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| Name: |
Nick Gonzales |
| Hometown: |
San Juan Capistrano,
CA - A couple of miles from the beach and a few miles from the coastal
mountains. |
| Bike: |
Giant Anthem
with lots of goodies |
| Favorite Local
Trail: |
The AntHills, with
Memorial Park a close second |
| Racing Class and
Category: |
Expert Master Men 30-39 |
| Racing Team: |
Bike Lane |
| Number of Bikes in
the Garage: |
Garage? I don't
need no steenking garage! I keep my bikes in the house
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| Cycling Hero: |
Julie Furtado |
| Favorite Genre of
Music: |
Rock |
Favorite Sport to
participate
in when not Cycling: |
There
are other sports besides cycling?!?
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| Why I got into
Mountain Biking: |
I’ve been on two
wheels most of my life and it started when I was five years old -- when
I got my first motorcycle. Only a couple of years later did I get
my first bicycle. From then on, I went everywhere on my BMX bike.
Eventually, I “grew up” and my interest in bicycles waned.
However, during grad school my passion was revived when I went home for
Christmas and some friends suggested that we go mountain biking. I
figured that a mountain bike was just a 10-speed with big tires and what
fun would there be in riding a beach cruiser with gears and knobby
tires. My friends convinced me that it would be fun, so I borrowed
a mountain bike and a helmet and off we went. We shuttled to the
top of the local mountain and then just flew down the singletrack.
I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time because I’d NEVER had so
much fun on a bike. I loved the sensation of having the wind in my
face and the feeling that I was riding at the edge of my abilities.
I also enjoyed the acceleration when I’d release the brakes.
Yet, I got the feeling that I wasn’t riding as fast as I could because
one of my buddies kicked my butt to the bottom of the trail on a bike
that was not only too big for him, but only had front brakes.
Convinced that I could go faster, the next spring I bought a mountain
bike and rode the heck out of it. I quickly realized what I could
and could not do on the bike and had a blast riding the mountainous
terrain in
Utah
. My determination and work paid off the following Christmas when
I raced my friends to the bottom of the same mountain and beat them all
by several minutes.
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| Where I met Team
Smack: |
I’d met Chrissy at
Bike Barn sometime in 1999 and he invited me to ride with Team Smack on
Saturday mornings. I don’t remember my first Team Smack ride,
but I remember the impressions I had after the first few rides.
There was always lots of smack but not much riding; and, when we did
ride, the skill level did NOT measure up to the smack!
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| Why do I race: |
I race to measure my
fitness level and to learn about myself. I want to improve and I
think racing is a good way to do it.
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| Favorite
Race Story: |
At the start of my
second sport race (Huntsville, Fall 1999), I crashed & flatted and
found myself in last place just a minute into the race. In the
end, I managed to pick-off 20 racers by the time I crossed the finish
line for a mid-pack finish.
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| Other
Comment: |
How DID I get
tricked into moving to
Houston
? Oh yeah, I remember now…I only received one job offer and it
was in hot, wet, FLAT Southeast Texas. Fortunately, I’ve
adjusted to life in
Houston
and now I’m a chemist by day and a mountain bike racer the rest of the
time.
My two favorite
quotes:
“Don’t give
up…Don’t ever give up.”
--Jim Valvano
(NC State basketball coach & cancer victim)
“Far better
it is to dare mighty things, even though checkered by failure, than to
take rank with those who neither enjoy much or suffer much, because they
live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
--Theodore
Roosevelt
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