Lucas Euser – the mountain goat
Garmin Slipstream's Lucas Euser is quite a climbing talent and just finished 8th at the 2009 Tour De Langkawi. He already has quite an impressive resume, including a win at the 2008 Univest Grand Prix. He shared a few of his thoughts with Slowtwitch.
ST: Looking back at the 2008 season, what moment to you cherish the most?
Lucas: 2008 was a defining season in the grand scheme of things. The first half of the season was rampant with illness, crashes, and missed races, leaving me scrambling for whatever I could get. It culminated with me crashing and breaking my scapula at a race in Portugal in mid June. Instead of stressing over the situation I assessed where I was and decided to take 3 weeks off to completely reset the system. I came back stronger and faster than I had ever been. The second half of my season ramped up with solid team rides at the Tour of Denmark and Tour of Portugal. Those races gave me the fitness to fight for the win at the USPro national championships in Greenville, SC and to win my first UCI race at the Univest GP a week later. If that wasn't good enough I got selected to the USA Men's World Championship team and got to finish the season in the Fall classics of Paris Tours and the Giro di Lombardia.
ST: You have been quite some time with Jonathan Vaughters now. Is he a tough mentor?
Lucas: Yes!
ST: You guys won the Team TT during the 2008 Tour de Georgia and we'd like to know how hard it is to ride a TTT with so many talented riders?
Lucas: The thing about riding a TTT with guys like VDV and DZ is that they are far more encouraging than threatening. Those guys made it seem like it was just another day of training and really kept all of our nerves down. It was an extremely calculated effort, we all had specific roles in that TTT and sure enough everyone came through 100%. When that happens you win races. Luckily for me the course was rather hilly and I was able to survive longer and contribute more than I had hoped. In a TTT it's all about keeping the speed. If eight of the fastest guys in the world go out and try to play "Mr. I'm really strong and going to take super hard fast heroic pulls by myself" they are going to lose. Using intuition and experience to never lose speed, stay focused, and work together is how we win TTT’s. Christian and Dave have ridden for the best TTT teams in the world and their experience and leadership help us younger guys ride like the best of them.
ST: Do you enjoy individual time trials?
Lucas: Am I going to be black listed if I say NO??? I have honestly tried to get good at TT's and it is an on going process. Unfortunately I'm small, don't put out crazy watts, and am not very flexible. You look at my TT position versus someone like say, Mike Friedman on our team, and our frontal surface area is almost the same, however he is putting out almost 100 more watts than me. This leave Mike, or Meatball if you will, with a significant advantage in the Power to Drag department over someone my size, similar to the Power to Weight advantage I have over him when the road goes up. That said, it is something I am trying to improve. If I can get my frontal surface area, or drag, low enough I might actually have a chance. I'm hoping if I go faster at them, I will like them more!
ST: What do you consider your strengths?
Lucas: From a physical standpoint I am developing my climbing talent. From a bike racing perspective my greatest talent is being smart and reliable on the bike. I feel like I am developing into a very consistent rider and can find myself in the mix even if I'm not the strongest guy out there. There is a significant advantage to knowing the sport from a mental perspective and being able to apply what I have learned over the years to high stress situations and keeping it together when the sh%^ hits the fan.
ST: What do you do to overcome a disappointing race?
Lucas: Move on. Worst thing I can do is sit and dwell over a disappointment. They happen all the time, but I learn from my mistakes, move on and try not to do it the next time. If you actively focus on committing those mistakes to memory when the time comes your instincts will be on fire and ready to react in the crucial window where hesitation can mean success or failure.
ST: Who or what inspired you to ride and race road bikes?
Lucas: Some local friends got me motivated to race a road bike after some success on the mountain bike. After puking at the finish of my first road race it was love at first sight, I was hooked!
ST: What are your thoughts on the return of Lance?
Lucas: I'm finally going to be able to say "yes" when asked by every random person on the street, "Have you raced with Lance?"
ST: With doping always being a hot topic button, what are your thoughts on how dopers should be best dealt with?
Lucas: At this point in the game if they are stupid enough to do it they should be done with. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but if I was caught cheating at my university it would be the end of my academic career, right? Why should cheaters in professional sports be given more leeway than an acne ridden freshman in college.
ST: Are the testing methods good enough to catch the cheaters?
Lucas: Very much so. With Anne Gripper taking over at the UCI and initializing the blood passport this last year things are well on their way. The passport tracks our blood markers throughout the year and plots them on a curve with our own personal high and low limits. If we ever go out of that range, then it sends a red flag and the situation is investigated. This is opposed to plotting our data along a curve with limits set by the general populations, hence the old over 50 hematocrit rule. The passport combined with WADA and the UCI keeping up with the new drugs out there, it seems like it is shaping into a very solid program. Many people have criticized the passport for not doing anything, but what they don't understand is the UCI spent all year gathering the data to create these individual curves for us all. Only now will we start seeing sanctions handed down for blood irregularities as the UCI has collected enough data to properly analyze each case individually.
