When we last spoke with Jon Chodroff last September, he was a rider in search of a contract in a tough market. Well, Chodroff didn’t just get a contract, he got signed by the super strong team OUCH, a team that features Floyd Landis, Rory Sutherland, Tim Johnson, Karl Menzies, and Cameron Evans. I called him up right after the team’s second camp, as he was packing for the Boulevard Road Race.

Andy Shen: How’s it going?

Jon Chodroff: Good, packing for this race, gonna be 40 degrees and raining tomorrow. It’s on the border of Mexico, don’t know how it can get that cold on the border of Mexico, but I guess it can.

AS: Quite a way to kick off the career there, huh?

JC: Yeah. It’s got a good start list, so it’s definitely worth doing. Some the big teams are sending their full teams, Type 1, sending their full team, Jelly Belly, the new Successful Living Team, should be good. We’ve got five guys going.

AS: I guess everyone’s there for the ToC, that’s why there’s such a deep field?

JC: Yeah, kind of a tuneup. Last year it drew a lot of big names as well. It’s a good course, tough course, 8000 feet of climbing in 90 miles.

AS: Before we talk about next year, can we go over last year a bit. How was your year with Empire, what did you pick up that allowed you to take it to the next level?

JC: It was a good year. That was my first year on a real team, a good experience. The guys were awesome, a lot of veterans that were able to teach me a lot. I was able to get to some of the bigger races…it was good.

AS: From there you did a stint in Belgium…

JC: Yeah, I did a stint in Belgium. That definitely helped a lot. My coach was able to get me to stay at the national team’s house, that really helped develop my skills, riding in the pack and stuff. I was over there with not many expectations, just going there to learn, and ended up after one or two races, started doing pretty well. Got on the top ten a couple times, I was actually getting on those betting boards that they have, it was real exciting. Once I started feeling those races out, those course definitely suited me, you can’t hide there, it’s just balls to the wall for two and a half hours , suits me pretty well. It was good, definitely helped me get interest from some of the pro teams as well.

AS: How did the hookup with OUCH happen?

JC: Just sending the resumés out, talking to directors, I was out in Tucson last winter, and Gord Fraser was out there. He knew who I was, the local shootout, the Saturday morning ride, I usually did pretty well in that, so he had his eye on me. He gave the word to Mike Tamayo, the Team OUCH director, and he talked with him and it ended up working out.

AS: How surreal is it to go from, in a couple of years, to go from racing in the cats to doing a training camp with Floyd and the guys?

JC: The first time I got to camp, I was shaking Floyd’s hand, shaking Rory’s hand, shaking Tim Johnson’s hand, it was pretty surreal. These are the head guys. It was a little overwhelming at first, but once you get to know them, they’re so down to earth, they’re just another one of the guys. But it was definitely exciting.

AS: It’s a smaller team, so it’s not as if you’re going to be relegated to a B team and never see those guys.

JC: It’s 12 guys now, each with their own strengths. What was unique about the training camp was that there were no cliques, no odd men out. We just did everything together. I was talking with Tim Johnson a couple days ago, I told him it reminded me of my crew days, it was so tight knit. Obviously it was my first pro team, but it’s pretty unique, having twelve guys all together, all on one page. I think it’s going to be a pretty exciting year.

AS: Bobby Lea came to our roller party, and he was saying the team would have a stage race team and a one day team. Do you know where you’ll be?

JC: I’m definitely on the stage race program, Tour of Utah, Tour of Gila, Cascades, I’ll do Fitchburg again, Vuelta de Mexico is up in the air, but I’ll probably do that. Races are being cancelled, kinda unfortunate, but it happens. Hopefully Tour of Missouri by the end of the year too.

AS: Last time we talked you said races that favor you would be any stage race with a time trial, right?

JC: Yeah, any stage race with a time trial, hilly hard races. My role on the team will be a bit different. If they give me the opportunity to open it up in a time trial of course I’m going to go for it. But I think I’ll be playing more of a support role on the team, just learning the ropes, a domestique. We have so many guys on the team that could take a leadership role, it’s pretty unreal. Any of these guys can win a North American stage race.

AS: How’s your domestique skills? Bottle grabbing and riding through cars?

JC: My goal at the last camp was really that. They knew I was strong, they knew I was riding well, but I wanted to develop those skills ’cause that’s stuff I’ve never had to do before – get bottles for the riders, hang on to the team cars, all that stuff. I finally got it, having ten bottles in my jersey, hanging on to the team car was a little nerve wracking, but I got the hang of it. I think they were impressed with how much my bike skills developed in one week. I was talking with Tim Johnson, in one week I learned so much, every day one of the riders…one day Bobby Lea was showing me some descending tricks, Tim Johnson helped me the entire week. The development in that one week was like two years on the bike for me. It really made a big difference, it makes me more confident going into the season. Now I know I’ll be able to support the team.

