Expanding his racing footprint to another continent, cyclist Larry Warbasse will be racing in Belgium and Switzerland for the next three weeks.
The Traverse City West Senior High School senior will miss the first week of school while traveling with the United States National Team to a series of road races and time trials in Belgium. He will also participate in the GP Ruebliland in Switzerland with the team.
The invite to join the junior men's team fulfils a dream for Warbasse, who began racing in junior high.
"It's been a goal of mine for a long time, to be able to race in Europe with the National team,” Warbasse said. "I'm going to be doing a bunch of one-day races in Belgium and a stage race in Switzerland.”
"Bikers come from all over Europe,” he added.
For the past two years, Warbasse has been a member of the six-person Priority Health U23 Cycling Team based in Grand Rapids. He is an up-and-coming cyclist who has made his mark at races around the state and Midwest. Thanks to Priority Healthy, Warbasse has been training with team manager Mark Olson, whose coaching and training regimen boosted his success.
"It's a really awesome team and they've helped me out a lot,” said Warbasse, who rides an average of 300 miles per week, including endurance rides three, four or five hours long. He wears his iPod to minimize boredom.
"I just ride, coach tells me what to do so I'll do different things like intervals or a flat ride,” he added.
This summer Warbasse's success zone grew as the racing season progressed. He placed 16th out of 89 racers in the Junior Men 17-18 Road Race at the USA Cycling National Festival, held in July at Seven Springs, Penn. He also placed 8th out of 126 junior men ages 17-18 in time trials at the event. Just after the National Festival, Warbasse participated in the Tour de L'Abitibi — billed as the Tour de France for juniors — and made a good showing there.
With a goal of racing professionally and a glimmer of hope about the Olympics someday, Warbasse is still mastering the finer points of road racing and time trails.
He already has a good handle on mental preparation: researching races beforehand, reading up on who did well last year and checking out course profiles online. For a big race, he also likes to arrive a few days early and ride the course to get a feel for elevations or problem spots.
"A lot in cycling is tactics and that's one thing it helps to have, it takes experience and I'm not totally the best at tactics but I'm working on it,” he said. "The more you do, the better tactical sense you get.”
Warbasse began his training season in February and kept in shape during the winter by downhill skiing. Known for his strength in hill climbing, thanks in part to the hills of Leelanau County and the Old Mission Peninsula, this year Warbasse began seriously working on time trials.
"I like doing it this year because they went pretty well for me for the most part,” he said.
Warbasse has a full life when he is not racing or training. In addition to a heavy academic load, he is active in West's award-winning Model UN program, downhill ski races and will start this year as class president — his fourth consecutive year in that position.
"It's tough, but school work comes first,” said Warbasse of juggling his busy schedule. "I do my homework before I train.”
Warbasse plans to blog about his racing experiences in Europe at www.larrywarbasse.blogspot.com.