ST: Describe what you guys do at Garmin Slipstream to address the doping concerns.
Lucas: If you look back to the end of 2006 and all of 2007 we had an internal testing program ran by a third party agency that was the basis of the UCI's blood passport program. We were being tested once a week tracking our blood and hormone markers in what seemingly turned out to be a case study for the UCI. Granted, they have a scaled down version due to logistics, it's basically the same method. We are continuing that same approach along while working with the UCI, WADA, USADA, and other national testing agencies to fight the use of performance enhancing drugs. We have a 100% transparency policy and all of our values are available to media upon request. Not only are we addressing the concern of doping within our team we are helping to better the system globally.
ST: How do you typically spend the off-season?
Lucas: This year I took five weeks completely off the bike to fully recover. Once I was back on the bike at our November "training" camp in Boulder, CO I started building slowly. At first it was just riding, then it became structured a few weeks later, integrating a lot of fat burning hours. My goal in the off season is to expand my fat burning tank and be able to train at that sub LT zone (40-60 watts below that hour long LT pace) longer and longer, while working in specific on the bike strength workouts. At first it's only 20 minutes in a 3 hour ride, but then it builds to almost 2 hours within a 5 hour ride, never going to hard and never going to easy. It's a fine balance and has taken me years to find that perfect zone, but now that I have, it will pay off once the big long stage races come around. After I build that fat burning zone I go to the LT and VO2 type work where I’m working that top end, high octane zone. The goal there is to couple that with the previous two month's of sub LT stuff and become one efficient machine. Granted, it is easier said then done, however, with a full season of European racing behind me it has been much easier to focus this off season knowing exactly what I need to do to compete at the Pro Tour level.
ST: Do you do any running and/ or swimming at all?
Lucas: I don't do much "running" per se. However, I do love to go out for a run with a friend and bring a Frisbee. Run to the park, sprint around playing Frisbee and running back, that way I don’t’ experience the monotony of a run. I did a little swimming at the beginning of the off season, it’s a great way to work on flexibility and really stretch out and use all the muscles I never use during the year.
ST: Do you follow any other sports?
Lucas: I played basketball and baseball as a kid. Do I follow them? Not really, but I don’t mind watching a game now and then. I'm a sucker when the Super Bowl comes around. I have also gotten into Moto GP, soccer and tennis from watching them in Europe. I'd love to go to a Formula 1 race one of these days!!!
ST: Describe your favorite foods.
Lucas: Ask anyone that knows me and they will attest to the fact I’m game to try just about anything. My latest kick is eating a gluten free diet. I love to cook, so adding the challenge of getting enough calories without bread or a bunch of pasta has been a lot of fun! I've been experimenting with gluten free baking: pizza crust’s, breads, pancakes, cakes in general, things I normally miss on a diet like this. I do it for a number of reasons. The first being I was born with chronic asthma and it has been the number one deterrent in keeping from going faster. After our team started tossing around the idea of an anti-inflammatory diet (similar to the Zone diet) to aide in recovery a light bulb clicked in my head. Asthma is an inflammatory disease and if I can cut back on inflammation I might be able to breath better. Sticking to the diet and taking anti inflammatory supplements, like high doses of the Zone Eico Pro fish oils, I found a stark contrast in the was breathing in races. Not to mention it helped kick that nagging last kilo or two of weight keeping me from staying with the top climbers.
ST: What music do you like?
Lucas: I'll listen to just about anything if it has a good sound. I bounce around a lot in the Indie genre, but love branching out to folk, bluegrass, and a little jazz on occasion. I have nothing against mainstream pop music and I don't bash on anything because it's popular. If it's popular, it's usually for a good reason and I'm willing to give it a chance. If I don't like it, I don't get disappointed, I move on 😉
ST: What was the last book you read?
Lucas: David Sedaris', Dress Your Family in Denim and Corduroy. Working on Cormac McCarthy’s, All the Pretty Horses. Next on the list, Tom Robbin’s, Still Life With Woodpecker.
ST: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Lucas: I see myself still racing in Europe. I feel like I have grounded myself enough there to make a name for myself. Although I'm fully aware anything can happen. I have a backup degree in Industrial Technology from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. It was something I was adamant about finishing before I fully committed to a pro cycling career. From a performance standpoint I see myself as a hilly one day classics guy, dabbling in some stage win’s in big races, and maybe pulling on a polka dot jersey here and there! A lot of guys think they are going to be the next yellow jersey wearer; frankly I'm content with picking up the slack when it comes to all the other left out races. Either way my hands are shaking and my heart starts to pump just thinking about the opportunities to come. Check back in 5 and we'll see where I'm at.
ST: Is there anything else we should know about you?
Lucas: Just remember, "Pain is weakness leaving the body."
