Lucas Euser is a 24 year old pro riding for Garmin/ Chipotle. He recently finished 4th at the USA Cycling Pro Championship road race, and shortly thereafter, he won the Univest Grand Prix. He will be on the US team for the upcoming world championship road race.

schmalz You’re one of the younger professional bike racers in the US right now, and you ride for Garmin, and you’ve always ridden for some incarnation of Slipstream, is that correct?

Euser Um, sort of. My first year I actually rode for Webcor. You remember that team?

schmalz Sure.

Euser Yeah. I rode for them 2005, I rode for them the first half of the season, then the second half I rode for the U23 national team in Belgium.

schmalz So did you go to Belgium and live the whole, in the bunker, in the cold, all that?

Euser You better believe it!

schmalz You lived the bare bones Belgian cycling thing?

Euser Oh yeah.

schmalz How did that style of racing suit you?

Euser We were stuck in a bunch of flat one days and hard Belgian style stage races and kermesses and all that stuff, I mean, as far as I’m concerned, it was the beginning of my real cycling career. It sure as hell brought out your strengths and weaknesses, you know? And for some people, they take that as a discouraging moment in their career, when they realize they can’t do it. On the other hand, I took it as a learning experience. I didn’t do well by any means, but I definitely learned a lot about myself, about my limits, and how far I could push myself and how far I could ride a bike. Trying to make a list of what I had to do to survive, and what I had to get better at.

schmalz You grew up in Napa in California, correct?

Euser Yeah, I grew up in Napa, then I went to college in San Luis Obispo, at Cal Poly University.

schmalz Was the weather a big shock to you, coming from the west coast?

Euser Everybody says that, but northern California isn’t…the winters there aren’t nice by any means. Forty degrees and raining is probably one of the worst conditions you could ride in.

schmalz So it got you ready for Belgium perfectly, probably.

Euser Yeah. I spent many a winter riding outside and freezing every bit of my body off that I could.

schmalz How did you come to cycling?

Euser I started when I was, depends on how far you want to date back. You could date back to when I was six and my dad pushed me off on my first BMX bike with no training wheels and I did just fine. I guess right then and there I knew I could actually ride a bike, so that’s the first point. And then I did BMX as a kid, did the local track, and that was a huge boost for the community, and just for kids getting involved in cycling. Actually, I don’t know if anybody noticed, but Donny Robinson, who just got 3rd in the Olympics, he came out of that same track. He obviously stayed with BMX, and I obviously went a different direction. But he was from the area as well.

schmalz That’s interesting, ’cause most guys that come up through BMX, well you hear about Robbie McEwen all the time, but they usually wind up being sprinters.

Euser Yeah, I mean, I’m not saying I was good! I’m not saying I was good at all! I just enjoyed riding the bike and having fun out there. I suppose I was pretty horrible. I was racing at 7, 8, 9 years old. I wasn’t taking it very seriously, I was just having a good time on the bike. And that’s probably where I developed my passion for A bike.

schmalz Do you have a whole array of rad tricks that you can do?

Euser No, I don’t, and that was one of the things that kept me away from BMX, or skewed me away. I couldn’t keep up with the guys that were pulling the sweet moves, you know?

schmalz I know watching the BMX in the Olympics, those guys are crazy.

Euser They’re totally nuts.

schmalz And the races just seem to be, no wonder they run so many heats, there’s so much random luck that comes into play. You just get bounced off, you fall off the track, and then that kinda ends it for you in that one race.

Euser I mean, this is probably the first interview I’ve talked about BMX. I don’t even remember much of it, you know. I just, kinda, did it, and I remember having fun out there, and wanting to ride the bike, and then from there I did the normal ball sports. I played baseball, basketball, for a while. And I stopped growing and realized that basketball wasn’t my forte. I tried racing mountain bikes, I bought a mountain bike when I was in 8th grade, I was 13, just to ride to school. And then, again, the community in Napa was awesome. Turned out there was a cycling club at school and they did weekend trips, and sure enough I got involved with that. And, again, found a passion for the bike again.

schmalz When you started racing, did you have success right away, or was it a long building process?

