The Becoming... Continued

... conclusion of previous post.

Unfortunately as the season started, so did my new job, which required almost 70 hours of work a week. Doing business-to-business construction sales, I started the “career” that encompassed all my time. I went from riding six days a week to maybe riding on weekends. It took about a year to realize that this is not what I really wanted to do, as I started to gain weight again and jumped back over 185 pounds. I barely had time to race and when I did, I fought for dear life just to hang on.

So I devised a plan to come back into racing. I was going to train the rest of the season and keep a low profile, downgrade to category three to and gain some confidence in racing again. During this time, I was still working over 60 hours a week, getting home at 9:00 pm and riding my trainer until midnight. I was ready to give everything to go back to my previous level.

Thankfully for me, the company I worked for made some bad market moves and being laid off definitely helped me realize that the corporate structure was not for me. After a few months of unemployment, I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time when I exchanged some emails with Clive De Sousa from Glory Cycles.

Clive brought me on as sort of an all-in-one employee to start out, and gave me opportunities to grow with the business. This career move had a lot of facets for me as it immersed me in the sport, allowed me the time I needed to ride, and also gave me a community outreach.


Over the year and a half I was with Glory, my position grew as did the store’s success. During that time I was able to achieve some solid results in the category 3 ranks and have enough upgrade points to return to the Pro 1-2 level. My plan was slowly coming to fruition.

After finishing the three remaining FPS races as a category 2 rider, I was able to crack top 20 in all the remaining races, but it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I knew I could be faster.

During preparation for 2008, I made a full-time commitment to a coach rather than workout suggestions. Over the years I’d became friends with Robby Ketchell of ColoradoPremierTraining.com, who helped me with coaching here and there, and also gave me some great training ideas. Together we came up with a good plan and I purchased a power meter to make the most out of my training. I put 100% confidence in my coach and followed every workout to a T. Unfortunately that meant a lot of rides alone and a lot of long days in the saddle, but as the season dawned upon us I was more confident than I had ever been. Part of the confidence I gained was in some beginners luck at cyclocross, as I was able to take 3rd place in the overall Pro 1, 2 Florida State Cup.



The season officially started with the 2008 Tour of Bahamas, where I was in a familiar place, racing with big names that I read about. Was nice to see some familiar faces, as one of my home town friends was the lead mechanic for Slipstream and one of my collegiate racing foes was now riding for Rite Aid.

Although things did not start well for me—my hotel reservation got lost and I got hit by a bus one day before the race started— the race was a great experience. I beat Dave Zabriskie in the second stage taking 15th and then got blown off the road in the final stages destroying a set of Zipp wheels. The good results took everything else off the map, and gave me fuel for the upcoming Florida races.

As the year started, I was learning something during every race, and soaking it in like a sponge, and as this happened, consistent results followed. The season was looking up when I secured two guest rider spots; one with Eric Murphy’s Myogensis squad for the USA Crits Speed Week Series, and the other with the Colavita Pro Development Team for a later date. As Speed Week approached, I was completely in shock of the speed and intensity of the races. The only thing that could describe it, is absolute chaos.

My week of racing was pretty much over on night one, as I was involved in a crash that took out over half the field. Thanks to SRAM neutral support, I was able to ride a spare bike for as long as my body would let me, which was only 20 minutes. The next night was just as bad, as it seemed I could not put any power to the pedals. So I took the third night off and finally by the fourth night I was able to finish. It was a small victory and enough to keep me positive after what seemed to be a bad week. To add some insult to injury, I came down with the flu the last two days and started with a fever to ensure our team points. This week was a huge eye opener. I had so much work to do and had to learn to deal with bad luck. Thankfully I was able to tackle down some good results in Florida to slowly boost my confidence back up.

Moving into June, I received an email from Colavita, giving me little notice that they were scheduling me for the New England Race Week. I was beyond happy. It seems so common in the cycling world to hear things and have promises and offers that never materialize, but now this was happening, and everything was taken care of for me. I finally got the break I was looking for. To document things, I started up my blog, Making The Leap, as I knew there were some parties in the Orlando cycling community, who wanted to see how the races went. Thankfully this time around I was able to race to my fullest, taking 7th in one of the big twilight crits. Everyone on the team was awesome and I was looking forward to hopefully doing more races with the team in the future. A few weeks later I received an email confirming that I had earned a spot on the team for 2009. This gave me motivation to end the season strong, taking 6th in the Florida Points Series and winning the last race of the calendar year.

Moving to this year, the Ten Speed Drive/ BH Bicycles Team, will be racing a full US calendar. We are sponsored for our travel and lodging, but food and racing outside of team events are up to the riders. Needless to say these costs add up over the year, as does the amount of time you are away from work and ability to earn an income.



Unfortunately this is the risk and sacrifice you have to take to earn a pro contract. I want to personally thank everyone in the Orlando and Florida community for their support. I hear every one of you cheering at the races and I remember talking to you all during rides.

I would like to ask for your support in contributing to my cause and pursuit of this dream. Donations can be sent via U.S. mail to the address below, or via PayPal.com payable to mightywty@hotmail.com. 1% of your donation will go fund research for Bell's Palsy.

Garrett White
4205 Shadow Creek Circle
Oviedo, FL 32765