Michael Creed Interview

By

Betsy Baker

Betsy Baker sat down with Michael Creed before the Tour de Georgia to discuss his career, the Rock Racing experience, the Tour de Georgia and a few other interesting things. USCR thanks Michael for his time and his candor in answering the questions. Now let’s get to it.

BB: In looking over your career you have ridden with some very prominent names, and I was wondering, there was a recent poll in Bicycling Magazine that voted the team you’re riding for now, Rock Racing, as their favorite Pro racing team.  How would you compare that to some of the past teams you have ridden on?

MC: One thing I have been telling everybody is there are all these stories and rumours about the team.  The team is easy to gossip about especially with other cyclists. I think when other people look at our team I wonder if they think it’s just a big mess or it is all doom and gloom. But the point I’m trying to get across to you guys is that I have never been on a team where I have been more relaxed. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain but, because it’s a new team it’s a new way of thinking.  There is not a lot of history or tradition on the team so everything is really new and it’s really relaxing in a way because you can’t fall outside the norm of the team. It’s easy to fit in, everybody is really nice and there’s not a lot of pressure. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, but I really love the team and have never been happier on another team, at least in the last five or six years.

BB: There’s been quite a lot of distraction unfortunately for the team before the Amgen Tour of California and then really not sure if you were going to race at the Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T.  Is that detrimental to you or do you just go ahead with your preparations like you’re going to be on the starting line letting management take care of the management side of it and you do your business of riding the bike.

MC:  The management definitely deals with that side. In honesty, I didn’t think that we were doing Georgia. After Redlands I took a week off, relaxed and just started training a little bit and then we found on April 15th out that we were going and then it snowed in Colorado so my training has been sub-par to say the least, but at the same time I mean I was more than happy to come out and okay maybe the first couple of days the guys might be a little sluggish, but I think we’ll come around nicely. As far as the distraction goes, the team’s really professional about it. The management doesn’t really make us stress about it. They just tell us they’ll take care of it and they’re 100% behind us.

BB:  As a long-time fan of cycling myself, I’m curious. Why do you think there appears to be a European envy in American cycling? In the sense that, granted, we don’t have their traditions of the great classics and the Grand Tours. Do you think it’s necessary for cycling to be successful in the United States and North American by emulating and pandering to the Europeans or can we stand alone with our own racing calendar?

MC: There’s always going to be that model because they have the Pro Tour and the classics and the monuments. It’s good for cycling because cycling needs monuments. It needs something of reference and what those races provide is reference. Good guys have always won this race or showed up to this race with their ‘A game’ and that’s good for any sport. We need checks and balances and a pyramid to climb to the top of. But with all the trouble going on in Europe with ASO and UCI and the power struggle and all the issues that are going on over there,  and the races are getting better in America and the competition is getting faster and the pay is getting better. As of right now I have no interest in returning to Europe. Maybe in a couple of years, but right now I go home in between races; I see my wife more, I know everyone on the start line. I’m friendly with a lot of the guys. It’s a family away from home. Whereas when you go to Europe you don’t know people, the races are lot harder, it’s a lot more cut throat. I think that’s really appealing to a lot of people like Botero who come here. I think it makes them not long for Europe as much.

BB: It would seem to me that American racing historically, not so much with the Coors Classic because that’s going back a bit, but the Tour Dupont and the Tour de Trump and the various incarnations, that money will bring the racers here. Do you think that if our purses are better we’re going to see a better caliber of racing? And I hesitate to use that term because I think the domestic teams rock  and even on my best day being towed behind a Ferrari, I couldn’t keep up with them. Do you think money will change…if there’s enough money, will it further upset the Europeans because the teams will want to come here to race because of the money?

