.
Did you do a weight-training program as part of your bicycle-racing program, and if so, what type of weight training did you do?
I did weights from about 1976 on. I think that was one of the keys that helped me make the Olympic Team. On top of an all around weight training program, where I did upper body weights and stuff, mostly I concentrated on my legs. Doing squats is probably the single best exercise a bike racer can do. I did a lot of them and that just builds great explosive strength. Weights are probably good for any bicycle racer, whether you wanted to be a time-trialist, or whether you want to be a pure sprinter. I think weights will definitely increase your power, and your explosiveness. I think doing weights is an integral part of bicycle racing.
Now there's a lot of great bicycle racers who never did. The Great Eddy Merckx supposedly never lifted weights. When you ride your bike as much as Eddy did, you probably don't have to. But I would think in this day and age if Eddy were to do it again he'd probably have to, so yeah you pretty much should incorporate weights into any kind of training program.
Lance Armstrong believes the most important thing for bike racing is being able to endure pain. Others believe it is genetics, diet, training, equipment and your own spirit.
Well equipment? No. Diet? A little bit. Training? Well, for sure, training goes a long way in making a champion. Genetics certainly plays a big part. Obviously, if you're born with a certain genetic defect, it just doesn't happen, but barring that, Lance is right, being able to endure pain is probably the single biggest thing. That is what bicycle racing comes down to, sheer will over pain. All races come down to just plain gutting it out when you are really hurtin'.
I think we are all familiar with lactic acid, and when lactic acid sets in at the end of a long sprint, you're done. Somebody could dangle a million dollar check out in front of you, and when you've just sprinted for a whole minute and your body is loaded with lactic acid you have nothing left to give, you're done, and it's just a matter of guttin' it out, and grunting it out and hangin' in there. Many races I didn't finish because I just couldn't overcome the pain. And many races maybe I won because somebody else couldn't gut out the pain. There are some days you're better able to deal with pain than others. That's the way it goes.
Speaking of Lance, he has a gift. We've known this for a long time. Lance has a unique body chemistry. His body produces very little lactic acid, so it's no wonder that he is such an awesome, phenomenal bike racer. Let me tell you something, if my body didn't produce so much lactic acid I would have been a whole other bicyclist also. So that is a gift for Lance. It makes him a natural, and it gives him a whole advantage over everybody else.
One other note I was just thinking, you know had my body produced no lactic acid I probably could have gone 70mph rather than 65-but, oh well.
What do you believe has happened to you in your life that put you at such a level to be able to power a bicycle to over 65mph?
They say you need to be able to generate over a horsepower (1 horsepower) just to be able to go 55mph. Well, like I was saying earlier, being a good bicycle racer certainly is a help. I think I had the right body make up. I am able to sprint for real long distances, and all the discipline I have had to be able to grunt out a sprint for over a minute certainly was a big plus, and all that training pays off. You just can't get in one of these things and do it. I doubt you could pick any super-star-athlete, who's not a bicycle racer and throw them in the Gold Rush and have them come anywhere near that. I don't care how good or how phenomenal they are. If you're not real efficient, and real good at specifically sprinting, and riding a bicycle fast, you are just not going to make it. It's just not going to happen for you. So all these things that I'd done leading up to 1986 and the DuPont prize, they were all just steps along the way that helped make me stronger, faster, tougher, and perhaps mentally tougher. You put them all together and there you go.
I looked at going 65mph as just another event, really. Just another event that I wanted to win. So I thought about it a lot, and I dedicated a lot of time for it, and a lot of mental preparation. I tried to visualize going 65mph. You just make it happen. You just try to make it happen, and you get as close to it as you can. That's it really.
What is your typical diet? What is your racing diet, and what did you eat on the day you reached over 65mph?
I'm not a real diet fanatic. I wouldn't eat a lot of junk food more or less, like ice cream, and sweets and things like that. I ate a lot of meat, I was big on protein, big on carbohydrates, and in the earlier days I suppose I ate even more carbohydrates in relation to protein. At one point the current thought was 20% of your diet should be protein, about 70% of your diet should be carbohydrates, and 10% should be fat. Now I really think over the years that did me no good at all. I think people are probably wiser now a days to go probably 50-60% carbohydrates, at least 30% proteins, and probably 20% fat. Your body needs fat to burn, if you're exercising. I don't think you should worry about eating fat, I think you should worry about where that fat comes from. It's probably better to have it in say the form of oils and butter than say ice cream or stuff like that. There are better forms of fat than others but I was not a fanatic about it. I had one of those see-food diets; you know, see food and you eat it! When we were up in Mono Lake we were in a town called Lee Vining (had a population of about 40 people) and they had a little restaurant in town. Let me tell you something, it was not the health food center of the world. So on that day I probably ate pancakes and eggs, or something like that. It sure wasn't any more complex than that and in the end, as long as your body has calories to burn, I think you are going to be okay. As long as you have energy on hand, you'll be okay. You know this was really before the days of all these energy bars and energy drinks and all these other things, so it was really not on the cutting edge back then, nobody was. Now a days there are certainly a lot better things to eat. If I were to do that same event now, I wouldn't eat anything solid at least 3 hours before I raced. I will eat a meal and try to put about 3 hours between that meal and when I have to really start working out. Then I would rely on energy drinks to supply the calories I needed so I wouldn't bonk (low blood sugar). That seems to work the best.
