Inquiring cyclists everywhere want to know, “What is the story with that Miguel Morras guy?” Wild rumors first started circulating after he won a Floyd Bennet race– in the 5s! Was he really a former pro for ONCE? Jr World champion? And why was he banging bars with guys in tube socks and panniers instead of his homeboys in the Pro Tour? A former Jr Worlds rival of Miguel’s told us that if it took training a bit more seriously that no local rider would stand a chance. After hearing all of this we were thoroughly intimidated so we sent the intrepid O’Malley to find out for you.

Miguel Morras was born in February 1976 in Pamplona in the Navarro region of Spain and all his life until aged 16, played soccer for the local team. He began racing for C.C. Estella in 1993 and in 1994, one year after, became Junior World Champion in Quito, Ecuador on July 31st.

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Morras Sprints with one lap left. He ends up 4th, 3/25, Spring Series

Now he races for Champion Sports Systems/Cycles Gladiator and is a regular at the Spring Series in Central and Prospect Parks and the Branch Brook race series in New Jersey.

Note: On a training ride in Central Park one evening last week, I began an interview with this ex Junior World Champion, as the wind and rain added to a few laps of tough training. We had ridden together back in November when both of us were out of shape.

O’M: Now that you’re on a local team is the Spring Series the main event?

Miguel Morras:: Yes, the team is focusing on the Spring Series, we put it with red letters on our calendar. We got new riders this winter and we thought it important to try to do well, to show our new sponsor Cycles Gladiator how competitive we can be..

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Morras Wins in Central Park, Spring Series, 3/11, Riff second:

O’M: Did you always race bikes?

MM: No, I was a soccer player for C.D. Izarra team, in

Estella and I was selected for Navarra under 16 for the national

championship, we went all the way to quarter finals and got beaten by

Madrid. I played against now famous soccer players like Ivan de la

Pena or Guti.

O’M: What position?

MM: Left striker.

O’M: Is soccer bigger than cycling in Spain?

MM: It’s the number one sport. Cycling has been number two for a long time. Basketball is kind of taking over. There is also big new interest in Fernando Alonso in Formula One [car racing] and Rafael Nadal in tennis. Valverde has not made it as big as them yet, in Spain. For that you need to win the Tour de France. I think he can make it.

O’M: You won the World Junior Championships in 1994. Tell me about that experience and what led up to it.

MM: I had just done a very good nationals, back in Spain. I broke the

race apart, but Mancebo [Francisco], Lastras and Eladio Jimenez, all from the same state and same team. I was in the break with the 3 of them and I could only get second. I really wanted that Spanish championship.

So I was strong for the World’s although I did not know what level we

were facing from the other riders. It was my first international race.

It was 120km, 6 laps on a circuit with 10km of uphill and 10km of

downhill, basically almost no flat. And at 9,ooo feet altitude.

It ended uphill, very hard and riders arrived one by one to the finish line.

With 62kms to the end, Mancebo, Lastras, myself and 5 other guys left the group on the hardest part of the hill. One lap after. So with

42kms to go, I attacked again, also on the hardest part, with 12% gradient uphill. I did the last 1/3 of the race on my own.

Patrick Lefevre (from France) was second with 30 seconds behind and Eladio Jimenez from Spain was third over 3 minutes later. Francisco mancebo was my domestic and he ended up being 4th in the tour in 2005. Oscar Freire was in the pre-selection but did not make it in the end, funny. And I remember Christian Vandevelde from the USA in that race.

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Morras Wins Juniors, Quito, Ecuador 7/31/1994, 30 seconds on Mancebo

O’M: Then you got a pro deal?

MM: I went to amateur first, before the World’s. The Banesto amateur squad had already approached me. I won over 20 races that year as a junior.

O’M: When did u get a pro deal?

MM: At the age of 19. In 1995 on my only year of amateur I was second in the Amateur Championships of Spain to Ochoa [], and beat Heras [Roberto]. In 1995 I turned pro and got a deal with ONCE, after having offers from most of the Spanish pro teams, including Banesto and ONCE.

O’M: What kind of money were you paid back then?