Euser I never had great success. My base attribute is that I’ve always stuck with it, and taken the experiences I had and turned them into a positive outlook, and built upon those experiences instead of just getting down on myself for not winning every race I do. I raced mountain bikes for three or four years at first, and I didn’t even touch a road bike. I won quite a bit of junior, did pretty well at expert class. So I was having a little bit of success, but no means was I a phenom out there, the guy that would always come to win the races, you know?

schmalz Sure.

Euser I had a good time. And the best part was that, do you remember ’99, even before that, but ’99 was my first one, they did that world cup in Napa, the mountain bike world cup. I did the beginner category, I love to tell this story. It was my first race, one guy I always rode with was Andrew, it’s kinda funny, he connected us, he’s my best friend now. He was always my biggest fan and biggest supporter in the sport, his whole family is. He talked my into doing that race, the beginner world cup. I just remember going up the climbs, and looking back, and I could see some guys in front of me, but I had no idea where he was. I thought it was the weirdest thing that he wasn’t right there with me, ’cause we always rode together. So I got to the top of this climb and I stopped and I waited for him, got passed by a handful of guys, and sure enough, here he comes, he just looks at me, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I was like, ‘Dude, I didn’t know where you were!’ So he kept going. We finished together, ’cause that was my comfort zone, I wanted to ride with him. That kinda set the tone for the way I ride my bike, I’m a friendly racer. I mean, I’m aggressive as all hell, but I don’t do anything that’s going to piss anyone off.

schmalz You had a great ride at the US Pro race this year, and it came down to the end, and you’re probably tired of talking about this, but…

Euser I’m never gonna get tired of talking about that, man!

schmalz You were off the front pretty much, what, 100 miles of that race? ‘Cause you got off pretty early.

Euser Uh…yeah yeah yeah. I bridged to the break on the first climb, actually I shouldn’t say the first climb, off the first climb on the descent. I went off with Phil Zajicek, and sure enough by the bottom of the descent we had bridged to the break, so we were descending a little bit faster than they were.

schmalz Then you stayed off for the rest of the day, basically.

Euser Yeah, you want me to tell you the whole story? I can tell you how it went down.

schmalz Yeah, tell the whole story.

Euser So, like I said I bridged to the break. I really wanted to be there, you know, because that was definitely the strategy of the race, to never be behind, always be ahead. We wanted numbers in that break. And we had two guys already, so I really wasn’t that concerned about getting up there, but I kinda wanted to up there, and if the opportunity presented itself I was going to take it. And sure enough I saw one guy, Jonathan, I forced my way onto his wheel and we were up to the break in no time.

schmalz At that point in the race, that was probably your only shot…the game plan was to have you cover the early stuff, wasn’t it?

Euser Yeah yeah, I definitely started riding a lot better the last few weeks, especially in the Tour of Portugal. Nobody really noticed it, but I was 24th overall, and I was helping our teammate, he ended up 10th, but I was playing around in the top ten quite a bit. So that was, that wasn’t a GREAT result, but it was a turning point in my career ’cause I’ve never been there in the final in a stage race like that, and been there all the way through. No one really noticed that one, but the potential for me to be there at the end was there. The easiest way of getting there was being in the break. So we wanted to have one strong guy in the break, but not necessarily one of the heavy hitters that people were watching, you know what I mean?

That was my role, going into that day, was to be up there.

schmalz ‘Cause you weren’t going to be followed like Christian VandeVelde, or even David Zabriskie at that point. You wouldn’t have attracted as much attention from the race.

Euser Exactly. And even though Zabriskie was there, everyone knows what Zabriskie is up to, especially after he wins the national time trial. He’s there for working, he’s there for pulling on the front. And people kinda played off of that, but he’s pretty damn good at that, you know?

schmalz Yeah he is.

