The Robbie Report is a weekly feature on MTBracenews.com. Robbie Squire is the 2008 Junior National Champion and the newest member of the US National Team. Just two years ago Squire was racing as a Sport. In '08, his first year and only year as a Junior Expert, Robbie won the Junior National Championship. In '09 his first year in the senior ranks, the Utah resident will be racing with the U.S. National Under-23 Team. Each week Robbie will share his experiences with us. Join in as the 19 year-old Junior National Champion and first year Pro travels across the United States and Europe racing his bike and living out a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I’ve been in back in Salt Lake for about 10 days and it’s just about time to start packing for my next trip to Canberra, Australia for mountain bike world championships. As if this wasn’t enough school started this week, which, has just helped to complicate everything. Things have been really busy managing school, training, travel arrangements, and equipment for the next week.
On a lighter note I raced in the Snowbird Hill climb this past weekend, which is always a fun race. I raced in the cat 1-2 category and also did the Ultraman competition that requires that once you finish the road section you jump on a mountain bike and ride to the top of the resort. I got beat up on in the road section and ended finishing second in a sprint to the finish. I won the mountain bike portion even though I bonked(ran out of energy) harder than I ever have before and was inching my way up the second half of the mountain climb. Apparently this year was only the second year of the Ultraman section being added to the road climb, which makes me the only winner of the race in history-cool.
The Tour of Utah guys also contested the road climb as the final climb of the tours queen stage. I stuck around with my dad to watch the riders as the rounded the last corner and headed to the finish. I was receiving updates from where the leaders on the road were and which of my favorites were in the lead. Turns out that a 21 year old felt-hollowesko rider won the stage against Salt Lake hero Burke Swindlehurst. The last kilometer of road was really exciting watching these guys along with many of the countries greatest road cyclist push as hard as they could to get to the top. If the crowds at the finish were any indication of the race’s popularity I would bet that the race will be back next year-hopefully with me in it.
In order to get to Australia in sufficient time to prepare for my race I leave Friday evening and get there Sunday morning after spending approximately 18 hours in the air. Qualifying for World championships was a big goal of mine for this year, however I didn’t realize how much work it would take to get everything organized to get there. The expensive plane tickets along with other fees were going to make it really difficult to go to this race. Fortunately for me a lot of local business have come through to support me at world championships. Bingham Cyclery and Riley at the Tour De Park City have been a huge help in finding me funding to make worlds possible. In addition to the great financial support I’ve received, several companies have set me up with some really sweet new components. Reynold’s Composites sent me some mountain bike wheels that in combination with the new Scrub rotors I received lightened my bike by over 1.2 pounds. This new equipment is awesome and even if I’m not the fastest guy at worlds I’ll definitely have the best looking bike. I wasn’t on bad equipment to begin with, everything on my bike was top of the line but just not the best available product. I’m pretty confident that my wheel set up is one of if not the best on the market.
I’m blown away by the willingness of local companies to help me out especially when the current economic situation is not too good.
Aside from awesome new equipment I’ve been trying to prepare physically for my race on September 4th. Despite what most people, including myself, think riding your bike as hard as you can for as long as you can won’t put you in the best shape to race. It has been hard for me to cope with this idea of a training plan because I’m used to just going out and riding however I want. That method of training produced results before but now I’m following slightly more detailed training plan, which I think, will help immensely. It’s tough because I spend a lot more time feeling out of shape than I would like but in the last few races it has really seemed to help. Only a few more days of stressing out before I leave, hopefully everything will calm down by then.
Robbie