MM: I do not disclose the money I earn. I can tell you that as a

rookie in Spain at the time, one would get a standard contract of 2

years for about $50,000 total. They made an exception with me and offered me higher amounts and a 4 year contract. I never talked about it to not create conflicts with other teammates. The shame is that I never made to the one million Euro contracts per year like Oscar Freire or “Paco” Mancebo. But now I am very happy for them.

O’M: How was at ONCE?

MM: I was team mates with Alex Zulle, Laurent Jalabert. On my

twentieth birthday I was having dinner with the team and Jalabert was singing happy birthday, they made me talk and sing standing on my chair. That same year in 1996 I had a terrible crash.

O’M: Tell me about the crash.

MM: It was a criterium. I crashed hard on my right kneecap. It was

shattered and I had two surgeries, but it didn’t heal quickly enough.

O’M: Did you do any sort of exercise during your recovery?

MM: Yes I swam a few times a week. That was all.

O’M: So what did you do next?

MM: My pro career was over and I decided to finish my studies in

economics. I did my MBA at the London School of Economics and came as an exchange student on my last semester to Stern School of Business at NYU in 2003 and I have been in New York since.

O’M: Were you from a family of bikers?

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Estella, On the Ascent

MM: No, we like sports. My father is a mathematics professor. My

mother is a teacher in middle school.

O’M: So now you work for Citigroup?

MM: Yes I trade interest rate derivatives and bonds for Citigroup,

mostly Latin American markets and work from 6:30 in the morning to 5:30 in the afternoon.

O’M: How do you make time for training?

MM: I try to be in the park [Central] at 7 in the evening after work

and on weekends go over the bridge with the team [CS/Cycles

Gladiator]. Sometimes it is very hard, I just go to bed after work,

otherwise I do not get enough rest.

O’M: Ray Alba got you in the team right?

MM: Yes, they have been very supportive with me. I was out of the

country for one year and they treated me as one more on the team,

hoping I was coming back to New York and race again for them. The team CS/Cycles Gladiator possess exactly what I need, we race

locally, we do a lot of short races, and they are flexible with the riders.

For example I asked them to do only 1 race per weekend after all the inactivity of the last 10 years and they understood. I am not disputing the Branch Brook series anymore and we are focusing on the Spring Series for now.

It is a long season especially for me that up to the beginning of the year, I have been in only 10 races since 1997. They are nice guys, a lot of them ride in central park. They are all guys with healthy life style and Ray Alba promised me, we have a zero tolerance with doping issues, there is no space for that in this team.

So the team has everything I need. We were counting on Tom Bencivengo and with all respect to his current team, I think

the guy belongs here. We need a rider with his characteristics to

complete the team.

O’M: I rode with you back in November. How was your fitness back then?

My last race as a pro was in 1997, for the last 22 months I have been

riding at a slow pace but I can feel the improvement every month.

On my first rides in 2004, I was averaging 10 miles an hour on the

west side bike path. That is how much I had to catch up.

Unfortunately I only did 20 or 30 races as a pro. People should see

me as somebody that was very strong at the age of 17 to 19 but not as

an ex-pro. I never got to do the big races.

O’M: What sort of power can you put out now?

MM: Oh, I’m old fashioned, haven’t tested myself since 1997. When I

was racing in the early nineties all this heart rate monitor stuff was

new. I raced with toe clips and down shifters. Then new gear came in,

But I think all the new technology is great. I am just starting. I do

not even have speedometer on my bike. If I win races, one day I

might get one the devices [Power Tap] that measure how much power you are moving and all that. One step at a time.

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Champ in Rainbow Jersey

O’M: You mentioned on the ride that ONCE and Mavic were the innovators of the 11 sprocket.

MM: Yes, that’s right. ONCE were developing a bigger gear for Zulle

[Alex] to use in the TT. He was the TT expert on our team. Back 4

weeks ago in Branch Brook, it was the first time I used an eleven when I attacked. I had a 12 all my life. I was going with the 11 uphill, I

got very excited. [laughing]

O’M: So in 2005, you raced for the first time in the U.S.?