MC: Yeah, I think that’s right because at the end of the day people have to make a living. IF there are more teams with more money, people will come. Ultimately, there will be people who want to race the Classics. As long as racing in America stays a bit more loose and relaxed, as long as they have that little bit more a family feel, people will come. In Europe, if you’re moving up in the gutter or the side of the road, people in front of you will actually push you off the road. They’ll block you. They’ll actually do that and they don’t really care. If you do that in the States if you’re moving up in the gutter, people will come over on you just enough to let you know that they’re not going to let you by. But they won’t take you out. It’s that fine line just to let you know that ‘no, I’m not going to allow it.’ But they’re not going to take you down. Maybe if you’re really aggressive you might get by the guy, but there’s really just that basic understanding in the States. You take things to a point but after that you’re not going to go the extra step.

BB: It sounds like you’re saying European cyclists are hooligans!

MC: Not Europeans, European racing. Not racers, but racing! It’s a very very tough group. They’re just doing what they have to do.

BB: The team’s performances at ATOC. Your team had a very good tour considering you got gutted at the start line with the non-start of three of your big names. And then your team improved at Redlands and won that race. So even not knowing if you’re going to Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, I would say that you guys are really pumped to come to the line with a full team again.

MC: Yeah. Everyone was just assuming that we would meet up in Colombia for the Tour of Colombia, so I think we’re kind of surprised that we’re all here. Good form doesn’t go away in two weeks and I’m sure Botero and Sevilla are still in good form. As for Kirk Obee and myself and Delore and Sean Tyler, our form is getting better. So we’re looking more forward to it.

BB: Which stage suits you the best?

MC: I think it’s maybe the 3rd stage. It looks like kind of a hard day. It’s kind of hard because they left Brasstown (Brasstown Bald) until the final day so it’s kind of hard to allow a breakaway until then. Maybe in a way it would be better if Brasstown was the 2nd or  3rd day because then after that they would allow breaks to go. It’s kind of hard to say what day you’re going to try to do something. If my legs are good it doesn’t matter. For me its all how my legs feel. I know what stages suit me. At the end of the day if your legs are good and it’s a dead flat day into a headwind, it doesn’t matter, you’re gonna go. There aren’t too many days that you have good legs. You’re a fool if you don’t try. You gotta try.

BB: If you could win any race, anywhere, which race would it be? And why?

MC: You could go with the really cliché answer and say the world championships because they’re the world championships, but more realistically I think it would be really nice to thinking in the states I’m think a track world cup or the road championships in Greenville. Yeah, I’d go with the road championships in Greenville either the time trial or the road racing.

BB: How do you feel about our championships having foreign riders. Do you think it should be open just for Americans?

MC: Yeah, I think so. If you’re going to have it on a course like Greenville where it’s really hard it should be just Americans. In the national championships you don’t want a guy who can afford to bring his teammates over to help him out.

BB: The biggest problem I see with it is that the first American across the line isn’t always first across the line. That negates it a bit for me. Can you go ride in the United Kingdom’s national championship or  France’s national championship?

MC: I think the only other country that allows foreigners in their national championship is Australia. It is what it is, you know. Philly was always like this, and I understand that. It was the biggest one-day race in the US so why not make it the national championships. But now that we’ve separated the two I don’t think we want to go back. I don’t think anybody wants to bring foreign riders to a one day race, to Greenville.  It just doesn’t seem very fair if you bring riders over. At least with Philly week it was three races, so there was a reason these guys were here. There were other races, whereas if you just brought riders over for the American championship with the sole intention of having them work for the national championship for another rider, that doesn’t seem very fair. If you are on a foreign team and you are by yourself, that’s just how it is. You can’t whine about it…go back and do the Tour de France y’ know.

BB: You’re living Colorado Springs, right? Have you ever gone over up to Boulder and done the Morgul-Bismarck loop?

MC: No, I haven’t done the Morgul Bismarck. I go to Boulder a couple of times, is that where you live?

BB: No..I have friends there and I used to go the Coors Classic, and I always ask people who live up there and ride bikes if they’ve done it.

MC: I try to avoid Boulder like the plague. I’m hands-down not cool enough to live in Boulder!

