Traithlete since '88. Some of the trends that I picked up back then and still continue today:
Drop bars with drops cut off (Pigg)
Water Bottle Belt (Molina, Hawaii '88)
Painter’s Cap (Molina, Hawaii '88)
Moustache (Rick Wells)
Cycle Shorts (Full length) for the whole race (Hamish Carter, OD World’s '93)
Ripped Vest (Glenn Cook, Avignon World’s '89)
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**Moustache (Rick Wells) **
Now, there’s a name I’d not heard in a long, long time…along with the likes of Andrew McNaughton, Rob Mackle…hmm, let’s start a “where are they now” thread of the pros from the 80s…
I thought McNaughton did a race about 2 years ago.
For those who don’t know, he was the dude who first used the Scott DH aerobar back in 1986 and blew the lids off the big 4 who at the time were unbeatable.
If there are 3 innovations that we can trace back to the 80’s they are:
Scott DH Bar
QR Superform Tribike
QR Tri Wetsuit
The last 2 are brought to you by the same guy that offers us Slowtwitch for free.
If you hate riding in the aero position but you have to cause its faster, the guy to blame is Boone Lennon (sp?) who brought you number 1 !
Going back to the where are they topic how about:
Glen Cooke
Jan Ripple
Ray Browning
Dirk Aschmoneit
Wolfgang Dietrich
Yves Cordier
**Going back to the where are they topic how about: **
Rob Barel, Kirsten Hansen (OD phenom for a couple years), Pauli Kiuru…I’ll have to break out the old tapes of races from the late 80s and early 90s (just found a bunch of them I forgot I had!) and see who else would belong on that “list”.
Now this makes me feel old!
I have raced all these guys from 1989 onwards.
Raced Glen many times as he was on the GB team with me.
Raced Wolfgang in Darmstadt tri in the early 90"s
Raced Rick Wells in Paris, he trained with me a little while while I was in France Two days on - one day off!
Yves Cordier and I raced head to head in may races in the early to mid 90"s
It was always the same - we would swim together, he would kill me on the bike and some times I would catch him on the run and some times he would hold me off!
I also remember racing this American guy in Marseillie, he thought I was a cocky kid and I thought he was an old fart! He is known as MONTY to most of you guys!
That’s Mr Monty to you, you young wipper snapper…Had a lot of really good times in Marselle, and yes you were cocky, and deserved to be. Did you ever think that you would be racing this long? You are one of the very few that have raced both generations of the great ones, and continue to be counted among them…Unfortunately I was older when the sport first began, but I wouldn’t trade the times I had growing up along with the sport for anything. I would have liked to do a few draft legal races though, I would have made a hell of a domestic…How about Kenny and Zofingen, ought to be an interesting day for the lad tomorrow…
On the girl/woman/female front, who were those twin sisters from Canada? The Punctious Twins or something like that?
The Puntos twins…canadian chicks kick A$$! LOL
t~
I think the first IM broadcast that I really watched all the way through was the one where one of the twins was DQ’d but wasn’t told until after she finished…she had crossed the line first. Paula Newby Fraser I think was elevated to number 1 if I recall…
Donna Peters… She used to race on a road team here in Seattle. Same team I was on. Did RAROD one year and ended the first 70 mile stretch (just before the real climbing started) with her in our paceline. She won a couple crits by just motoring away from the pack…
Simon, your old sidekick from Salon, John Westdal says hi. He keeps me very honest whenever we head out on speedskates and XC skis these days.
I guess we left Simon Lessing off the old school group. Was it your first Nice triathlon where you went toe to toe with Mark Allen for 28K or so of the run ? Was that in 1991 ?
I met Mr. Monty at the Forest City Triathlon in July 1986 in London Ontario Canada. The race was a sellout and all the talk amongst us agegroupers was that they were having the “other guy” (ie. the guy who won all the races that the big 4 did not win) fly in from California. We could not believe it. A REAL pro was coming to our little race in Canada. Very cool. He showed up with his silver blue and red Nike outfit. Next day, I went out and bought one.
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Donna Peters still holds the record at Wildflower !
That’s pretty funny that you remember that race. I was going through some old medals and trophies about 10 years ago, and I found the one I won there in Forest City. For the life of me I can not remember anything about the race, just that I was there. Maybe you can fill my brain gap in on how things went…I love when people tell me stories of the old days that I cannot remember, it’s like having the good times all over again…Is this what old timers disease is like???
I would love to get in contact with John, could you forward me his details?
Nice 93 - I was 22 years old, it was my first long distance race. I was so nervous that I got no sleep the night before the race, I got up, ate breakfast and then went straight to the bathroom and through up!
I could not hold anything down before the start of the race and I only managed to have half a banana on the bike.
I was already starting to bonk at the end of the bike and I was wondering how I was going to finish the run. Mark and I ended up running out of T2 together. My thought was that this guy knows what he is doing, I will just follow him!
I ran behind him to start off with which just pissed him off. I gather he thought I was playing a tactical game, the truth is I did not have a clew what I was doing.
Mark would surge and I would just hang on!
At 28-km my legs blew up and my only thought was to try and get to the finish line!
I ended up coming in a few min behind Mark and once I stopped I could not walk for a week.
Mark won Nice for the 10th consecutive time.
I saw you race and win at the Goodwill Games tri in St. Petersburg in 1994. It was impressive, as I had raced on the course previously a few times (as a US amateur) so I knew that how tough and hot the run was.
Anyway, reading your last post here, I hope you think about writing a book in the near future. I think your story of racing as a long and as successfully as you have would be a very interesting read to a lot of people. Especially details like this of what it was like to race Allen as a 22-year old in Nice.
talk about old school, and where are they now. I bet a lot of people don’t know that Simon’s wife Lisa used to be one of the top pro’s on the old Bud Light series until a horrific bike accident back around 87 or so. Does she still train much Simon?
Lisa Laiti. I remember watching the tape of the Hawaii '89 race over and over because of the IronWar. Lisa was in there contending on the women’s side.
Forward to one afternoon in the early 90’s when I went on a bike ride along the PCH in San Diego and ran into her. I introduced myself and chatted with her for a little while. She was going to ride to the other end of Camp Pendleton and back and asked me if I wanted to go along. I was in a full bonk at that point and had to refuse for my own sake.
Nice lady though.