My New Favorite Roadie

9 02 2009

Kory from the DPMBP sent me this story from the NY Times. I think I have a new favorite roadie.

Like I have said in the past, I’m trying to be less blatant about my copyright infringement so you will have to go to the NY Times site for the full article.

Like most of you I have been hearing the name Svein Tuft for years. I just thought he was another trust fund roadie. Definitely not the case. This dude is hardcore. Read on.

Canadian Rider Has Made Unorthodox Climb to the Top

Those who have heard the tale of Svein Tuft have wondered, could it possibly be true?

Tuft, is now a member of the Garmin-Slipstream team. At 18, he spent $40 on a thrift-shop bike and built a trailer to haul supplies and his 80-pound dog, Bear, and rode into the Canadian wilderness.

How he dropped out of school in the 10th grade, lured by the freedom of the outdoors. How he evolved into a barrel-chested woodsman with Paul Bunyan biceps. How he ventured, at 18, from his home in Canada into the wilderness on a $40 thrift-shop bike hooked to a homemade trailer.

They have learned of the way he traveled sparingly, towing only his camping gear, a sack of potatoes and his 80-pound dog, Bear. The way he drank from streams and ate beside an open fire. Or hopped trains across Canada, resting as the land flickered by.

Now 31, Tuft is out to prove that all the raw travel and personal drive can translate into something beyond his survival. Recruited by one of the world’s top cycling teams, he is about to begin a more disciplined journey. It starts next weekend with the Tour of California, where he will race with the Garmin-Slipstream squad, and is likely to continue this summer at the Tour de France.

“He’s a late, late bloomer who lived a lifestyle that has been completely incongruent with any professional cyclist out there,” Jonathan Vaughters, the team’s director, said. “In Europe, you are pressured to succeed by the time you are 18, and if you don’t do it by the time you are 21, then you’re done. But Svein? He’s somebody who has lived life according to how he wanted to live it.”

Tuft figured out he was a natural racer at 23. He was home from a cycling trip to Alaska when his father suggested he try racing. In his first event, a local road race, he was in the lead when he dropped out with a flat tire. Two races later, he won for the first time.

From there, he blossomed. But Tuft also felt trapped between a life in the outdoors and one in the structured world of professional competition.

Kevin and Mark Cunningham, owners of the Symmetrics Cycling team in Canada, found Tuft in 2004. He was mowing lawns. After racing in virtual anonymity for three professional teams, he had quit the sport because he said he did not want to be associated with its doping problems.

But the Cunninghams wanted him. They knew he had the potential to be one of the fastest cyclists in the world.

“At first, you have this idea that this guy’s a nut case,” Mark Cunningham said. “But he’s not. He’s super down to earth, kind and a straight shooter. I thought he was going to be this extreme sports, in-your-face guy. But he was the opposite.”