Compliments

If you ask Carl, he?ll tell you that the most important influence during the time he was racing and training was the people he had an opportunity to train with individually and learn from. Carl would like to thank these people and appreciates the many others who taught him over the years.

Perhaps you know some of the names:

Mike Dennis
Mike was one of the two people instrumental in getting Carl started in racing. Mike had been racing since the early 1960's and had traveled throughout the Midwest and Western US racing road and some track. He consistently finished in the top three to five in the biggest road races, finished second in the Aspen Alpine Cup (precursor to the Red Zinger which later became the Coors Classic) when it was the biggest stage race in the US, and he rode Mt. Evans six times never finishing worse than sixth. He won Mt. Evans in 1968. Mike was a regular training partner with Carl in 1968 and early 1969 and had a lot of influence on Carl's racing.

George Gamble
George was the other person who got Carl hooked on road racing. George who was from England, won the British National Junior Hill Climb Championships in 1959, was on the British Olympic Road and Track Team (Road Race and Match Sprints), was the British National Senior Men's Time Trial Champion in 1960, and rode in Europe as a neo-pro in 1961. George was also a regular tutor for Carl and taught him a lot about racing, training, and strategy.


Gene Rypka, PhD
Doctor Rypka was an exercise physiologist who taught Carl a lot about the function of the human body during the time Carl was studying exercise physiology and coaching. He taught Carl to use science in relation to exercise and rest to improve his cycling and Carl continues to use these valuable lessons with the cyclists he coaches as well as in his book; A Better Way To Train.

Tom Garrity
Tom Garrity was from the Chicago area and probably the best US road racer in 1967 and 1968. He was very experienced, fast, and smart. Outstanding at road racing and very good on the track, he helped Carl improve his sprinting, climbing, tactics, riding in bad weather, sports psychology, and racing in general. He was Carl's tutor during the spring of 1969 and was individually responsible for making Carl the best racer in New Mexico until Carl retired from racing. One of the reasons that Carl started training with Tom was that no one else in New Mexico would train with Tom because they couldn't stay with him. Carl figured that, if he could train with Tom and get to where he could stay with Tom; then no one would be able to stay with him either. It worked.

John Van de Velde
John was also from Chicago and with his considerable experience in Europe was ranked as one of the top eight pursuit riders in the world. Carl began training with John in the Spring of 1970 when Carl found out that like Tom, no one in New Mexico would train with John because they couldn't stay with him either. John was attending the University of Albuquerque and during the school year, he would fly to Europe every three to four weeks to ride Belgian pro-am road races with some of the best pro's in the world including the infamous Molteni Team, spending the entire summer racing in Europe. John taught Carl even more about racing, training, European team tactics, sprinting, and just going fast. John later raced professionally for a number of years.

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