BB: Have you ever ridden Independence Pass?  (ed note:  Independence Pass, el. 12,095’ is still to date the highest pass ever raced over by the professional peloton.  It was part of the Coors Classic)

MC: Yeah, I’ve done that.

BB: I’ve descended it, but not climbed it. I cheated and took a car up, but I made my husband climb it. Do you prefer climbing or descending?

MC: It depends on the legs. IF they’re good I don’t mind. I guess my strength is my weakness. I’m not really bad at anything, but I’m not a specialist at any one thing either. If my legs are good, they’re just good and I’m going to go and I’ll just race. But that’s also a weakness because often times I’ll find myself in a group of 10-15 guys and I’m not the quickest. So in a way it’s hard for me to win because I’m not hands-down better than anybody in one thing. It kind of lends me to being a pretty good domestique in the fact that I can on good days make the front group of 10-15 and help out the climbers. I do what I do, when I do it!

BB: Ipod or MP3?

MC: Neither, I have an XM satellite portable that I listen to.

BB: What’s on it?

MC: I listen to talk radio, believe it or not.

BB: Left/right/center. Do you listen to Dr. Laura?

MC: I listen to Opie and Anthony mostly.

BB: I’m not familiar with that.

MC: You wouldn’t be familiar with them.

BB: How did you start racing bikes?

MC: My dad raced a little bit. He was into it. I lived in Montana and there was noting to do. There was not school bus so I rode my BMX bike to and from school.  It was about 5 miles each way and a teacher there was pretty impressed by it so he started videotaping bike races like the Tour de France and gave them to me. I went home and watched the Tour de France. We moved to California and I bugged my dad for a bicycle until I was blue in the face. Christmas, when I was 10, I got my first 10 speed bicycle, a Trek 400, aluminum frame, and I never looked back.

BB: Looking at the under 23-24 crop of riders, who do you think is the best up and coming rider and why.

MC: Obviously, Taylor Phinney. I had the chance to run with him at track nationals last year. The kid had his head on incredibly straight. He’s still just a kid. He wants to look at Facebook and listen to his iPod and look at girls; and for him this bike racing thing is just like this neat little trick for him. He gets on a bike and he just goes. It’s like a magic trick. If he keeps going like that with his attitude and no one gets to him, I think his future is limitless.

BB: Do you think that Connie and Davis will ride herd on him and try to circumvent that pressure.

MC: I think so up to a point, but there’s always going to be a director who is disappointed when he has a bad day. How he takes that and how he interprets that is going to be up to him. His parents can’t be around him all the time. His foundations are incredible. Obviously genetically and psychologically, with his family, I don’t think he could have gotten a better start. Yeah, I’m a fan.

BB: Who was your biggest influence and role model as a cyclist?

MC: My dad, obviously because he raced a bit, but I really didn’t have a lot of role models. I guess maybe the local riders when I was growing up. The local pros because they were the guys I rode and trained with .Guys like Dave McIntosh, Ron Peterson, Reese Houten. These are guys that you know, everybody has a 13-14 year old kid who shows up for the group rides. That was me. And group ride has the local Cat 1 that tearing the legs off everyone else. That was them. And they were nothing but nice to me they would take me out and they would drive me to races. They would show me this, that, and the other. I wanted to be as good as those guys, so I guess they would be my role models.

BB: So do you think the future is bright for American cycling? Are you optimistic?

MC: Yeah, I’m always going to be optimistic because I think Americans by nature are very hard headed people so I think that if there’s some American kid who wants it enough he’s gonna do it. You have Taylor Phinney, I think John Navant is pretty young, Peter Stetina is showing he’s having a good year. I really like where Tyler Farrar is going. I ‘m sure I’m leaving someone else out, but those guys seem to be a bit of a class above everyone else.

BB: Do you drink beer?

MC: I really don’t. If we’re celebrating I’d go out and have a beer.

BB: Alright Mike, I appreciate your time and when this gets up I will send you the link.