Euser So, we rolled, and unfortunately, no one out there was really taking it all that seriously. I don’t know what was going on, I know there was three of there, but they were definitely putting all the work on us, therefore putting the race completely in our control, because not only could we control it from the front, we could control it from the back, and we did just that. We controlled the break up front, we didn’t even have to ride that hard…we had to ride hard enough to keep the guys away, but we didn’t have to kill ourselves to create a huge gap, ’cause we had guys behind too. So with little help and pretty much doing it all ourselves we managed to get a decent gap, but honestly it could’ve been two or three times what it was if everyone had put the work into it. The only thing we wanted to do was get me over the last climb in the front group, that was the plan.

schmalz Once Pate got up to you, weren’t you guys basically riding for him at that point? There was the five of you?

Euser I’m just talking about the last climb, not the circuits. Once we got over the last climb, we put as many guys as we could in the front group, and turns out we had seven. And then the next plan, the next phase of the plan was to get a group of five or six with at least two of us in it, ideally three, just to have the numbers still. You figure out of a group of 25, that was definitely possible.

Over the last climb it was just me and Jonathan Garcia from BMC. We were together that we just played it tactically. On the third lap we dropped a few guys off the climb, and then we knew we had to get off of that group ’cause we were just fooling around, getting late. We just kinda followed attacks, and we attacked ourselves, and sure enough, there’s a five breaking group, after that going into the last climb. And we were just holding 45 seconds, it really wasn’t that much. And that was actually that was the point we kinda went full gas in that breakaway. 90% of the work was done by Cozza, and everyone else was watching what him and I were doing. Cozza was an animal, a total horse, pulled me to the bottom of the climb, and I went over the top of the climb probably 20-30 seconds ahead of the field. Sure enough, here they come, and it was game on again, start over. So we just kept attacking, then Christian told me if we’re going to pull we’re going to pull George to the line.

schmalz So you had to attack, and then you formed another group of five that went in to the finish…

Euser Yeah, that’s what happened. First Pate went solo at the finish, then Blake and Louder took off. Actually it was Blake that instigate that move, which was pretty cool, ’cause it showed that we were on the offensive, not just following wheels. So Blake was trying to get up to Danny with Louder, and they let him go, sure enough Tyler Hamilton goes, and I jump on Hamilton, and they let us go, I don’t know what they were doing, but they just kept letting us roll, and sure enough we formed a five person group. We had a minute in no time, and here’s how it went down. Blake and I went directly to the front and started pulling for Danny. And Tyler and Louder, they were willing to help us. They knew a podium was there. If Danny won, great, I think they all kinda like Danny.

What happened was Danny came to us with I think two laps to go and told us he was cramping and he had nothing left. Danny after the race said he thought he was going to have to stop.

schmalz That poor bastard. He’s come so close in that race so many times.

Euser And it was going to be spoon fed to him this year.

schmalz I really feel for him. He’s come so close so many times, something’s gotta give someday, but that wasn’t the day.

Euser It’s unfortunate. We were hoping it was going to be him, but all of the sudden we were put on the defensive, and we had to break it down even more, so we started attacking. And sure enough, it was just luck of the draw, it was Blake against Tyler, it could’ve been me against Tyler, me against Louder, or anybody, you know?

Ideally it was solo, but…

schmalz Well, Blake lost it by a tire width, it’s not like he…

Euser I know, I know, we took our chances, I’ve talked a lot about this, and we took a risk. We took a calculated risk, and those are the types of risks you take in cycling, and it didn’t pan out. But it’s not like we didn’t learn anything from it, not like we didn’t have a good result. It just happened like it happened.

schmalz And it’s not like you blew it tactically, ’cause Blake attacked and Tyler followed, and then I don’t think Blake really did any work with Tyler to get to the line after that.

Euser And we sat on Louder. Had Louder been able to bring them back, we would’ve kept going. That was the idea, to whittle everyone down to wear them out. It was just that Louder couldn’t bring it back, and Tyler was pulling on the front. Blake probably jumped a little too early in the sprint, and… I watched the video the other day for the first time, and he went far too early on the downhill. Tyler was able to jump back on the wheel and barely come around him. Had he just gone 100 meters later, it would’ve been no contest.

schmalz It seems like Blake kinda got his head around the finish and the situation, maybe got a little excited…

Yeah, he was eager, man! I mean, he’s young, we’re all young, and that was the greatest part, that we did that with three of the guys that have been on this team for a really long time now. People were kinda doubting the guys that have been around, but they weren’t looking behind the scenes. At the forefront there’s Christian and Millar and guys really making the papers and doing the moves that they’re famous for, but I think weith US Pro I think people actually, the guys that have been around are coming just as good as the guys with the names.

schmalz Why do you think your form is suddenly coming on? Is it the training you’ve done, or have you been sick during the year already, or?

