What do you think the US needs to continue to grow the sport, and more importantly even, to let it develop its own character rather than being the poor cousin of Euro racing?
I think it really has done that; more now than when I was racing in the late 80’s and early 90’s. That was kind of the time when guys first started going to Europe, in masses anyway. I can’t say much about European racing, though, I’ve never raced as a pro in Europe. I’ve raced other places; in South America, and here against European teams. Did you race in Europe as an amateur? Yeah. In Belgium a little bit, and in Ireland. I didn’t really have much desire to do it then. Why not? Well, everything was going so well for me here. I like criteriums, and I still do. It took me a long time before I could be competitive at 100 mile events because I was a bigger guy, but right away I was on the podium at National Calendar criteriums. I was good at it right away, even in my first couple years. By the time I was good enough to maybe do well in Europe, I was on a really good team here, making money. We were winning a lot of races and it’s not easy to give that up to go start over at 28 years old