AS: I don’t even remember where I heard this rumor, but I heard you were going as well as anyone at that camp.

JC: Yeah, I’m going pretty well right now, but everyone’s really strong. The training camp is pretty unique. Our director was saying that most training camp rides don’t stay together as a group, they partition out with some guys going better than others. We were just 12 strong guys, sprinters climbing pretty strong, and this was not an ordinary pace, this was Floyd’s training camp pace, which is…probably a little different.

AS: But you’re happy with your engine? You’ve stepped it up a level?

JC: Yeah, I was climbing really well, especially on the Palomar day. I think it’ll be a good year.

AS: What was it like hanging out with Floyd?

JC: He’s a great guy, really one of the guys on the team. Totally down to earth, if you ever need anything…he’d give you the shirt off his back. He’s not arrogant at all. The first training camp a month ago I stayed with him an extra couple days at his place. He’s definitely a character, I can tell you that.

AS: Yeah, he’s a great guy…I hope you don’t mind, we gotta ask you…is it a big elephant in the room, the comeback? Is it talked about? What happened?

JC: It was in the past, you know? We’re just looking to the future, don’t really dwell on that. Kinda the way we’re looking at it.

AS: Cool. And some karaoke, too, huh?

JC: Oh yeah, he loves to karaoke. He’s pretty good at it, too, the Kid Rock, Rage Against the Machine, he gets into it.

AS: He actually does Kid Rock.

JC: He does Kid Rock. He kinda looks like him…it’s really impressive.

AS: What’s your karaoke song?

JC: I did the Thong Song. The absolutely worst karaoke song, that’s why it’s so good.

AS: Oh God. How’s the media out there? Is there lots of extra attention because of Floyd?

JC: That’s been a little overwhelming. There’s a lot of media during camp. VeloNews, CyclingNews, Road Magazine, photographers following us everywhere, but we got that done. That was the first part of camp, the first three days was sponsor stuff, the next seven days we just focused on training and bonding as a team.

AS: The race is tomorrow? What’s your next race after that?

JC: I might do a race Sunday, a local race in Arizona. Then the next bigger race will be Valley of the Sun next weekend.

AS: And how big a team is going to that?

JC: It’s going to just be three of us, ’cause that’s when Tour of California starts. It’ll be me, Roman Kilun, and Bobby Lea’s coming out. But it should be enough. It starts out with a long time trial, I got fourth there last year with the worst possible position, so I think I can do pretty well this year.

As I was transcribing the above interview word came in that Chodroff had won the Valley of the Sun TT. I called him up again after he secured the GC win.

AS: So how’s it going?

JC: Pretty good, just watching the Tour of Cali.

AS: Talk about Boulevard. How was it? Snow? Hail?

JC: You have to climb 4,000 feet to get to this race, it’s over the pass to get to San Diego. You see complete cloud cover, we get up there, ten minutes once we get there it starts snowing, sub 40, crazy. We start off with a 20 minute descent, freezing, the roads are pretty wet, guys are all discombobulated.

I got to my senses on second lap, Floyd told me to attack on the second lap on the climb. I rode my own pace up there, got away with three other guys, there were two guys up the road already from the first lap, we were just chasing them. By the top of the four mile climb we had a minute and a half, we had a gap. It was me, Carson Miller from Land Rover, some Virgin Blue guy, rode together for twenty miles. Then Sheldon Deeny, my old teammate from Empire bridged with Cam Evans, who’s on OUCH, and three Virgin Blue guys. We rolled another fifteen miles together, we had a pretty big gap, it was definitely the day’s break and we were going to stay away.

Then on the last lap, Cam attacked with 20 miles to go, which is probably a bit early, we probably could’ve rolled through a little longer, but I was done by then, I was so cold. I just couldn’t respond, so I rolled for another five miles or so, then Rory and Floyd’s group came up to me and I rolled in with them. That was the pack, but it was only 20 guys. I finished off 19th, it was pretty good, but I couldn’t stay with that group, we probably should’ve rolled through a little longer before guys started going, but it’s a small race so it’s ok. It was a good first race, I guess, pretty epic. I couldn’t feel anything at the end, everything was numb.

AS: Then you go to the Valley of the Sun…

JC: It was good! I had two teammates, they rode super strong, I’m thankful for the team I’m on, ’cause they’re going to help me a lot, learning the skills and everything. I only spent three hours on the TT bike this year, 2nd time on my new Kuota, so I was a little nervous going into the time trial. Position was different, all new equipment, but put in a good time, felt pretty good. I haven’t been in the time trial position in so long, it definitely hurt more than normal, I put out decent power, so I’m happy with that. I got a pretty decent gap, 45 seconds to 2nd place, the way the race usually runs, that’s a big enough gap to hold on to.

