Oregon Cycling Magazine

While working as the MC at the MS150’s evening program at Pacific University in Forest Grove, I was fortunate to speak to American cycling legend George Hincapie one-on-one as well as on-stage as part of the evening program. Hincapie is a four-time US Olympian; past USPRO National Champion; two-time podium finisher at Paris-Roubaix; Tour de France stage winner and yellow jersey wearer; and the only support rider present on all seven of Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France victories. He has finished every Tour de France since 1997 and is probably one of the America’s top-five greatest riders of all time.

We spent some time together outside the University waiting for an interview room and I was struck by how incredibly lean he was. He has an easy-going lope when he walks and reminded me of a basketball player… or perhaps it was just his high-top sneakers and black Nike warm-up pants that he wore loose and unzipped at the ankles. His face is drawn and I wondered how his tiny chest contains such massive lungs and heart.

The temperature was in the upper 80’s and while the recreational riders remarked on the heat, George, in long pants, thought it was very pleasant and found it a bit cool in the shade, sporting long sleeves for part of the ride!

George grew up in New York but now lives in South Carolina and Girona, Spain.

You have won TT’s, won field sprints, been a key mountain support rider but also a key GC guy…how do you characterize yourself as rider?

As a rider I think I have strength in a lot of different disciplines and I think that comes having a lot of experience and from the way I was brought up as a cyclist and what I did in races.

As a junior, you were on the track…

Yeah, definitely. I did a lot of different things when I was younger, so that helped and also being part of the team that I am on and protecting Lance in the Tour made me a different rider as well.

From the sidelines, I have always noticed that you are so easy-going… I read somewhere said “George is so easy-going it is a wonder he makes the start-line!”

Yeah, definitely! I’m that kind of person and I feel like I’m pretty aggressive once the race starts but I try not to waste energy anywhere else!
What’s the best part about being a pro cyclist? What do you enjoy most?
Oh, you get to travel and there are lots of rewards for doing well in races and you get to meet a lot of different people and just being able to represent a big team or your country in races is an honor and still is this to this day.

Training

Spring Classics and Mountainous Grand Tours are two very different beasts… it would be interesting if you could you describe a typical week of training for each? Say a week in March and a week in June?

The hours are the same, but in June I do a lot more Mountains, longer mountains. I go to the Pyrenees every weekend and do hour-long climbs while in March we can’t do that because there is too much snow, so it is pretty similar training as far as the hours go, but just longer mountains.

What sort of interval training are you doing for the Classics?

Still mountain training, I do just shorter climbs, a lot of power stuff.

How do you taper for the Tour? Lemond used to say he thought some guys came in too rested that he was motorpacing right up until a couple days before… how do you come into it?

We don’t really taper down so much, because you have a natural taper now as you now have to leave the Wednesday before the Tour so you that’s five days, well four days before the Tour and then you are actually there and you can’t train much while you’re there. The last real training ride is Tuesday and then you have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to recover and you can only ride 1-2 hours a day, so not much of a taper-down. We had a training camp the week before, got home for a couple days and then left for the Tour!

Post-Tour stage to the next day, take me through the process after you cross the line, what is the routine like…

Well, get on the bus and drive to the hotel or sometimes the hotel is at the finish and then massage, try to get some bed time but normally we get there kind of late, so an hour massage and then straight to dinner.

Are you eating something on the bus?

On the bus, it depends how long the transfer is to the hotel but normally we have food at the hotel… cereal, pasta, potatoes. But if it is a long transfer we will eat something on the bus.

Influences

You turned Pro in 1994 for Motorola with some of the great English-speaking riders from the 80’s. Was there anyone in particular that took under their wing and showed you the ropes? What were some of the adjustments that you had to make?

When I first turned pro guys like Steve Bauer, Sean Yates definitely, and Phil Anderson were very helpful. I tried to much as I could from them.

What were some of the things they had to teach?

Mostly how important it is to position yourself in the races in Belgium and the Northern Classics, they were always good at that. To this day, that is probably one of my strongest things, even when I am bad in a race, I can still be in the front when it is time to be in the front. I have quite a knack for positioning, which is very important in many races. There are guys who can go uphill super-fast, but if they can’t start in the front, then they have to make up a lot time, so positioning is very important and learning from those guys helped me alot and so to this day, I think I gain a lot in races even sometimes when I am not that good, if I can just stay in the front and then I am able to save a lot of energy and it helps tremendously.

Are there any riders, past or present, that you have modeled yourself after or really admire?