Please describe the actual feeling of pushing the Gold Rush to over 65mph, everything from the sounds, to the amount of effort and how it felt, and if you knew at that moment that you'd made it.
The sound inside the Gold Rush is incredibly loud. In the later years I got to the point where I used to stick cotton in my ears because, there's just a lot of noise in there. I can't tell you how loud it is. I can't describe it (probably 110 decibels in there). It is extremely loud. Everything vibrates and the noise echoes inside the Gold Rush. The chain noise, the wind noise (is just incredible), the road noise, the vibration, it's just extremely, extremely loud. I used to get out of it with a slight ringing in my ears it was so loud.
I think we had about a 5-speed cluster on the back. Racing bicycles only had 6-speeds, so we were using a 5-speed; one chain ring up front (a 92-tooth chain ring) connected to an 11-straight-cog in the back (11, 12, 13, 14, 15). So I'm starting off in a 92-15. That 1st gear would take me right up to about 30mph before I would shift into 2nd, so getting off was a little tough. Getting off was a little tricky. If you had any trouble, if you bobbled at all usually in that first 30 feet, you're probably going to fall because you don't have enough torque to right the bike again. So it was a little tricky getting off, but once I'd get going I'm just easing on the pedals. I break the racecourse down from where the starting traps are. I'd walk back towards the starting line and I try to figure out where about 45 seconds to a minute worth of full throttle pedaling is going to take me. I'd try to get to that point of the racecourse with as much speed as possible, but with as little effort as possible. I could get up to that point at about 50mph. So when I start I'm sorta' soft pedaling, I'm trying to keep my heart rate low, and I'm trying not to over exert yet. It's a little tough, because as you get going you've got this adrenaline going and you're nervous, and sometimes you want to get going early, and you have to talk yourself into being calm and patient, and relax and wait for the actual moment. When that moment comes you just stomp on it with everything you have. You give it your all, and try to keep it going down the middle of the road, and see what speed you have.
Now we do have speedometers in there. I'd given myself a little schedule, I basically knew what speed I wanted to be where and when, and I tried to follow that. The day I actually went 65mph I did not know that I'd broke 65. I knew I probably had the best run I'd ever done before, because I could just tell that I had a good run. I could just tell by the wind noise being louder than ever that I'd gone faster than ever. You just have this gut feeling, you know when you've had a good run or not, but I didn't know I'd broken 65 until after it happened.
The actual breaking of the record was the end of an extremely frustrating couple of weeks. We'd been up there at least 2 weeks in a row and I never really got a run in because of the wind. The wind just blew all day long from dawn to dark. I never really got a run in. It was very frustrating. I would have to drive 8 hours by car just to get to this remote strip. You'd get up there and you couldn't wait to get there, you couldn't wait to get going, you'd warm up, and then you'd never get a shot at it. It's very frustrating and at the same token, I'm realizing (because I'm waiting around for this) I'm not doing the training that I really need to do. You have to understand that I also have a regular bicycle racing team and season to think about and losing a weekend in May (or two) is devastating. I'm thinking to myself, "Well, there goes another 300, 400 miles I didn't really get. There's another race I passed because I'm up here in Mono Lake," and I'm thinking of all my competitors (who are racing and training and getting ahead of me perhaps). It was very, very frustrating.
So on the weekend of May 9th, 10th and 11th (May 9th was my birthday and I spent it driving up to this remote desert strip). That was great, I would have rather been partying somewhere but no here I am driving. May 10th I never get to make an attempt. We have news media that came up and they hang out, but I never get to make an attempt for them because of the wind. Well, they get tired and leave. Some spectators and fans they come and leave, because they get tired of hanging out. Believe me I was tired of hanging out. I had nothing left to do. By the afternoon of May 11th (Sunday) I am so frustrated, I just said, "I just want to go home." I don't see an opportunity to make a run because the wind is still blowing. Well, so the sun starts to set, and as the sun starts to set, I should back up a little bit.
Gardner convinced us all to wait until the day was fully over. I was all set to go by about 2:00-3:00 o'clock that afternoon. I didn't see any hope in sight. Nobody did really. But Gardner you know, convinced everybody to stay. Our insurance ran out at the end of the day, and he was determined to hang in there. He spent all this time, effort and energy, just doesn't let an opportunity go by. So he talked us into it. I grudgingly stay. But as the sun starts to set and the sun really starts dipping over the mountains, low and behold the wind starts to die down. Dies down to about 2, 3mph, 4mph. Now anything over 3mph I believe makes it an invalid attempt. Doesn't matter what direction the wind comes from. Believe me, any wind in any direction is no advantage for me and I am not anxious to go racing in the wind again, after that 60mph crash. I am a little leery about it.
So the wind starts to die down. About 5, 10 minutes after sunset the sun went behind the mountains. We decided to make a run at it. So I get in the Gold Rush (and it's cold up there too, it's probably about 35 degrees). I get in the Gold Rush, they strap me in, enclose me, and I take off (more or less a shakedown run, because I haven't really done anything for like 2 days except ride around a little bit). I need to do something to get my system up to speed a little bit, get a little heat in me. I'm capable of doing multiple sprints, and I do better if I have a prior run in me somewhere, so I felt like I really needed this run. So they push me off, I zip through the traps, at about 61, 62mph. The wind is certainly dropping, but it's got these occasional gusts that still come up. So we hurriedly throw everything back in the truck and get back up to the other end. We get up to the other end and I need probably a good 15 minutes between attempts before I can make another one. I just can't do intervals. I have to be fully fresh, but I also have to warmed up. It's kinda' a fine line there.