MM: Yes, first race for me in eight years. It was in Prospect Park,

cat 5, in Brooklyn, [Spring Series]. I went to attack at the uphill on

my own and was caught [by field]. I did a total of 5 races in 2005, I

won one as a cat five in Floyd Bennett, I was so happy. Last time I

raised my hands was 9 years before. In 2006 I kept training and

training. I have been putting base miles in for 2 years now, since

spring 2005 when got back to the bike. In 2006, I got 4th at Prospect

park on my only race on America soil, a race that the famous Lisban

Quinteiro won.

O’M: You’ll beat your record of 5 races per year from the last 2 years.

MM: [Laughing] Yes I will beat it for sure. This year I’ve already

done 5 races so far. I plan to do only 30 or 35 this year.

O’M: What are or were your strengths?

MM: The TT. I did not do many but always felt good.

O’M: How fast could you go?

MM: I did 50k in less than one hour as an amateur in 1995.

My only TT as a pro I was 7th in the Circuit de la Sarthe in France, in 1996. I am currently thinking of buying a TT bike for this year.

O’M: Regarding this morning’s race, how did it go down and what was going through your head as you hit the last lap?

MM: There were 3 guys ahead of us, I tried on the hill to see if I could

catch them and also the important thing for us in the series is to get

points in each of the races. Daniel from empire followed me on the

hill, we could not catch the break, since i did most of the work he

did not dispute me the fourth place, that was nice from him. We know that Luis Aquino from Gotham is very focused on the spring series. He has won the last 2 years. He is going to dispute all the races like us, it was important that we got point advantage today

O’M: Expand on your training methods, why you have no HR monitor etc?

MM:: No training plan would suit me because training methods are not meant to be for somebody that has been 8 years off the bike. So I follow my instincts for now. I work on my endurance, on burning all the fat accumulated and if I feel great I work a bit on the intensity but always resting after the efforts. In a couple of years, it is going to

be different. I will be able to go much harder on the training.

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trainig is now trading

O’M: how do you see the level of the riders you are competing with?

MM: The level is very good. Especially the top guys. New York is a big city. So there are excellent people at anything you name and cycling is no exception. Obviously I liked how Will Riffelmacher rides, always very active in the race.

On the last race at central park, I took a 5/10 second advantage at the Harlem Hill, we went on the whole last lap with that small difference between us.

That says good things for both of us about not giving up. Also it is very impressive the new team, Empire Hotels. It is great that new sponsors bet hard on cycling at amateur level, now they need to be careful because if they win too easily locally they can harm a bit the cycling in New York. They need to help other teams get the same deals they get and attract new sponsors and things like that.

If a team has the best 12 riders in New York, then you kill the races, other cyclists and sponsors get discouraged. Hopefully there will always be new riders winning races, fighting with Empire. I also like how Mengoni never gives up on any race. They seem to be very disciplined, they have had a good culture for racing for many years.

O’M: Do you pay much attention to diet?

MM: I eat a lot, not worried about losing weight. For now, it’s about getting muscle back. I only drink water. I eat rice or pasta every day, raw fruit, soy milk, cereals and some meat or fish. I don’t drink soda or coffee.

O’M: Do you drink alcohol?

MM: Right now I don’t. When I was a student in London and here in New York I went out a bit. My first few months here I used to go to Naked Lounge and Spring Lounge. Also on Bleecker Street, those type of bars.

Sometimes I go clubbing in the meat packing district or on the area of 26/27th Streets between 10th and 11th Avenues. My friend Marcos Rollan promotes great nights there. It helps when you can jump the line!

O’M: Any Irish bars?

MM: McSorleys Ale House of course. Also McFaddens, always great Happy Hours, strongly recommended during the week.

O’M: You live with 2 room mates. Where do you clean your bike?

MM:I am lucky to have met Andres, from Repairman Bicycles in Queens. He is the best mechanic I have never seen, not even the mechanics at Banesto or once knew as much as he knows. he helps a lot our team and does not charge us for tune ups, we get good prices and that, so I go there before every race, make sure my bike is working perfect. During the week, I also go to my local shop where my friends Sammy and Luis Aquino work.