I admire any rider racing, anyone in the peloton, especially the Americans who have had to make such sacrifices to go over there and race. Cycling is so hard… I’ve done a Paris-Roubaix before where I finished outside of the time-cut and I probably suffered more that day than any other time, even when I was going for a win. When you are just riding, suffering to the finish line it can be harder psychologically than winning, so I just have a lot of admiration really for anyone who is out there.

Do you have any advice for the weekend warriors—what is the most effective two-hour cycling workout? So many cyclists just ride without direction or purpose. How can they maximize their training time?

Oh, Hill repeats… One kilometer hill repeats. Ten times up a one kilometer steep climb with a good, forty-five minute warm-up, do 5-10 times up a one-kilometer climb, thirty minute cool-down and that’s a great workout.

On Racing

I was thrilled last year, along with the most of the country I imagine, in Paris-Roubaix when you had three Discovery with Tom Boonen isolated after the Arenberg and thought this is George’s year… the whole country is just willing you to win that thing! Although, some people had said in the past you needed more support or should move to a Classics team, what is your response to that?

Maybe in the past years, but the last couple years we have had a really strong team in the Classics and with this team, I can pretty much do what I want, I pick my races and I race maybe sixty races a year while other teams make guys do a hundred. These days every race is so hard that I try to show up at every race all season I do with possibilities of winning. I don’t like to go races to just do it for training or to just try to get through. So it is nice that I am able to stay home more and train and I feel that I often train many times harder than races anyway, and really prepare for races that I am going for and trying to do well at it and the team allows me to do that and they have a lot of trust in me and who knows how that would be on other teams, so I am quite happy with that.

When you say stay home, does that mean Girona?

Yeah, Spain. It helps being near my family.

I have heard Sean Kelly speak of just “commiting to the cycle”… training and recovering, which sounds simple, but then being a young guy and not going out with your friends…

It is really difficult when you are young, but I feel like right now I have a lot of experience. I know how hard I have to train, the older I have gotten the more I know how much my body needs to be pushed and I know when to back off as well whereas before I would just go as hard as I could all of the time. Now, I think just knowing my body more has helped me a lot so I am able to sometimes cut back on training when it is necessary and still be in great shape.

We are proud of our tradition in the NW of producing quality riders and actually 10% of licensed riders in the country currently are from Oregon… Maybe if you could talk about Chris Horner, Tyler Farrar, Ryder Hesjedal, and Aaron Olson, all guys that are racing on the ProTour… from your veteran experience, how are these guys doing and maybe your thoughts on the Northwest as a place that produces pro riders?

Yeah, those are all definitely strong guys. Aaron, his first real time, first full-year pro in Europe and they put him in the Giro and he did okay. He had a tough time in the Classics but he was injured, his hand was all messed up. He is a great guy, I like him a lot, he is a hard worker. I think he is going to do well the more he races in Europe, he is really committed to the sport. Chris Horner, obviously is one of the strongest guys out there. It’s funny but before I never really liked Chris…I thought that he was kind of arrogant. I always thought he was kind of arrogant but the more I have gotten to race with him, especially in the last year or so, I truly respect the way he races. He actually is a really smart bike racer and really talented. Unfortunately, he didn’t win a stage in this year’s Tour but he is a strong, strong guy and I think he has some big races in him that he can win as well.

Doping

I have been involved in the sport some way or another since 1982. I teach, I coach and I am frustrated and at a loss as the last three Grand Tours have been tainted in some way with drugs. Sometimes I wonder what to tell kids. Can you give your take on the current drug issue?

I agree, it is quite frustrating. Every couple weeks, you hear more news and every year it seems to be worse. I have to ask the fans to stick around and continue to believe that people actually work hard and sacrifice their lives to be the best cyclists they can be and there are a lot of clean cyclists out there. You are capable of winning big races being a clean cyclist. That is probably the most important message: if you train right and if you live the life of a mature athlete, and really sacrifice a lot of the finer things in life, watch your diet, it is possible to win races clean. That is probably the most important thing you can tell younger, up and coming riders.

What needs to happen to improve the situation?

It’s hard. There have to be some drastic changes, I don’t know what, but I think it needs to happen within the riders. I think the riders have to have a stronger union, where all the teams are represented, with all the riders. Right now, each team is kind of on their own and there’s no union where the riders speak to each other because there is obviously a problem amongst some of the riders. I mean maybe some of those riders just need to be left out of the sport and we can start at zero. I don’t know, I don’t have the answers…

Dave Campbell is a past Collegiate All-American, Oregon State Cycling Champion, and Oregon Best All-Around Rider. He also works part-time as a race announcer and cycling journalist. He has written Dave Campbell’s Race Trivia for Oregon Cycling since 1992. He currently teaches High School Science and Health and coaches Cross-Country in Newport, Oregon.

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