MATT FILE

Hey.

My name is Matthew O’Hagan and I’m an amateur cyclist trying to make it to the professional level on the road and a friend thought some of you might be interested in following the trip, so I’m going to give this blogging thing a shot.

I’m currently based out of Revelstoke BC, Canada, admittedly not your typical cycling destination, but some of the training around here is top notch once, and a key once at that, the snow has retreated up the mountains a bit. Winter training came down to a mix of skate skiing, pushing weights in the gym, and a couple times a week on the trainer/rollers. The last week of January and the first week of February I spent in Victoria getting in some solid base rides up to 6 hours in length in and now am back in Revelstoke working and putting in some quality trainer time.

ITT in the Velocity Stage Race, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Racing sits just around the corner (and hopefully summer weather too as it snowed outside again today), I have a couple training races coming up later this month and then I’m moving into stage races of stage races in April, Walla Walla being the the first, pretty excited for it, 3 days, 4 stages and full rolling enclosures for the road stages. Also in April is one of my favorite BC courses in Race the Ridge which has a pretty significant climb every lap. Later in the year I should be getting to a number of other stage races including Banff, Tour de White Rock, and the Cascade Classic in Oregon, as well as an assortment of crits and one day races.

Matt (the blur in silver far left) going fast at the Banff Criterium 08'. You have to go pretty fast to become a blur. . . .

A bit of background on my athletics. I grew up playing the traditional Canadian sport of hockey, was decent but was forced to retire due to a shoulder injury late in high school. Decided to try my hand at cross country mountain bike racing, really wanted to try down hill racing, but couldn’t afford the bike so cross country was what I did, raced for a year and was able to move up from Junior Sport to Junior Expert where I got soundly beat for the rest of the season (didn’t quite get caught by all the elite women at nationals with a 3 minute head start). From there I moved onto some rowing with the University of Victoria, found that didn’t work so well outside of school so bought a used road bike and started learning. Was super excited about that bike and loved it. It was the GT team Lotto-Mobistar replica frame in the super obnoxious florescent lime green.

In between all of that I’ve found a bit of time for snowboarding and more recently I’ve been enjoying rock climbing, which brought a tiny bit of balance to my athletics last season.

I will keep you posted as the season progresses and hopefully you enjoy,

Matthew