Euser I was battling really hard this year. I was in really good form, similar form, as the season was coming in, and then I got sick in California, my program got changed around, actually I was suited better for the Giro, but then all of a sudden, it wasn’t like I was riding bad, then I started having some bad luck as far as crashes, and I got really bad bronchitis at Paris-Nice and was out three weeks. Then I got discouraged, it was kind of a downward spiral, until…I don’t think I ever hit bottom, but it wasn’t going well. Then I came back and I finally got some motivation, I don’t know, you pull it out wherever you can, and you try to work hard and try to focus on the mid season stuff. I tried to focus on Route du Sud, ’cause I did well there last year, so I tried to pull something out of that. Sure enough, three weeks before that I crashed and broke my shoulder blade in a race, I broke my scalpula in a race in Portugal, and hit my head pretty hard, so I was out for three weeks again.

schmalz How’s that Portugese medical system? Is it good, bad…

Euser Actually, I don’t know…everyone tells me how hard it is to diagnose a broken scalpula because of all the swelling, they told me it wasn’t broken. They were pushing and pulling on it, and it hurt like hell, and they were looking at me like, ‘it’s not even broken’. ‘We got a whiney one here’, you know? Five days later I got it x-ray’d again, and sure enough it was broken.

schmalz So the leeches and the weevils that they were using to diagnose it in Portugal didn’t work out.

Euser I don’t want to talk anything bad. Everyone was telling me it’s hard to diagnose, but it was frustrating to be told that it wasn’t a broken scalpula, it was the swelling getting in the way and making it hurt.

schmalz Well, your form held up, ’cause you won Univest, so…

Euser Yeah, that was a different race in Portugal. I had this big break mid season, so I was like, ‘I gotta come back and do something, ’cause this season’s gone so bad’, you know? It was a combination of a lot of things. I think it was finally committing to this sport, to my career. Not messing around, not going out for that beer, that ice cream, not doing stupid stuff. I became a monk, you know what I mean? I sat around my apartment and I stretched two or three hours a day, and I rode however much I needed to ride, I did the proper intervals… The goal was to do well at the Tour of Portugal, and I did, and sure enough I carried the Portugal form to US Pro, and then on to Univest the next weekend. Univest, that was even a better story.

schmalz Seems like you’ve got the build and your style of racing would be good for a classic like Liege or something like that. Some of the hillier, later classics.

Euser Yeah, I was told that but I never believed it myself until recently.

schmalz Until you’ve won a couple races…

Euser Yeah, exactly.

schmalz It’s funny how the confidence comes along. So having the older guys on the team this year, like VandeVelde and Zabriskie, have they told you anything that you can quote specifically that’s helped you out? Have they given you specific information, like ‘don’t get between Pozzato and his mirror’, or ‘this guy’s gassy in the peloton”?

Euser Specific, I don’t know if there’s one specific example I can think of, but the best is when, just doing something, and Christian just comes up to you and looks at you, like ‘what the hell are you doing?’ You gotta go back and think, what the hell AM I doing? Doing something silly, like wasting energy, or attacking, or doing something you don’t need to do at that time. They help put all those things into perspective. When you’re out there doing something wrong, they’re going to give you immediate feedback and tell you you’re doing something wrong. Whereas the director in the car can’t see you, so after the race ‘you guys did a good job today, it didn’t turn out’, and you’re like ‘well, what did I do wrong?’ You’re trying to figure it out, they’re right there to tell you, and you learn quick with those guys, I’ll tell ya that. You don’t want to mess around with them. They take every race they do seriously, and they mean business.

schmalz Sometimes when Zabriskie tells you to do something, is he hard to understand? Seems like Dave kinda talks in his own manner, has his own way of speaking.