Well, now it's getting dark. In fact it's getting so dark I can't see the finish line any longer. But Craigwell, our official timer, he had a flashlight that he put in a cone and I could see that from almost 1.8 miles away, almost 2-miles away I could see the cone. So we've got one shot at this, because we aren't going to have any more light, we barely have enough as it is. Just about 15, 20 minutes after sunset I'm pushed off again for what is going to be my final run, win, lose, crash, draw, whatever, this will be my final run of the weekend.
As I take off, I'm getting' going and I'm getting' up to speed, as I hit my mark to go full throttle, which I do, I'm starting to pedal furiously now, and I'm giving it all I got, I'm probably passing 60mph, when I hit a pretty gnarly gust of wind, which made me back off. Now backing off at this point is a bad thing to do. This is basically why I didn't think I'd won the DuPont prize, because I had to back off. I didn't hit my brakes, but I had to back off, because the wind hit me hard enough (scared me) knocked me slightly across the road again, and I had fear of that other 60mph crash in me, so I stopped pedaling. The funniest thing happened there, and I really do believe that this is probably why I did win the DuPont prize that night. When the wind did hit me, I got this sudden jolt of adrenaline, you know when you're scared and you're going to crash and you're out of control (I was momentarily out of control when the wind hit me) you get this jolt of adrenaline like you might crash. Well, I just got this rage inside me, at this point I was so frustrated. I was so tired of waiting, I was so tired of not being able to make a run, I was so tired of the wind, I was so mad at the wind, all I could think of at this point was I am going to punch it and if I crash, that's just the way it is. We're going home anyway, whether I go home in pieces, or I go home intact, it doesn't matter at this point. Out of just total sheer frustration, I just stomped on the pedals, and I made it through the traps, believe me at this point I was actually just thankful that I made it. But I honestly believe that the adrenaline jolt is what maybe gave me the extra energy and got me through. I didn't know that I'd won the DuPont prize. I couldn't even see my speedometer inside it was so dark, but I knew it had been the best run I had ever done. Did I think it was over 65mph? No, I really didn't. I had no idea, but I knew it was the best run I'd ever done. As I coasted up to my catch-crew they were all jumping around wildly and when they said I'd done it, I just couldn't believe it, I just couldn't believe it, I remember asking them over and over again, "You're sure? You're sure? I mean, you're sure?" I was dumbfounded, but sure enough it had happened. A moment of relief. It was incredible; it was an incredible feeling. It was a real strange party that took place that night, in the darkness. There was really nobody to share it with, except Gardner, and Craigwell, and Sandra, and Nathan Dean and Alan Osterbauer, that was about it. It was funny. It was very surreal, very surreal.
Do you know what gearing the bike had?
Well like I said, it was a 92-11 was my top gear on that bike. 5-speed and 11-straight-cog in the back, so it was a huge gear (comes out to 200 and some inches). The bike weighed approximately 29 pounds. Now if you take a look at the position of a regular recumbent, how you're laid back against the seat, and the handlebars reach back to you more or less, the Gold Rush is different. It's as if right where the handlebars come out of the head tube there is just a pair of "T" handlebars right there. So I have to actually lean way forward to grab hold of them. So I don't lean back into the seat, my back isn't touching anything, it's like my lower back (my butt) that's right into the seat there, and I press into the seat really hard as I pedal. I just grab the handlebars. This position allowed us to lower the canopy a little bit; you just want a small frontal area. It's trying to get that aerodynamic package, so if I was laid back, not only do I not think I could get the torque I needed, but it wouldn't have been as aerodynamically clean. The Gold Rush position is certainly far less comfortable than a regular recumbent, but you know the sacrifices you make, right?
I don't pull on the handlebars as much as I brace myself with the handlebars. You know when you start tugging on the handlebars you're asking for a lot of trouble. You have to be very smooth, and that was one of the things that I had to learn to do was how to sprint without tugging so much on the bars. It throws you into a speed wobble, or you start bobbling all over the track. You want to go straight down the road. You don't want to weave from side-to-side. You want all that energy going straightforward, not side-to-side. You have to be very smooth. Again, it takes a lot of time and patience. You know I think it was something I excelled at. I believe I am a great handler, and I have a great feel for things. I am able to feel what the bike is doing, and am able to make it do things that maybe others can't. Maybe that's my gift.
We didn't make a lot of attempts before we won the DuPont prize, probably less than a half a dozen runs between 1985 and 1986. I might have made a few other runs that I had to shut down on (because of the wind) but all in all it couldn't have been much more than 5 or 6 runs before we actually cracked off the winner.
What do your upright riding friends think of the Gold Rush? Do they give you a bad time?
Oh, they don't dare. I think everybody likes the Gold Rush. It looks cool. It looks like speed. You know if you look at a fighter jet you know it looks like something you'd like to climb in and handle. It's a lot like the Gold Rush. On many occasions while I would be getting ready for Human Powered Vehicle Races, I would take my training recumbent out on my group rides with a lot of my racing buddies who have their regular upright racing bikes. I've torched these guys so hard, so many times that they don't dare, they don't dare give me a hard time about my recumbent, or they know what's in store for them. They actually act very nice to me when I show up with this thing. I still torch them anyway though.
Please tell us of your other accomplishments, among them welding those EZ-1 frames.
