Jeff’s Best Days of Sports
Over 20 wins, 50 top finishes, 50 top-expert performances and quality achievements in: XC skiing (classic and skate), road cycling, mt-biking, velodrome, telemarking, snowboarding, triathlon, quadrathalon, adventure races, canoe, kayak, speed skating, inline skating, hiking, archery, marksmanship, running, crew, road-tripping, sailing, hitch-hiking, and all-round epic workouts.
My claim to fame in sports is that I did good at such a wide range of them. Also, I could’ve been called the underdog of every event I did. I was self-taught at all of them. Even so I helped others improve in every sport I did and was known as a savvy, stylish competitor. Also, I only did sports as an adult. You could say that a big thing is that all my sports were underpowered, underequiped, undertrained and undercoached.
A funny thing is that I forget lots of wins, top finishes and whole events. Whenever I look thru old boxes I keep finding clips for events that I did good at that I had forgotten.
Sadly, now that I’ve quit racing, I’ve gotten some worldclass XC coaching and I ski a lot better. I do most sports a lot better now, and often use proper equipment. (Ha, and I still often use rusty, crusty stuff, too.)
My advice is, as they say, to teach your children well–or they’ll have to learn it all on their own and screw up for a long time. And if sport means anything to you, try not to use crappy equipment.
Here’s my “mugsheet” of sports photos of yours truly.
And, now, here’s a list of event details:
Starting with Bike Racing…
75 crits and races of various types, placing top 10 in 40 of them
1st, Boulder Roubaix bike race in 1987, solo break, which I predicted to the pack during race, asking if anyone wanted to go with me
1st, Grattan 5-event points day
1st, Cat 4 crit (at least once), lots of Citizen wins
9th, Cat 2 crit, field sprint (last race)
40 km TT in 56 min—ave. 27 mph, no aero gear
5th, Madison track race, first one with Tim Feldkamp
3 national-class mtb races as NORBA Expert (incl Natls) without any mtb training, top 20 finishes
Last year, stayed with lead group in Cat 5 33-mi very hilly Kensington bike race with no training
Recently lapped an all-cats field in a crit with a lowracer recumbent, first time riding it, no training
Recently rode fullfaired HPV for 31 miles in an Hour race on hilly/twisty course at Waterford (3rd place in each of 3 Waterford HPV faired Hour roadraces)
Climbed Grossglockner mountain pass, ranked world’s hardest (Austria) in 2 hrs, pro’s take 1:45
Rode Hardscrabble 100 century in Colo with straightblock gearing (42×18), with fastest group, with a 25 mile steep climb against strong wind which had many walking, coming straight from Michigan
Did a 5-day stage race, contending every day, 13th overall
Big road race over two 11k-ft mt passes straight from Mich.–Iron Horse Classic
1st race set course record at age 18, Mackinaw Island
Many 2nds and some 1sts in Boulder points races, with big last-lap comebacks as feature
Did good without training in 40degF heavy-rain race in Ann Arbor in last year of racing
Colo training race breakaway and win over big steep hill, using big ring
Dropping entire snotty club except for natl team rider in first big canyon climb of year
Many 50-mi Thurs training race rides in AA, in 90degF, 90% humidity, average 24mph, finish top 5 most times
Club rides in last year of sport cycling—several sprint wins and good riding despite no training (28 mph pulls with rack and fenders)
6 rides in one day, 9 hrs on the bike with different groups
Rode grocery bike in 40-mile club training race with Cat2’s
Mack Isl to East Lansing in 1.5 days (250 miles) to come home after first summer of riding
80 miles in 3 hrs from Okemos to Grand Rapids, in heavy rain and wind
120 mi day, EL to AA and back
85 mile mt day at Uncle Tim’s thru rain and snow, until snow forced a hitchhike
Ride MTB across LA in 2 hrs (Long Beach to Hollywood, with lots of whitelining)
********
XC Ski racing, triathlons, ultrathons, paddling…
9th overall last Mich Cup season of XC racing (mostly 1st in age group and top 10 overall in all races)
3 successful XC marathons in one season–2nd place in Birkie Wave 2, all under 2:20
2nd place in two XC races
Age group wins in 20+ XC races, top 5 in 20 races, top 20 in 50 races
3 wins in biathlon, once in a skate race while classicking
2nd place classic White Pine despite many stops for rewaxing
3 wins in 3 wks in canoe tri’s, then a 2nd
Top ten in Mt Man (7th) and PPP (4th) ski-tri events 4-6 hrs long without much training
1:42 half famous marathon trail run—20th or so
Recently, a superfun 4-Day Up North Blast—with all day 25-mi Hike, all day River Paddle, all day Bike and open water Kayak plus Grand Hotel Dinner and camping out most nights solo
hardcore canoe and kayak flatwater race training for up to 3 hours at a time with worldclass paddlers, for a few years
40 pushups, 50 situps, 15 chinups, 23 dips, nearly destroy Nordic Trak on steepest/hardest settings—calesthenics personal record
9 hrs training in 3 sports in one day (my one outing for distance training for the Mt Man Tri)
Worked as busboy all night, drove up and skied a fast 50k marathon, drove back in crazy snowstorm then worked all night again. “Helper” friends slept all the way.
Surviving 1st Super Giant Slalom at Jackson Hole, 3 miles long, 208cm SG race skis
Fastest wax one day at Sylvan Sprints
Some great bumps telemarking in the big mts, made chairlifts cheer
Some extreme spring XC trail rock ice skiing with pals in Breck on Frickenridge Trail
Skinny dipping for tri swim training
Learning how to swim fast—then crossing the Danube river daily and a couple times across Lake Lansing (one mile open water swims)
Speedskating down the frozen Red Cedar for 5 miles
*****
Shooting sports…shotguns, rifles, pistols, archery…
24 out of 25 for skeet
a dozen wins in junior archery matches
shooting archery for 3 hours without putting more than 2 arrows outside a 10″ ring at 25 yards
shooting many dozen-arrow groups at 25 yards where all the arrows touched each other in the bull
shooting 14 .22 rifle shots in under one minute at 100 yards, standing, into a 8″ bullseye, ironsights
86/100 .22 standing pistol score at 25 yards
90/100 10 shots rapidfire M1 Garand 200 yards sitting, 30 seconds, 10″ bull, peeps
****
Roadtrips…
Riding motorcycle all day, plus 2 hours in snowstorm with deep slush, in Colorado
Riding Honda 175 motorcycle 18 hours to NY
Driving over 30 hrs straight, twice—many nonstop 19 hour drives
In 1983, From Mich, take train to NYC, then fly to Europe, bicycle for a month, then plane and train home again, for $600 total….last day: a banana, pint of milk and $1 left
3 weeks hitch-hiking around the NW, mostly Montana, sleeping in open air, meeting amazing people, almost hopped wrong train, including 1 week hike into Gallatin Mts, seeing bears, bagging summits, living on PBJ, hiked down 15 fast miles one morning then hitched until 3 a.m.–that was a big day, slept on picnic table in snow, hitched with great luck all during college
3 weeks, 10,000 miles driving around most of US visiting people with Martha, 1991, in Jetta, no motels
****
More recently…
Got pretty good at hardcore tennis
Heavy bag thai kickbox training for five 3-min rounds
Survived no-holds-barred martial arts class with younger toughs