Euser He does, I mean, Dave is more motivational than anything. Dave is always there, at least in my experience, to give me words of encouragement. It’s the guys like Christian and Millar, they’re the guys that more the school of hard knocks. They’re there to tell you what you’re doing wrong. And that’s a good thing, you need that. Sometimes Dave comes in handy, he’s there to boost your morale just a little bit.

schmalz He’s very cuddly, that Dave Zabriskie.

Euser He is, he is.

schmalz Now that Cozza’s shaved his moustache, are you gonna take up the mantle of the Slipstream moustache? You gonna grow one now?

Euser No no, I’m going to leave that to Cozza.

schmalz Not a handlebar job in your near future?

Euser No, I don’t think so. (laughs)

schmalz So you’ve raced in the US and in Europe. The team has a reputation, well, it’s not a reputation, you guys take your internal testing very seriously. How is that perceived differently among US teams and European teams? Do you see any resentment when you go over to Europe? Do you hear anything from racers, or do they kinda accept you guys? What’s the attitude they show towards you?

Euser I think when we were coming up, not this year but the two years before that, all last year we had the same program, and we were trying to get it as much hype as we could, ’cause we wanted people to know what we were doing. I think people kinda looked at as like, maybe a publicity stunt, because we weren’t riding all that great, trying to get some publicity for the team, whatever. I don’t think there was any resentment, I think there as a lot less respect last year. Once we came on this year, there was a breaking in period, where it was like, ‘yeah they signed a bunch of new guys, but are these guys even going to be able to do anything?’ I think pretty quick we made it clear that we were here to win, and we were here to win clean. I think once people saw that and caught onto it, they started giving us the respect that we deserved. And now, we’ve come a huge way from the beginning of this season, and we’re looked at as one of the top teams at the races. Not only are we given the respect, we’re given the duty of actually trying to make the race.

schmalz I’ve heard reports of people, other riders swearing at you, being snippy about you guys being at the races, being resentful. You’ve never felt anything like that?

Euser No, I guess I don’t know many of the guys out there, I’m not going to say I’m new to the sport, but I’m definitely new to the ProTour peloton, I don’t really know any of the guys out there, so they’re not going to talk to me. Especially with CSC and Columbia doing the same thing, I don’t foresee there being any major resentment. Unless they’re just jealous. We’re getting into these races ’cause we’re proving ourselves clean, and promoter, they don’t want any controversy with their race. As long as we can do that, we’re gonna keep getting into these races, and we’re gonna be taking their spots, unless they jump on the bandwagon.

schmalz I don’t know if you know this, but the Chinese calendar for 2009, is going to be the year of Lance Armstrong. How are you going to celebrate?

Euser(laughs) Lance coming back to the sport is just fine, you know? Lance is a really charismatic person, and he’s always trying to surprise everyone. Just fine, but I hope it doesn’t take any of the spotlight off all the hard work we’ve put in. We’ve worked really hard to prove that it’s a clean sport, that you can win clean, kind of our motto.

schmalz More specifically, how are you guys going to beat him? What’s the plan? Has Christian started talking about it already? Does he have his plan set? Is he ready to go?

Euser I don’t think anyone’s really talked about it yet. No one even knows who he’s riding for, there’s obvious rumors, but… I look at him as another competitor. He’s been out of the ProTour peloton for four years, not an easy comeback to make. More power to him if he makes it, we’re going to throw everything we can at him, and as you can see we have a lot more bullets now than at the beginning of the year. Even at the Tour we’ve got a lot more cards to play.

schmalz Were you a Lance fan growing up? Did you have the posters and all that?

Euser I did have one poster of Lance in my room, I’ll admit that. ’99 was the year I started riding, and sure enough, ’99 was the first year he won a Tour. I don’t know if I was ever a huge Lance fan, though, do I resent Lance? No, he did great things.

schmalz Now it’s your duty to kick his ass.

Euser Now the other five letter ‘L’ name is going to come into play.

schmalz The other five letter ‘L’ name? Who’s that? Lucas! Oh yeah, obviously! So you’re on the World’s team.