I've lost count on all the frames I made; I made hundreds, hundreds of EZ-1 frames, and I made hundreds of Tour Easys as well. I had great fun. If I could still do that and make a living down there I would. I love working with my hands, kinda' an artsy-craftsy thing. TIG welding is also another art form I got very good at. It is a beautiful thing, just taking raw metal, cutting it up and taking all these tubes, placing them into a jig and a couple hours later it is a bike frame. It's cool. I really did love doing it, and like I say I put a lot of pride in it. Every weld I did I tried to make better than the one before. I don't do much half-ass really, I try to put as much time, effort and energy into making frames as I did anything else. I really do believe if it is worth doing it's worth doing right. And try to give it your all. I used to make a lot of other parts there too. I used to weld all the aluminum handlebars (for years) and I used to build the wheels. I don't know if people know that. The wheels you're riding on were probably laced and trued by me. That was something that I learned as a kid. I hadn't been racing but a year or two when my mom finally got tired of buying me new racing wheels and came home with a truing stand one day and said, "From now on you're going to true your own." I learned how to do it. God bless her, she helped me in more ways than one. I owe a lot to my mom. I became an excellent wheel builder, and that's another art form. It's very tough to make a good wheel that lasts a long time. I enjoyed doing it. It was kinda' therapy in a way. I did like doing it.
I'm going to cover some territory here, some bicycle racing disasters and crashes that I've had through the years. Some of them are rather spectacular actually. Some of them are going to be on regular bicycles, most of them will be Human Powered Vehicles.
My fastest crash of all time, well you know what, before we go there, let me tell you about my first 60mph crash when I was actually trying to win the DuPont title. As I had sorta' talked about earlier, I'd gotten to the point where I was feeling pretty cocky in the Gold Rush, got to the point where I thought there wasn't much Mother Nature could throw to me (within reason) that I couldn't ride the bike through. So as it was, they'd sent me off on a run, I'd just finished a run of about 63mph, which was disallowed because of the wind. So they sent me off a little while later and I was determined to go faster. I'm feeling like I've really got the hang of this thing now. As I'm racing down the racecourse (we have a 2-lane highway) and even though the whole thing is closed for me, I'm over on the right lane, the normal side. The wind is starting to pick up a little bit, and now I'm leaning into it and it's just the way a sail boat is, so if the wind is coming from my right, I'm tipped over to the right and I'm banking into it. I just ride it, and sometimes I have to bank into it pretty hard, and sometimes I don't. When the wind is real soft I'm totally upright. So as it was I'd gotten up to about 60mph and I'm leaning into what is pretty good wind. I'm leaned over about as far as I'd ever been leaned over, when all of a sudden the wind stopped. That caught me by surprise, and when that happened, of course since I'm leaning pretty hard to the right, when the wind stops the bike veered hard to the right. But I caught that and found myself with only about a foot or two of pavement left before I would have hit the soft shoulder. Right about that moment I started to turn left again so I could get myself back out towards the middle of the road when I hit the wind again. Now this time I'm just starting to bank to the left a little bit so I can get out to the middle when the wind caught me hard and tipped my bike to the left, so now, it's forcing me over to the left side of the road really hard. Now to be able to turn back over to the right again you have to be able to bank your bike back over to the right, (I don't know if I am explaining this right) but anyway, I didn't make it. The wind is pushing me to the left, I can't seem to get the bike banked back over to the right to be able to make a right turn, and now I'm running out of road. I'm very hesitant to hit the brakes (probably waited way too long) and I'm basically going to run off the road here, so I touched my brakes and boom, the bike went down, just like that. Crashed! It was a complete shock to me. It went down hard. The bike started spinning and skidding and going around and round, and it basically knocked the wind out of me, we hit so hard. I slid for so long, and was spinning around that I actually, you know the side of the bike that's scrapping along the ground (the Kevlar) is getting extremely hot, so hot, and I slid for so long that I had a chance to pick myself up off that Kevlar and climb onto the frame of the Gold Rush and basically ride it out. Luckily I just slid off the road and went into the dirt and some weeds and stuff. Basically did very little damage to the bike, and I didn't hit any markers, or anything else. I slid right between a couple of snow markers (stakes that they put down for road plowing), slid right between a few, so I was really lucky. I never looked at the Gold Rush the same way again after that. That was like, "Whoa, what was that all about?"
I've had a lot of close calls since that time but always managed to keep it upright. I'm very wary of the wind. Well in 1992 during the Human Powered Speed Championships up in Yreka, California, we had a 40km time trial (an out and back course - 12.5 miles out and 12.5 miles back) with a very, very slight uphill going out and downhill coming back. Basically a very, very slight headwind going out, very slight tail wind coming back. So I was averaging about 40mph going out, you know into the wind, slightly uphill, doing pretty good. Starting 30 seconds ahead of me was the British guy, Pat Kinch and 'The Bean'. Now at this point he still owns the world record for the hour, and he's determined to beat me somewhere, somehow. He narrowly lost top speed to me a couple days before during this championship, and I know he's desperate to win this 40K time trial. I'm just as desperate to beat him. He's only 30 seconds up ahead, but I can't see him. We finally reach the turn around point, uneventful, and as he turns around, I don't think I'd gained on him very much at all, I'm still probably about 30 seconds back. So now we're coming back with the wind, very slight downhill, and in no time at all we're both running over 70mph. At some point probably 72, or 73, could even be as high as 75. I don't really know, because my speedometer at that speed was starting to run a little wild. Actually it was running a little slow. So, I'm forcing it now, I'm really forcing it to try and catch Pat, and within about 5-6 miles, looking up ahead I can see that Pat has crashed. He is already out of the bike and as I go by, he gave me a thumbs up, which I thought was pretty cool actually. He let me know he was okay. I passed him at over 65mph, where he crashed. He also had a 60+mph crash, and walked away from it.
