Brad Huff Cycling

Maybe all this bull shit talk of being a hard ass and I’ll show them is just a cover up for a helpless athlete that can’t seem to get out of his own way. Track is this different animal that is totally a mental game with yourself as you sit around for extended chamios training time thinking if you should do one more effort to achieve that magical warm up that will have you so tuned for your event that even you will not believe how great your legs feel once you are moving. I can say that I was totally attempting to talk myself through the fact that this ain’t my first rodeo and how I can suffer for a messily 4km I mean come on 4km I can kill that. Then you get out there and it is like drinking antifreeze for dogs, you think it is so sweet and tasty and you just do not want to stop then before you know it KABOOM game over your dead in the water(antifreeze). For me it was this scenario today in the pursuit, I started off well holding my times (which were very conservative and slow) well….well that is for at least 1km of the 3km event, I keep telling my self to just fucking man up and suffer, I hear the lap time, it is raising(I am going slower), fuck Brad come on, steady, steady, KABOOM! As Andy Sparks yells for me to suffer I can only look him in the eyes and shake my head, it’s over, well in 5 more laps it will be over, but for me it is over. I had crossed my fingers and hoped to not totally embarrass myself today????…..well at least Taylor Phinney made up for my lack luster performance by posting a 4:29 in just his 2nd time every doing a competition pursuit(oh ya he had an opening kilo of about a 1:07!!!!), Taylor won’t win today’s World Cup Individual Pursuit, but mark my words that his cycling career will continue to be jaw dropping for years and years to come! What a great kid and what a great family.
Track Track Track!!!

or more so I am one of those cartoon guys that thinks he is a super hero, but he is more so just one of those characters that always get in to trouble, falls off cliffs, attempts to take over the world only to end up waking up eating cookies in his grandma’s house as he tells stories of slaying dragons and rescuing damsels, rolling 12 sided dice, and winning pie eating contests….alas it is all a fake just like this made up sketch of some ripped dude flexing his muscles atop his trusty steed jetting through the cosmos towards his destiny
photo credit by Rachel Boxill

Sydney World Cup #1 So what happens when things do not go so well in preparation for a competition(track) that will include the best of the best in the World….World Champions, Olympic Champions, Pro Tour bad asses, etc…well you go in “fresh”. Going in fresh can mean several things, 1st I am well recovered and will be able to really dig deeper than normal, 2nd I have not been able to do shit in regards to training and have to think of some positive way of saying….I am freaking out and really searching for something to make it sound like I am semi prepared. I can never remember anytime in my career as a cyclist that I have not gone to a competition with so little training. Well lets just say that this is not the best one to do it at. Being that it is an Olympic year has really increased the amount of cyclists going for the dream of making it to the big show…Olympics. It is not like I totally sat on my ass and did nothing, it is just that preparation has had some real difficulties, so there for I am going in fresh. As I sat behind Magnus Backsted as he churned out lap after lap in a 102 inch gear as Friedman and I were destroying our taints in a little 84.4 inch gear it came to mind that maybe this competition might not go so bad, I mean as long as I can draft off somebody for every bit of my race then I might be ok? Doubtful rube, doubtful

www.bicycleradio.com

go there and listen to Creed and I rip it up on the November 20 2007 show(once it is posted)…..well not a ton and not the whole interview time, but there are the good moments that will make even Tom Zirbel cry.

“It is the mind that makes the body.”
Sojourner Truth

Ya ya I get the point, but you know Lord it is a lot easier when you just make everything better. This phrase has been dropped in front of my face quite a bit over the last 2 weeks. As every day I drink way more green tea than most individuals via the Celestial Seasonings Teas that are available and on each tea bag is a little quote or statement. Well this one has come up way more than any other recently. Although another quote that has hit home pretty hard and swiftly is:

“All love that has not friendship for its base is like a mansion built upon the sand.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

IS MY HERO! She has taken the Cyclocross world by storm winning her first ever World Cup just this past weekend. The even better thing is that she is a great individual on top of her insane Cycling ability. All of the cycling community is super happy and proud of Katie…..and Mark Legg too. Congrats to Katie…..and Legg