Euser I am.

schmalz So, how do you decide who gets to be the leader? Does someone send out an email, is it just assumed that Levi’s going to be the leader?

Euser Yeah, I’m pretty much assuming that, I’ve read it on cyclingnews and Velonews.

schmalz So you guys haven’t gotten together on a group chat and decided who it was over the IM or anything?

Euser No no no. Clearly he’s riding second place at the Vuelta right now, he’s not on bad form.?

schmalz I’ve always wondered how they decided who’s going to do what. I don’t think the US team would be as contentious as the Italian team, where guys are hurt and…I think Garzelli was weeping the other day because he wasn’t chosen to the Italian team. I just wonder how the teams formulate their plan.

Euser As most do, everyone there is fit enough to get to the finish line, it gets decided before the race who’s going to be the leader for the race. I think we only have five guys in the race, as opposed to other teams with nine. We don’t have a ton of cards to play, however, we’re actually going in there with five pretty strong guys. Whether people realize that or not, I don’t know, ’cause we’re kinda the outsiders.

schmalz You’ve got Tyler and Steven from your team…

Euser And Craig Lewis, he had just as good a ride at US Pro as I did, he was in the driver’s seat at some points, as far as doing the work for George. He was pulling his brains out. Craig has had a really good season, but it was him being an incredible teammate. Guys like myself and Steve and Craig will be great teammates to Levi, and potentially Tyler, if it comes down to a sprint. Tyler is definitely one of the United State’s best sprinters, he’s the one that can go the distance. That’s the hardest part of the race, the 260 km’s that it is. Tyler’s done well in the classics, after Missouri he’s haulin’ some good form, so…Levi’s an obvious contender, as far as making it to the finish, but I think we’ll have more than just one card to play. That’s the great thing about cycling, the tactics ensue on the road. It’s the things that happen right then and there, those are the greatest moments.

schmalz Is this gonna be one of the longer races you’ve done?

Euser Yeah, one of the longest European races I’ve done. I’ve done Philly, and some other long races in the US, but this’ll definitely be the longest, but not by much. I’ve done 235 k, so to do another 25… It’s not going to be easy by any means.

schmalz It’s not uncharted territory for you, then.

Euser It’s gonna be the longest, and it’s probably going to be the hardest. The whole game plan is to put the young guys that are America’s next generation of cyclists into races that they’re going to represent America in for the next decade. We’re going to be around for a while, it’s time we started learning and getting the experience we need to win those races. We’re not going to do it anytime soon, I’ll be honest, but we definitely can be factors in that race.

schmalz I think a lot of you have been factors in the early season races, even Mike Friedman and Steven (Cozza) was having a good early season, too. They were able to be involved in the races for a good long time, so I don’t think that the learning curve is going to be so steep now, I think you’re pretty close.

Euser That’s a really good way of putting it. We fought through the steep part of the learning curve, and now we’re on the gradual upswing. There’s a lot more to learn, but things are coming together, it’s all making sense now. At first you’re on the steep learning curve, you have no idea what’s going on, finally things are wrapping around our heads. We’re getting stronger, and we’re learning how to race smart, and being there at the finish instead of not.

schmalz Your neighborhood of Girona, is it known as little America around there?

Euser We’ve spread out quite a bit, but as far as group rides go, we still meet at the same place, we still ride together. If there’s enough of us here we’ll do it as many days in a row as we can. It’s good to have the strong English speaking community in a foreign country. Unfortunately it doesn’t bode well for actually learning the foreign language.

schmalz I think it’s a little less isolating than when Chris Horner got to France and got so homesick that he couldn’t stand it. I think it’s a little easier now with the internet and being able to call home more.

Euser Oh yeah, it’s worlds easier. It’s funny listening to guys like Michael Barry, Hincapie, Christian, they’re jealous ’cause when they had to do it they had the calling cards and they were calling on the pay phones once a week back home, and it was pretty much all the contact they had with back home. And really they were the only English speaking people, the handful that were there.

schmalz They had to go to the telegraph station and use the Morse code.