So now, I'm screaming down the road (never before have I gone so fast for so long) and at some point it must have got to me, because I kept thinking to myself, "You know, I just have to back off because, this is becoming crazy here." I am like right on the limit, you can just tell the bike is on the limit. Just when I'm thinking that I'd better start slowing down here a little bit (because I only have a few miles to go) and since Pat's out of the race, I really have it in the bag. For some unexplainable reason, the bike just crashed. It took a hard nose-dive to the left, and it was the most vicious crash I'd ever felt. The initial impact shoved me forward and my head bashed through the canopy, knocking it out, partially ejected me right on the spot. I'm going to have a hard time explaining this.
If you can imagine the Gold Rush crashing on its left side, and when it fell over and crashed, it wanted to flip, but because it was spinning (it started spinning at the same time) it wouldn't flip. Every time it came around, it would start to want to flip again, and every time it would try to flip it would knock me a few more inches farther out. It probably took, 6, 7, or 8 loops, and with every spin I came another inch or two farther out of the bike. So now my whole head and whole shoulders are out of the bike, but for some reason my leg is hooked inside and caught inside the bike. That's what actually kept me from coming out. Now while I'm spinning around, I'm aware that something really hurts on my leg, but I can't really concentrate on it because I'm really aware that the bike is going to flip at any moment and then it's going to become ugly. My face is being peppered by little bits of road gravel that's being knocked off of the pavement (sorta' like sandblasting my face). The bike was spinning around so fast and so viciously with about 3 loops to go, my 'Oakley' sunglasses that I race with (they stay on really well) went flipping off. They even spun off because of the centrifugal force. So a few more spins later I finally grind to a halt. That was the most amazing thing. It was like at one moment it's like incredibly loud, and everything is great and the next minute I'm on the ground, and now everything is really loud. Boy if you thought that thing was loud to begin with you should hear these things when they scrape along the ground, it's deafening. Then it grinds to a halt, and you can hear birds chirping and stuff like that. It was very surreal. I climb out of the Gold Rush and I'm like, "What is this pain on my leg?" And I look down and what had happened was, the bike had burned and chewed a hole through the Kevlar (the first time we'd ever seen that happen by the way) and when it chewed and burned through the Kevlar, there was a spot on my leg that had gotten burned and re-burned and ripped off. I still carry the scar to this day.
So I climb out of the bike and I'm standing there and I'm like, "Oh man." I'm thinking to myself, "What was that all about?" And, "What caused that, I didn't feel any wind." I have absolutely no idea to this day why I crashed. I can only speculate. Was it because I hit a rogue gust of wind, or something like that, and at the speed I was traveling that's all it took? So while I'm standing there, a guy rolls up to me (an un-streamlined racer), he's on his way out (doing the 40km time trial too). He saw me crash right in front of him. He walks up to me with eyes as big as saucers and he says, "God, are you okay?" I say, "I think so." He says, "Do you want me to help you get going?" And I'm thinking to myself, "Gee, I am in the middle of nowhere, and I do have to get back." I'm thinking, "Well, okay, just wait here for a minute." I had to walk back about a 100 feet and grab my sunglasses. I picked them up, came back, wiped them off, and I sat there and I went, "Well, okay, why don't you see if you can get me going here."
I think his name was Ken Trudo if I'm not mistaken. Now, nobody has ever been able to launch me except Gardner Martin. It's a very tricky thing. No one has ever done it before. But anyway, I had nothing to lose here, right?... and Gardner is nowhere around, so Ken, it's up to you. So I get the bike up and get it pointed in the right direction. I get Ken where I want him to be, I climb up on his knee and hop into the bike. So far so good. He hands me what's left of the canopy, I stick it in the bike and I'm in top gear mind you. I mean it's hard enough to start in first gear, but now I'm in top gear. "Okay Ken, push me along here. Let me get out of this gear and see if I can't get going." So he pushes me along, and lo and behold, I'm on my way again. I take off and I start rolling down the road and before I know it I'm up to about 45mph again and, you know I only crashed about 2 or 3 miles short of the finish line. So I roll across the finish line, and I get out and I'm just thoroughly disgusted with myself. I'm thinking I just threw that race away. It was just pathetic. I survived it anyway, and it could have been far worse, but I will never forget the impact of that day.
Well, you know I wondered around out there in the middle of the road probably for a good 5, 6, 7 minutes I'm thinking. I lost sense of time, it could have been 10 minutes, I doubt that, certainly wasn't under five. When I finished that race I was thinking to myself, "You idiot! If you'd just slowed down anywhere along the line you'd have had this thing in the bag." The very next day I was standing around somewhere and our official photographer came up to us and he said, "Hey, guess what!" And I'm like, "What?" And he goes, "You know that time trial?" And I go, "Yeah". He says, "Well, you won it by 14 seconds." I just couldn't believe it really, I was like dumbfounded, because it really bothered me, you know you hate to throw away races that you have in the bag. I couldn't help but think that if I had slowed down somewhere along the line that maybe I would have won it. I was like, my jaw dropped, "You're kidding! 14 seconds?" All I could think of was, "I'm glad my sunglasses didn't blow off any further up the road," because that would have taken care of those 14 seconds.
