Retrotec wannabe

The recent YouTube by Daniel Yang on his visit to Curtis Inglis of Retrotec Cycles brought back some memories of my early racing days and the above (very staged) photo of me burning a pair of lycra shorts. I’m pretty sure the year was 1994 (30 years ago!?) and i was trying to market myself to my favorite bike brand and get a free bike on which to race the NORBA series.

The year prior I had just started racing mountain bikes. Although I grew up in the ‘birthplace’ of mountain biking, my friends and i didn’t race, or even know about racing, other than Repack and trying to beat eachother down the fire roads. When i went to college at CU Boulder, a friend of mine started racing bikes and convinced me to give it a go as well.

I won my first two beginner races and moved up to Sport where i met many friends, some that I still have today. I definitely caught the bug and in a couple of years i had turned Pro and was trying to make it a full time (paying) job. That didn’t end up working out but the experience shaped me and influenced what I do today.

But back to the photo of me burning fossil fuels…

My first “sponsor” was Chrome Clothing. At the time Mark and Doug were stitching baggy shorts in the basement of their south Boulder home. Someone suggested i reach out to them since i was racing in baggies and theirs were made for cycling with a little integrated chammy pad. They were kind enough to set me up with a couple of shorts and I was over the moon to have a sponsor that lined up with my style of riding! I was turned off by the billboard of sponsors on the lycra worn by serious racers. They honestly intimidated me, and seemed too serious and alien – I didn’t feel like i fit in. I liked riding in what was most comfortable which was baggy shorts and a t-shirt. My rides went into the mountains for hours at a time and i’d stop and get food and a coffee at the store and walking around in spandex didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t want to come across like those racers came across to me. I get that lycra performed better, but I liked promoting cycling – at every level – as approachable and something anyone could do no matter what they wore. I could care less if it was more aerodynamic, that made no difference in most mountain bike races anyways. Onwards…

I first saw the guys on the Retrotec team in Mammoth, rocking their modern klunkers in Chrome clothing and obviously having more fun than the rest of the pack. Their leader, Bob Seals, was unmistakable and impossible to miss, ironically racing in a pink tutu aboard his curvy tubed Retrotec. These were my people. So I hatched a plan to get on the Retrotec team. I asked my friend Nate to take a photo of me burning a pair of lycra shorts while wearing a Chrome shirt squatting in front of my Western Flyer klunker. I was trying to look as cool as the Retrotec guys really were. I sent that photo along with my racing resume to Retrotec/CoolTool HQ and waited for a response.

I never heard back. I never called to follow up either. No “thanks for reaching out” or “nice bike” or even “nice try!” I imagine Bob took one look at that photo and proceeded to burn his own fossil fuels with my resume, not thinking twice about crushing my hopes and dreams.

The next year I met a guy named Brian who had just moved to Boulder from Steamboat Springs and he was friends with the Moots Cycles crew and had been racing on their grassroots team in the Expert class. We rode a lot together, getting lost for hours and finding all sorts of whacky routes in the Foothills west of Boulder.

Realizing it was the people and not the plumage, i got over my personal issues and joined the Moots grassroots team and grudgingly donned the lycra. I started out very hopefully asking if i could embroider “MOOTS” on my Chrome baggy shorts but their new owner, Chris, denied my request. I had a decision point – to race in Moots team lycra and get a YBB, or keep going with Chrome who was getting into messenger bags and phasing out of bike shorts. Peer pressure got the best of me and I donned the billboard. It was a nice looking blue and green kit at least. I raced for Moots and had a blast for a few years moving up in the ranks and visiting the most amazing places in Colorado and around the US to ride. But i never could get past the feeling like i’d rather just be riding in these places and seeing more of the area than just the race course.

Fast forward a few years and a friend created a new pro MTB team called Ionic-Nema. Nema was the clothing, Ionic was the bike. I was so happy to be racing in baggies again! The others were all faster than I was and went on to amazing racing careers after just one year on this team. JHK, Pete Swenson, Nathan Schultz, and I were the pro riders and we had a ton of fun that season. It was 1999 and cross-Country racing wasn’t getting the big sponsorship money it used to. We were all trying to make it work but knew that we had to make something happen or find something else to obsess about. Pete and JHK both got picked up by the new Ralph Lauren Polo team, and JHK went onto an amazing racing career with Trek, including riding for Team USA in the Olympics, and converting to an Enduro racer before retiring. Ionic ended up closing its doors, having put a lot of effort into the race team and Eric needing to make actual money. Nema didn’t last too much longer either unfortunately. I officially quit racing after that 1999 season although did race cross and a few 24 hour races into the early 2000’s. But what a year to end on… I had my best placing at the ’99 Mercury Tour in Steamboat Springs with a couple of stages in the top 10 (mostly because the top 10 took a wrong turn on Rabbit Ears Pass!) and a hilarious scene on Outdoor Life Network with commentor (and legendary pro roadie) Davis Phinney commenting on my choice of clothing, “and here’s Whit Johnson in 10th place, not looking very aero…”. I’ll never forget that, or the friends I made racing, no matter what they were wearing.