Euser They paved the way, man. And not only did they pave the way, the second we come over here they help us out. They show us around, and we have our handful of restaurants we go to, and they tried them all out, they found the best ones. We have the training rides we do ’cause they tried all the roads and found the best ones.

schmalz Who’s usually in your training rides? Who usually goes with you?

Euser If you go back to when everyone’s actually training here, as opposed to right now, there’s a good group here, everyone going off to the off season, normally there’s Millar, Christian, and myself, and then you got guys, Pat McCartney’s always here, Ryder Hejesdal’s here, Danny Pate’s here, and Tom Peterson’s here, Steven Cozza’s here. Those are the guys that are going on the rides, and anybody’s that’s here will join us. We don’t necessarily do them every day, ’cause everyone’s training is specific, based on the races you’re doing, but if there’s a day we can all get together we do, and we do a big ride and it’s awesome. And then you’ve got guys like other guys like JJ Haedo and Levi occasionally, he hasn’t been here that much this year, he shows up every once in a while. Zabriskie, I don’t know, I never see that guy.

schmalz He’s like the wind.

Euser He IS like the wind. You just don’t know where he is, where he’s coming from.

schmalz Of all the guys, when you were still living with guys, who was the messiest roommate that you had to deal with? Was it you?

Euser Was it me?

schmalz Yeah, were you the messiest?

Euser No no no. I was kinda like the clean big brother, I would try to keep things organized as best as I could. As far as living space, I’m definitely not admitting that my room is the cleanest room there is, ’cause it’s not. But I keep myself contained, whereas some others don’t. Absolute, most dirtiest person I’ve ever lived with? A guy that’s not on the team any more, but you probably know him, Taylor Tolleson. Oh man, that was bad.

schmalz He was a disaster, huh?

Euser Close second is Tom Peterson, he’s still on the team.

schmalz Tom Peterson’s a mess too.

Euser Tom, he’s a mess, but he’s a contained mess. He doesn’t spew out into our living spaces as Taylor did.

schmalz Mike Friedman strikes me as someone who puts everything in Tupperware and puts it away nicely.

Euser I never spent that much time with Friedman, although…I don’t think so, actually.

schmalz He’s not a little pigpen, then.

Euser I don’t think so.

schmalz Do you train with a powermeter, are you one of those racers who has his intervals, you have it all set up?

Euser Yeah, I work better in a structured format, I tried other ways, but that was actually part of this comeback this late surge. I went back to the really structured intervals and started riding. The day is either doing an interval or recovering from the interval. So I don’t do a whole lot of just riding any more, those rides are fun, but when I’m getting ready for something I definitely went back to the more structured way. That was how I started training, when I went from like a pathetic cat 2, when I was 19, to, one season I was a good cat 1, and the next season I was a pro. I got a coach back then, he’s actually recently come back as my coach. Not only did he get me to a pro, he got me to my first pro win.

schmalz What’s the average wattage on a training ride like? If you’re doing, I don’t know how long your intervals are, I’m sure they’re varying length, but let’s say you’re doing a 30 minute interval, what kind of wattage are you aiming for, or what do you achieve?

Euser Obviously interval’s such an open ended word. Am I going for threshold, am I going medium endurance, it all depends. If I’m going for a threshold interval at 30 minutes, I’m aiming between 340 and 350.

schmalz Gotcha. The people who read our site are mostly racers, they want to play the Euser home game, they want to be able to compare themselves to you, so…

Euser You also gotta remind them I’m 125 pounds right now.

schmalz Yep, the weight makes a huge difference.

Euser It makes a huge difference. I’m doing 360, but a guy that is 165 pounds is doing 430, 440, you know?

schmalz It’s interesting, different riders approach things differently. Some have coaches, some do wattages, I talked to Zabriskie before, I asked him how he trained, and he said he just goes out, he feels good he goes hard, if not, he doesn’t. It’s very unstructured, in a certain way.

Euser The thing is, some people, that’s how they work well. It’s all finding your cup of tea, your preference, you know?

schmalz I think that the longer that some guys have been pros the more they know about when they’re in shape and when they’re not.