I remember a couple years ago people were talking about how they wanted to say that you no longer had to wear a helmet inside some of these full streamlined vehicles, because they're so safe now, and I was thinking to myself, "You gotta' be out of your mind. You just have no idea what kind of crashes are out there." I was nearly ejected out of mine. That would be a poor rule to change.
In 1991 we took the Gold Rush LeTour to the Tour de France, you know what I forgot about this, when I was talking about my world records, I forgot in 1991 we went to Villeurbanne France, during the Tour de France and they had a world record attempt for the flying 1,000 meter time trial. They had a bike from Switzerland, a bike from England, and us from America. Pat Kinch was the rider. I ended up winning it that night. Did it in front of about 30,000 screaming Frenchmen. It was unbelievable. It was the first time I've ever been intimidated by a crowd.
Earlier that day I was at the local veledrome and I was practicing on the track and was doing lap after lap after lap, beautiful track, high banking, I was hitting some pretty high speeds. I had just started slowing down, probably got down to about 30mph when I blew my rear tire, down a straight away, and impacted rather heavily into the first turn, damaging the bike quite substantially (Gardner had to spend the rest of the day fixing, and trying to make it presentable for the race later that night). But Gardner, being the master that he is, managed to get it done. We were lucky we walked away from that without any permanent damage.
I never really crashed the Gold Rush a whole lot. For the amount of races I rode I didn't go down very much. Gardner will tell you he was rather impressed with that through the years. He really had to do very little bodywork on my behalf. I keep thinking if I'd crashed one of those vehicles earlier though, we might have come up with a newer design, but oh well.
All things come to an end I guess. I actually destroyed the Gold Rush that I'd raced so hard for so many years and not damaged. In 1998 down here in Monterey, California the Human Powered Speed Championships came to town that year. They had a long road race on a bumpy road, which damaged the fairing mounts on the bike. So Gardner had to have that fixed, and he fixed it, but the next day I went to ride another road race. Now I had pretty formidable competition by this time, and as I started this race, I started it in the Gold Rush LeTour because we were afraid that the body mount might not hold up in the other Gold Rush. But several laps into this race something started rubbing on the LeTour and it was kind of smoking a little bit, and I just really couldn't continue, so I came in real quick and jumped to the other bike, and took off in the Gold Rush (the one I was originally going to ride, but decided not to because we just couldn't trust the fairing). So here I am, I'm in 3rd place and I'm about a minute behind, and I'm forcing it now, I am really forcing it to try and make up the distance. I was pushing it very hard, so hard that, sometimes I'd corner until the body starts to drag onto the road, and then even then I'd push a little harder, so that I actually push into it. I actually cornered a couple times where the front wheel came completely off the ground and was only being held up by the body work, it's probably not a wise thing to do...but like I say I was trying to make up some time here and I'm Fast Freddy, right? So, something started to happen, and I didn't realize it, the body mount was starting to break and the body is starting to drag, the body is starting to sag, lets put it that way. So as I'm starting to corner now, the body is starting to hit a little more often, and a little more often, and I finally came around a corner, I came around what was the fastest corner of the race, and finally got to the point where the body wouldn't allow me to take that corner at the speed that I normally had taken it. I lifted that front wheel off the ground and crashed rather hard and spun it around and it spun off the road and actually hit a curb and pretty much destroyed the Gold Rush, as we know it. This bike that I had had so much success in finally got destroyed. The frame was still basically okay but the body was pretty much damaged beyond repair, and I was sad to see it go. I actually got hurt on that one too because it was my back and hip that actually took the impact of the curb. Kinda' ended my weekend, but hey, it wasn't permanent.
You know the hardest race I think I ever rode on an upright bike would have been...memory fades, you tend to only remember the latest things, maybe I should, but I'll tell you, I remember one from 1978. It was during the World Championships in Germany. This was called the 50 kilometer points race. Now, they don't even have the 50 kilometer points race anymore. I think because it was too grueling? I have no idea. You figure it's about 32 miles and you have a sprint every mile. So you're talking 30+ sprints, a sprint about every 5 laps, you barely finish recovering from the one sprint, and you're getting ready to sprint again. We finished this race in about one hour flat. So we had about a 30mph average speed. This was the World Championships, and it was tough. Everybody who was good was there. Out of 40 guys who started this, I finished 15th. At that point, that was pretty good, that was pretty awesome because no American had even qualified for a points race before. We couldn't even get into the big show; they couldn't even get through the heats. But I managed to do pretty well; I managed to get into the race. But this race, I had my claws out almost the whole time. It's one of these races we'd be going so fast and then we'd be going faster, and then we're going even faster, and it's like lap after lap, and I'd look up every now and then and it's like: "WHO is leading this pack? It's like, what is going on here?" And then mercifully a sprint would come along and it would momentarily break for a second and you'd get about ten seconds to catch your breath before the wave from (everybody would swing up the track, and then everybody in back would attack) boom, here we go again. You'd go faster, and faster, and faster and faster, until it just did this on and on and on. When I ended that race, I developed a cough, it was like exercise induced asthma (I don't have asthma) but I had irritated my bronchial tubes so bad that I had an instant cough that went down, and I got this incredible cold and then I couldn't even talk for a day or two. I got sick, it just thrashed me, it just totally thrashed me. This was in late August, and usually by late August you are in very good racing shape. Things like that normally don't happen, but it was incredible, that was one tough race. Really I think only about 20 guys finished the darn thing to be honest with you.
