The Hopeful Racer: Looking Back To Look Ahead

Bicycling.com's latest blogger is an aspiring-pro roadie from Florida. Join him as he finishes school, scrimps and saves money and wrestles with uncertainty as he chases a contract.

Welcome to the first of my blogs for Bicycling.com. I hope that my writing will provide a window to the glamorous lifestyle of an amateur cyclist and college student. You will join me on my quest to get to races, manage some results, and try to pass my classes at the University of Florida.

Please extend your right arm for a virtual handshake. My name is Phil Gaimon (kind of rhymes with diamond). I started riding in high school in 2004, when years of laziness and computer games caught up to me in the form of man-boobs and a double chin.

That fall, I lost the weight and earned the nickname "Skinny Phil" at the University of Florida, where I began a serious training program. In 2005, I won my first few Category 4/5 races, and upgraded to Cat 2 by May. That fall, I earned a bronze medal in the points race at Collegiate Track National Championships, and signed a contract with the VMG Professional Team.

In 2006, with only a year of racing under my belt (bib shorts?), I was probably both the least experienced "pro" and the highest-paid Cat 2 in the history of cycling, and spent most of the season floundering in big races (or crashing out of them). It was humbling, but a magical fact occurred to me: I was getting paid for something that most people do for fun. I knew that as long as I could make a living in cycling, I had to do it.

When VMG dropped me for 2007, I moved to Sakonnet, a reputable and well-funded development team. I was finally ready to race in the big leagues, which I proved first at Tripeaks, an NRC stage race in May, where I finished 12th place overall in a pro-heavy field. After a mediocre summer, I capped the year off with a huge 7th place finish at the Univest Grand Prix, an international road race held in Pennsylvania in September.

With several major domestic teams folding for 2008, a decent contract was hard to come by, even for some seasoned pros. I spent approximately 230989582099 hours on the phone in September and October, and it got to a point that I would have signed a bar napkin with a bicycle drawn on it in lipstick if it came from a pro team. Nothing worthwhile panned out, and I was lucky to get a nice offer from FiordiFrutta, a top-ranked amateur team.

Next year, my goal is nothing short of an NRC win and a pro contract I can live on. If that doesn't work out, I'll be graduating with an English degree next fall, and you might see more of me on paper than on a bike. I'll let you know how it goes.

Have a riding story to share with other cyclists? We want to hear it. Please e-mail Changing Gears Reader Blog submissions to David.L'Heureux@Rodale.com.

Comments

[Victor]

Congratulations and good luck. It is nice to hear a story from around here (Gainesville). I'm more of a cyclist for fitness, but I still pound out a few thousand miles a year and reading about you makes me wish I put more work into it when I started cycling (Fall'05) and was more willing to go into debt.