“hey dude! This is a closed road! There’s a bike race going on.”

The hardest race I’ve ever done….

The Tour of California 2014. I came down with a stomach issue the night before the first stage. For five days I hardly ate a thing and what little I did eat went straight through. I felt like shit, looked like shit, smelled like shit and if I was lucky I could get through half of each stage without stopping for a shit. It was absolutely horrible.

On the Mount Diablo stage, after already seeking out bushes twice earlier in the stage, I jumped into a porta-potty at the bottom of the climb. By the time I came out, the whole caravan had passed & I was alone on the open road. I chased with every last bit of strength I had and three-quarters of the way up the climb I caught the broom wagon. As I came up alongside them the guy driving the van yelled out, “hey dude! This is a closed road! There’s a bike race going on. Get off the road!” I was so broken it took me three tries before he understood my feeble cry, “I’m in the race!”. He flagged down a director who dropped back and gave me water (did I mention it was +40c?) until I made it to the line.

At the top, our director had assumed I had pulled out and when he saw me rolling up after finishing began to cry. This guy, who made a name for himself as being one of the hardest, toughest guys in pro cycling, had an ice pack on my head and was petting my face like I was on my deathbed, crying and telling me, “oh chico, you’ve done too much, poor chico, you’ve done too much. Why did you do this? You shouldn’t have done this.”

That was a hard race. But, I think I was 8th on the last stage. (9th – editor)

Alex Howes during Strade Bianche. photo credit: Jered and Ashley Gruber (Gruber Images)

…is the funniest rider on the team.

Rigo. The guy is full of practical jokes. His reach extends beyond the riders as well. Down in Colombia, Rigo convinced one of our soigneurs, let’s call him, Bart, that he was needed for every media request we had. Bart HATED being on camera and HATED being put on the spot. The Colombian media being in on the joke grilled poor Bart with all the hardball questions. It was only a few days later that Bart found out the cameras were never on and it was all an elaborate joke put on by Rigo

My pre-race routine is to…

Sleep all the sleep. Drink all the coffee. Carb up. Have a little lookie-loo at the profile and course for the day. Aaaaaand think about what it is on that particular day that I am racing for. Find the reason and you’ll find the rhythm.

The funniest conversation I’ve had in the middle of a race was with…

For sure it was with Dave Zabriskie. Who knows what it was about. Probably chemtrails or bowel moments.

When I’m suffering up a climb, I think about…

Injustice in the world. People I hate. People I love.

My first road bike was a… 

Marushi. Downtube shifters, toe straps, 19mm tires pumped up to 150psi, steel. She was a pig an I loved every ounce of her.