Euser Exactly. And it very well could be that Zabriskie knows himself so well that he doesn’t have to have a ton of data, he knows when he’s going hard. I’m still trying to figure out what 350 feels like. And I’m starting to come around and feel that. Once you have that ingrained in your head, you’re doing a good job. You’re kinda coming back…sorry, I lost my train of thought.

schmalz It’s understandable. You understand what kind of wattage you can do, what it feels like, and if you can hold it.

Euser It translates in training and it translates in racing.

schmalz Zabriskie could just be lying to me.

Euser He could be. You never know with that guy.

schmalz He could be measuring every bit of food he’s eating like Lance used to do, doing all that obsessive stuff.

Euser He could be, you never know.

schmalz He plays his cards pretty close to his chest.

Euser I can give you plenty of numbers if you want.

schmalz What’s your max wattage in a sprint?

Euser The most I’ve hit this year is 1180.

schmalz 1180? Was that in a race or was that out training?

Euser That was in a race. Training is…that’s getting close. 1150 to 1170 in training.

schmalz Now if you’re going to do a six hour ride, what’s your average wattage for the day going to be?

Euser I’m going to aim, a hard training day, is going to be somewhere between 215 and 230.

schmalz For six hours?

Euser Five or six hours, that’s what it would be. For a hard day, you know?

Euser I gotta go back and say I use rolling, what do you call it, I take out the zeroes, it never calculates when you’re descending. When it does do that it takes off quite a bit.

schmalz Gotcha, still that’s a lotta wattage you’re pumping out of the cottage, so…

Euser I do remember one point doing a ride with Levi over the winter, doing 245 for five hours.

schmalz That just sounds like murder.

Euser All we did was climbing, hard climbing, and then a lot of descending, so again the zeroes were being taken out. It was still brutal.

schmalz I twitch just hearing about it. So what’s your plan for next year? What’s your goal? Are you going to be able to do the spring classics?

Euser I’m kinda taking this year’s goals, and just translating them to next year, ’cause realizing that my goals were a little far fetched this year, and I was able to be a little more realistic next year. For one I want to do a grand tour, I want to do the Giro. I don’t want to just do the Giro, I want to be able to do something in the Giro, whether that’s getting into a breakaway, helping the team win a team time trial, I want to do something in a grand tour. My second goal this year was to win a 2.1, a stage race that is not quite ProTour, not quite HC, but just kinda right there. I think that’s a realistic goal. And now I’m even going to say a 1.1, something that’s definitely noteworthy.

schmalz How’s your time trialing?

Euser It’s getting better, it used to be horrible, pathetic, I should say. I’ve actually made a bunch of changes recently, as far as position, and it’s really coming together.

schmalz Have you done a lot of wind tunnel time?

Euser No, I’ve never done wind tunnel, because I’ve always…I’ve never wanted to because I’ve always…I’ve always adhered to the ‘I’ve gotta work on the minutes before the seconds’ motto…I’m losing time trials by minutes, you know, and that’s not from the aero position, that’s from not being able to ride a time trial bike. (unintelligible) The biggest thing I could’ve done was just ride my time trial bike this year. I’ve actually spent some decent training time on it, and therefore it translates right to racing. Everyone make training so complicated, but then all you have to do, not all you have to do, but the easiest thing to do is to realize you can’t do anything in a race you can’t do in training. I always used to think I would be superman on race day just because it’s race day, and yeah, you do have a little more motivation, because of the crowds, because of the circumstances, whatever. But if you put your racing in the perspective of your training, that’s for me the best thing I could’ve done. I’ve got to do this in training before I can expect to do this in racing. Unless I can do it in training, you have the confidence you can do it racing.

schmalz Well with time trialing, that’s especially important. Your bascially putting yourself in the position of the most uncomfortable bowel movement of your life, and you’re holding it for, like an hour or so. Just to get in that position takes a lot of time.

Euser Oh yeah, for sure. It just takes getting used to. The biggest thing is, as far as position changes, not necessarily getting as aero as I could, but first off, getting as comfortable as I could, and still being aero and giving out power, it’s all a balance relationship. I’m definitely worked on getting comfortable first.

schmalz Well we wish you best of luck next year, Lucas, and thanks for giving the time for the interview.