So the Creed’s and I head up to a cross race up in Denver, CO. On attendance was the dynamic duo of Mike Weiss and Amy Strahan in for a little USCF meeting of the minds in Colorado Springs over the weekend.
So how to cheer started off with a bang as I:
1st attempted (acted) like I was going to run in to Weiss as he struggled around the course with a pulled hammy….ouch.
2nd providing Weiss with some REAL MAN chest excitement/encouragement as I ran out to meet him on his subsequent lap…beautiful I say
then as Mike Creed and I positioned ourselves in the most appropriate heckling spot I quickly jumped in to full throttle with some words of advice…..not the same old:
your catching him
GO GO
do it for Lance
come on
how are you going to explain this to your son Aaron?
keep pushing
you suck
17 seconds
Butthead just stopped to eat cake hurry up
harder
move up
a girl just passed you…which if very common in the land of Katie Compton who just won her first WORLD CUP CYCLOCROSS RACE!!!…but really building and thought provoking words of advice like:
1. you’ve got plenty of room
2. don’t get comfortable
3. it’s all about P.S.I people
4. don’t use your brakes….NO BRAKES
5. and my favorite: “BEN TURNER does not pay you to soft cock it out here!”
also important to note that at anytime one can choose any given name that best fits the rider that they most enjoy heckling: as for today it was HONKY TONK as he was really giving it out there and was able to do it in style with a Rayon Cowboy Shirt and cut off polyester slacks. Then you are able to say things like: “Honky Tonk just passed you”
Needless to say people love this stuff.
**ALSO make sure to bring a MEGA PHONE if you have one as this only increases the amount of encouragement that one is able to provide to those poor soles who paid there kid’s lunch money that week to suffer for an hour.

http://www.republic.k12.mo.us/e1/teachers/greekd/index.html

Doug and Amber Greek are two of those honest and true people that I am talking about! All heart plus some snow-cone, hair sprayed bangs, Mullet, a fat cat, a tornado, a sinkhole, JB Wield, sweet road trips, having to put up with my shit, BMX, 2 bachleors, a masters, a dental hygienist degree, and much much more to come. Oh can you imagine the pictures over the years! I can, because I have seen them!!!

although sometimes it feels as if the walls are falling in and there is no where to go my down. Well I am not running away even if I get my ass handed to me every day….I will have my day. I will prove my worth and I will show those doubters that they were wrong to judge……..stuck up bastard’s. Cycling is a beautiful sport that any age is able to enjoy, but only the elite of elite are able to actually survive doing (financially). We others are determine to scrap by and sustain verbal scrutiny while attempting to prove that we are worth every single drop of sweat that is put in to us…..meaning every single damn cyclist out there that has a dream and has not chosen to follow the path of least resistance, but more so have chosen to take cycling head on and attempt the unachievable. I cannot quote it any better than my past exercise physiology teacher….”Brad, I do not know how you are doing what you are doing…..because according to these test’s you should not even be any were close to where you are!” well you know what, it is all about heart and I know a few cyclist out there that have been kicked out on their can or have been given an extended chance that are about to turn the cycling world upside down.
I feel blessed for what I have been able to do in cycling, but more so I feel blessed to have experienced and learned from some of the best and most honest cyclist in the world. NOT FUCKING this super star or that or ??? or the biggest hope, but more so blue collar cyclist who sacrifice everyday life, lifestyles, dreams, hopes, relationships, and tomorrow for the hope to make it, the hope that there efforts are not in vain. you know what fuck all you fuckers who are out their taking the short route in life…..ie cycling and life, moving through the field like it is hot butter. I would rather get dropped and know that I did everything in my effort to make it just this far.
I am not afraid to race pure and attempt to prove all the doubters wrong by my own GOD given power…if not just once in the hundred times I attempt it, because that is the beauty of sport, the underdogs will have their day.
Thank you Lord for providing me with this insanity to think that I am actually capable
I believe, as do many of my fellow teammates of the past, present, and future. We will all succeed in cycling and life more so that even imaginable. I might suck, but I am at least going for it…..

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 round trip ticket to Jamaica + 3 days 2 nights for 2 adults!!! so we just have to figure out what we are going to do with the winning “GOLDEN TICKET”. Actually we won it, but Willy Wonka showed up to help us just a tad bit! ALTHOUGH we killed it….AGAIN! everybody wanted our picture and told us that we had the best costumes around!!!!




we have video, but we have to figure out how to piece it all together and yes those are pit stains because life as a UMPA is hard work.