George Baptista - Niigata, Japan

"Somehow your name sounded familiar... I thought long and hard and one day it came back to me - we probably did a few races in the same junior class in NorCal. I seem to remember guys like Scott McKinley, Steve Larsen, Stefan Spielman, etc. There were a few guys from California Pedaler I also knew, and after I read your book (it was great btw), it all made sense to me. At the time I wondered what happened to you, there were rumours you flew off to Europe somewhere...

Just curious, how do you think the level of NorCal racing at the time compared to the amateur races in Belgium?  Did it prepared you in anyway, or was it total shock to the system?"

Yeah George, the racing in NorCal back in the day was pretty good. The juniors who tore it up at that time were a good group of guys and I look back on those days quite fondly. I think the depth of the junior fields back then really helped me once I moved to Belgium because we were all so competitive and all wanted to race for racing's sake, so the negative racing was really kept to a minimum.  In that sense, I'd say, yes, the NorCal racing did help the transition.

That said, something that I wasn't prepared for was the "grind." Euro races, even the amateur ones, are more of a grind than anything I experienced in the US, before or since. If anything was a shock to the system it was seeing all the clapped-out bikes the guys who were winning rode.