Team TIAA-CREF - 2005

Team Journal Entry - January 31, 2005, by Walker Savidge

Walker Savidge: My Journey through cycling

We all started out somewhere to get where we are now. I would like to take the time to share my story of how I have ended up where I am today. There have been many steps that have given me my passion for cycling. The first time I ever really started to love cycling was when I was about ten years old and my parents bought both my brother and I brand new BMX bikes. My parents couldn't get me off that bike for three weeks. I remember first seeing the bike and immediately falling in love. We had these big dirt jumps by our house in Denver and every day we would spend what seemed like four or five hours there at the minimum. We tried our hand at BMX racing but that did not go very well, so we just stayed at home and rode the local jumps.

Shortly after BMX riding lost its appeal, my dad starting taking me on mountain bike rides. These were so much fun just riding and seeing who could clear what. I really liked the rocky technical sections. I wasn't very good at going downhill so I preferred going uphill; it's still the same way today. My dad would go to Moab, Utah every spring and would tell me about the different trails that they had ridden. Once he told me about Slick Rock, I knew that I had to go and experience it. The year I turned twelve, he took me on his trip to Moab. I had a blast and was finally able to ride Slick Rock. When we were there my dad introduced me to one of the managers of Wheat Ridge Cyclery. He was super cool and had helped us with my BMX bike. He would be a cornerstone of my cycling development.

After that experience I started doing the local Summit Mountain Challenge mountain bike series. They have a really cool "mountain bike little league" that gets kids on teams that are sponsored by local businesses; these local businesses pay for the race registration for the kids. Mike McCormick and Jeff Westcott developed this innovative program. These races were pretty hard because I still lived in Denver at the time and coming up to 9500 ft. was tough. After two years we finally moved up to Summit County full time.

When we finally moved up Frisco, bike racing was not at the forefront of my mind. I was really into snowboard racing and had won National's for my age group. Biking was still just something I did with my friends and I had never really thought about cycling being my main focus. In the summer going into my freshman year I entered my first regional mountain bike race. One of my old friends was there from Denver and we were in the same age group. I hadn't really considered him a threat but once we started he not only kept up with me but thoroughly killed me. After that I said to myself that I was not going to let that happen again, so I started following a Carmichael Training Systems video and trained using that. I noticed a big difference in my strength, which helped me qualify for Junior World's in snowboard racing.

Once snowboarding was done I jumped right back into cycling and got a coach. My friend, who killed me the previous year in mountain biking, helped me figure out the whole road scene. He and his mom brought me to races and taught me as much as they could about tactics. I will be forever grateful for their kindness. As a mountain biker, I had moved up to Junior Expert class, and was riding for Wheat Ridge Cyclery. One person had told me that the transition from regular juniors to Junior X would be really hard and that I probably wouldn't have much success. I tried my hardest to prove him wrong. Unfortunately, I ended up flatting more often than finishing.

I learned many lessons that season, one being that the boy scouts are right "always be prepared". Concurrently, I developed an interest in road cycling. Considering it was my first season, my road season went OK. When I went to National's in Park City, I didn't race very well and was pretty bummed. However, I was able to redeem myself at the National Off Road Bicycling Association (NORBA) Nationals, where I won the Junior X category.

It was the kindness of the cycling community, again, this time in Summit County, which enabled this to happen. A member of the Tokyo Joe's cycling team helped support my trip to nationals: meeting me at the airport, renting vehicles, supplying room and board. In addition, I don't think that I would have been able to do what I had done with out the support of Wheat Ridge Cyclery and everyone else that helped make my dreams a reality. Wheat Ridge Cyclery really helped out by giving me a bike and other things that I needed.

The manager at the shop was actually the one who introduced me to Jonathan Vaughters. I feel forever indebted to them for helping me get on this team. I will do my best to use everything at my disposal to help my team. I look forward to this upcoming road season.

Thank you to everyone that has helped make this happen.

Walker