My hardest HPV race probably could have been one of my hour record attempts. I would say it would have been the first one in 1984 when I set an hour record at the Indianapolis Raceway Park. The track was so bumpy (they've since repaved it) now it's beautiful, it's so beautiful, it's just so smooth, ah, it's incredibly smooth. But back then it was at the end of its use, they hadn't even used the racetrack for a year or two. The cars couldn't use it because it was too bumpy. But they gave it to the bikes. I had grave doubts that the bike was even going to finish a whole hour, because something would break or fall apart because of all the bumps and banging. On top of that when you try to go flat out for an hour, it's just incredibly tough and it was all I could do to hang on. In fact, it's kind of funny now, but late in the race, probably in that last 15 minutes I really started to fall apart. The last 15 minutes lasted a lifetime. Gardner was hanging out these signs saying, "FASTER!" Faster, Faster, Faster, finally he hung out a sign that said, "Faster Damn it!" I actually got a real kick out of that. There was probably enough humor involved there that made me stick with it. But boy that was another race that I got out of and I was thrashed. I just had to go back to the hotel and sleep. I was worthless until the next day.
My closest race on a regular racing bike was 1976 (the year I made the Olympic Team). I was in a criterium. It was a race I had dominated early on, it was a twisty little criterium, and I'm really kind of good in the turns and stuff like that. I dominated the first half but then for some reason it kinda' got away from me a little bit and late in the race this one guy, Mark Benditi was his name, he broke away. He got a pretty sizeable lead on us, so with about 5 laps to go I take off after him, and I'm chasing him down, and I'm chasing him down and I'm going hard, and I'm going hard, and I'm making progress on him, but boy, I'm running out of laps. I'm coming down to the last lap and you come down this slight downhill go around a right corner and then you have maybe 500 meters before the finish line. I have started my sprint way early, I'm going flat out, and I'm catching him like he's standing still, but it's like there's no way I am going to catch him. There's just no way. But I'm going so fast that I don't feel like backing off you know, it's going to be close, but I can see that I'm not going to get him. Lo and behold, about 20 feet before the finish line Mark lets go of the handlebars and throws his hands in the air. When he does that, it sealed his fate. Then he looks over his shoulder and sees me coming and starts to put his hands back down and I picked him right at the line, I probably beat him by an inch. I've actually had maybe some closer track races, sometimes when you do match sprints you have a lot of races where you're neck and neck, side-by-side. But this is certainly more of an all out road race and it was certainly one of the most spectacular wins.
The best race I ever had, I'll have to think about that for a sec., but I'm going to go with, July 1991. I won the 50-kilometer points race (a race they no longer have, maybe because it's too grueling, I don't know). It was in L.A. at the Olympic Veledrome, during the Olympic Sports Festival. We had a lot of good competition, and what was kinda' unique about this was, I'd just come back from Europe a couple weeks earlier and I had this flat spot in my season. Sometimes you have these high and lows, things kind of go in circles. Sometimes you're really on; sometimes you're really off. I was going through a down cycle. When that happens you lose confidence and it's just not a good thing. Here I am, I go to the L.A. Sports Festival and it's a huge event, and it's a terrible time to be going through a flat spot. I manage to win the 1K-time trial, which was amazing enough, so I got a little bit of confidence back.
Then we go to the 50-kilometer points race (it's 150 laps on this track and it's a sprint every mile for 30 miles). I doubted my condition a little bit so I used a slightly lower gear than I normally did. At this point in my career I was getting (strategy-wise) a little better than I normally was, and I was pretty smart. In the end I lapped everybody 3 times, 3 laps up on the field, and just had a dominating race. I got a break actually. The one guy that finished 2nd was involved in a major crash, and he got hurt pretty bad. When you get hurt in a race like this, they give you 3 laps to get back in, so it's not like they penalize you for crashing. When he crashed I was thinking to myself, "Good, got rid of him!" But then all of a sudden, boom, he's back into the race. I was really on that day. I still think back to that race, that was one grueling race, but it went my way, and it was great. The stands were full, there were 10,000 people there and they were banging wildly on the boards and stuff. It was kind of a unique thing.
Did I go over my fastest race? This was in 1992, back in New Jersey. They had a race called the New Jersey Banked Classic. This was one race in a series on the east coast that had all the professional racers in America in it, as well as a bunch from Europe (Tour de France racers etc.). This race is 110 miles long and was touted as the world's fastest road race at the time. It started at 4:30 in the afternoon, so they're banking on us being pretty fast. All pro road races are kind of funny. They all sorta' start off a little slow, and then they all end up very fast. This race was true to form. It's a road race, it goes out in the country, we even got lost out there somewhere (the cops led us off on the wrong road). We spent about 5 or 10 minutes regrouping and getting back on the right course. But once we did we finished this race in about 3 hours (well under 4 hours). I finished 50th out of about 200 guys. I could have done better, I could have done worse, I'm not sure. There was a horrendous crash on the last lap in one of the turns and at one point I actually had to get off my bike and step over about 10 guys and get back on. While I was hopping over guys I got passed by a bunch, but you know I also hopped over a bunch of guys that were in front of me. That race was so fast that the last 20 miles of this race the whole pack was basically single file. It was just strung out. It was incredible, a huge crowd, just cheering everybody on. It was something else.