I had only two teammates with me, Roman Kilun and Bobby Lea, but we were able to control the road race pretty well, a break went up the road and Roman and Bobby just sat on the front, I sat behind them, and they’d set tempo for the rest of the race. They would get help from random people for whatever reason, but they had to slow it down a bit so they wouldn’t catch the break too soon. They were just riding so strong that they were just bringing the break back. Called a piss break at one point just to slow everything down, but we were just holding the gap at a minute, a minute thirty, which was perfect.

Then we caught them with 16 miles to go, Bissell tried to put in a couple of attacks, but nothing really went through. Going into the final climb, which is three miles but is pretty steady so things usually stay together, I was sitting thrid wheel, everything was going well, it was 1k to go, a moto guys says, “Stop, stop!”, they neutralized us. There was a big crash in the Cat 3’s.

AS: Did they just take the time at that point?

JC: Yeah, we were all together. It ended up working in our favor, I guess.

AS: Not that they were going to get a gap on you in 1k…

JC: We were all up there, anyways. It would’ve been a sprint finish, but it was uphill… I think one of us could’ve done pretty well in the sprint, but so it goes. I wouldn’t call it the safest race there is, they could change a few things. The finish had the yellow line rule. You can’t have the last 1k with the yellow line rule, with 120 people, so maybe that’s something they could change. The whole yellow line rule thing in this race is a bit sketchy, ’cause you’re on a highway, cars are going by you at 65 mph, all it takes a little bit of a shove and guys are flying over the yellow line, someone’s hitting them… A bit dangerous, I guess. But Roman and Bobby, they rode strong, it was pretty impressive. The entire time, they’re keeping an eye on me, showing me how to stay in front, protecting me and stuff.

So we go into the crit, it’s a new crit course compared to last year, six or seven turns, pretty fast, pretty hard turns, pretty narrow. So I was pretty nervous going into it, crits aren’t my specialty, and I had the leader’s jersey, a little stressed out. Roman rode really strong on the front, trying to control things, and Bobby was glued to my back wheel, just making sure I was staying in the field and stuff. It ended up working out, I stayed in there, it was definitely a hard crit.

AS: You stuck in the top third?

JC: Well, top half, probably, most of the time. Sometimes I’d get caught on the back, but Bobby’d be pretty vocal and tell me to move up. I think, eventually, halfway through, I was doing a lot better, I was up where I should’ve been. There’ll come a time, and Bobby really helped out a lot, telling me where to go, what lines to take… Only half the field finished, so it was definitely a hard crit. It’ll come. Glad I finished, glad I pulled it off.

AS: One thing they’ll never be able to take away, is that you have the inaugural team OUCH win, right?

JC: Yeah, the first win for OUCH, that’s pretty cool. Floyd sent me an email that night, congratulating me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an email from Floyd, he doesn’t like emails, so I was pretty honored with that. So I’m excited, I think the team as excited.

AS: It’s kinda funny that you’re the new guy, you’re brought in to be a helper, and suddenly you have them working for you, an Olympian working for you…that’s pretty cool, right?

JC: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Like I said, I’m just so thankful for the team I’m on, they were willing to take me one. There’s a lot of experience on the team, just this weekend Roman and Bobby just showed me so much, just following them was huge. I think they were pretty stoked on how I performed, composed myself in the road race and the crit, I’m happy about that.

AS: It’s gotta give you a lot of confidence to know that you’ve got the motor to take the time trial.

JC: Yeah, yeah, I’m really happy with it, it’s pretty big. Pretty big gap, especially with that time trial. Fitness is pretty good, my power output was pretty good, but nothing like…I have more room to gain. I’m not training as hard this winter so I think I’ll be going better in the summer, later on when there’s more racing. Been talking with Steve Owen of the Colorado Wind Tunnel maybe set something up. He was down at the Valley of the Sun as well, he was able to take a look at my position a bit, and thought there’d be some time to gain. It’s so hard to tell until you get to the wind tunnel. I mean, you look at some of the positions at the Tour of California, they’re wind tunnel tested, they might not look the most aero, but when you test them they’re fast. Especially looking at some of the Garmin positions, like Tom Danielson for example, it’s pretty extreme. Some guys are saying it doesn’t look good at all, but it’s definitely fast.

AS: It’s not like you have your bike dialed in, and it’s not like you’ve worked on your position so much in the wind tunnel. You still have a lot of room to improve, probably.

JC: Hopefully. Hopefully I can get to the wind tunnel, see if I can work something out with the team. We’ll see.

Jon was willing to share his power numbers for our watt-curious audience. He told me he did 415 watts with a time of 28:57 for the VoS TT.