There's so much stuff I could cover, so much stuff I've left out. Let me just recap a few things here. I raced for over 22 seasons, I set 15 world records, 4 of them still stand. I was listed in the Guinness Book forever it seems like (haven't been in there the last few years). From l98l on you can usually find my name in there.
One of my greatest, or proudest achievements is the Gold Rush rests in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D. C., and it should be there forever. It's on permanent display they say. It's in a pretty prominent spot too; I've had many people tell me that it's right there when you walk in. I was there in 1987 when they inducted it into the Smithsonian, but since then they've built a whole new wing and remodeled it, and I haven't seen it in its new place. Maybe someday I'll get there.
I was on the 1976 Olympic team; I would have made the 1980 Olympic team, had Jimmy Carter not boycotted the Summer Olympics. Way to go Jimmy. That made me an instant Republican I'll have you know too. I've had 2 World Championship titles in the UCI. I've had 3 world titles in the National Cycle League, 2 national titles; 3 silver medals from U.S. Professional Track Racing Series; 12 silver medals from the U.S. National Track Racing Championships and 3 bronze medals. An interesting thing... in those days the Nationals were the biggest thing you could really do. The Olympics and the World Championships, next to that, going to the Nationals and winning a National title was the biggest thing you could do. Now a days they've got so many events that not everybody shows up at these National events. Back then, EVERYBODY went. They were tough. I have about 22 State Championship medals. I couldn't tell you how many races I've won. I'm going to guess it's over 350. I won top speed through IHPVA 7 times.
I'm going to say the Gold Rush is probably the world's most famous bicycle. We've done shows for ESPN a couple times. Those shows were shown in over 130 different countries, different languages... we've been in so many books and magazines, it's impossible to list them all. History books, science books, and school textbooks.
You know, my daughter Tanya she is starting to race now, and she's got the knack. I'm sure they all do really, but I'm thrilled. I've got such a kick watching my little girl get in the Gold Rush and actually get that thing going. You know I had her in that thing when she was just a baby standing on the seat, couldn't even sit down on the seat and look over the edge. And then one day she gets in it, she was 12 years old, put her on the track and she gets going. She did it with a fair amount of pressure on her too, a lot of people watching her; really she made it look so easy. I had everybody convinced that the Gold Rush was hard to ride, and then she gets in the darn thing and she makes it look easy. What do you make of that?
She's a total natural. Hopefully, from time to time we'll get her in there doing some racing. A couple more girls behind her, so hopefully I can get them going.
That does lead me back to a question you had earlier I didn't answer.
Do you do personal training?
Well, I used to. I wrote up manuals (I think Laurie has one of the manuals). You could certainly get very scientific about it, you can certainly go get heart rate monitors and charts and things like that. At some point I'm just a little reluctant to make a real science out of it, because it can be so easy. Really, at some point all you need to do is just get on your bike and ride. If you just get on your bike and just ride, ride, ride, ride a lot, ride three, four times a week, you are going to stumble into 80-90% of the total top fitness you could really achieve anyway. So what's so tough is getting out those last percents. You just have to decide how into it you are, how motivated you are, and where you want to go. From there, it gets a little tougher to get those last few percents out. That manual is basic, it's straightforward and I think it's easy to read. If you do half the stuff in there, you're going to be a better bike racer.
I do train. I've trained a lot of people. I trained a girl who went on to win a couple Gold Medals at the Pan Am Games, and competed in the Olympics a couple times, for El Salvador. I've had a little bit of success with a few people. I just plain ran out of time. I took on another job, at least I was smart enough to take it when it came. I have an older brother, Nelson (a independent contractor for the phone company). We have Pacific Bell down here, but Pacific Bell can't handle much, so they rely on individual contractors to do their stuff, that's what I am. It's a pretty good job. I'm making good money now and I'm hardly working more than 40 hours a week. I really have time to ride. I'm not riding a whole lot now a days. You try racing for 22 seasons, and it takes a little intensity out of your life. If I ever go anaerobic again I think it will be way too soon. Maybe not, I'm just now beginning to feel like I could actually ride again, and ride a little harder than normal, but right now I'm just happy to just get out and flop pedals really. I don't mind getting out on my mountain bike and putting out in the mountains. We've got some beautiful mountains around here, that's cool. I just found it tough to juggle work and coming back and start juggling people's schedules. So I really don't have anybody right now. But you know maybe in the future, it's always a possibility. I really wouldn't mind doing it, but right now I'm not training anybody. I've got a couple daughters coming up real soon and I might have my hands full training them.
A lot of my training involved motor pacing, I think motor pacing is like an integral part of training. I used to draft trucks a lot, and I used to catch them on highways. Sometimes, oh boy sometimes, I'd draft them for miles on end. I'd stay on a truck 8-10 miles before I'd finally get lost, or they'd blow me off, go too fast I couldn't hang on. Certainly I have a lot of amazing stories from drafting trucks.
Gosh, I think that's it. Oh, you know what? One other thing you can even publish my email address if people want to contact me or ask me questions from time to time. I have no problem with that. So, now I think that's it. Well anyway, Connie, Laurie, I hope that gives you a little something to work with. I've only touched on half of the stuff I've done but gosh it's kinda' overwhelmed me.
It's just a start, huh? So you guys stay in touch. I'll talk to you soon... bye, bye...
Fast Freddy Markham - fredee1st@comcast.net
