Motorcycle racing has changed in many ways over the years. In the old days it was party on Saturday and race on Sunday. Now most of the racers at the front end are careful about what they eat and how they train, and cycling is at the top of their training regimen. Five-time Daytona 200 champion Miguel DuHamel is one of them, “I was probably one of the first guys in the paddock to use cycling for training. I should have been more quiet about it. It’s really important to be fit in motorcycle road racing even though it’s not as physical as bike racing. It helps you be smarter under stress. I started about 1995, just riding with a friend of a friend. Pretty soon I was hooked. Now I ride four times a week, usually around Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas.”Reigning AMA Supersport champion Ben Bostrom is an avid cyclist now, but that wasn’t always the case, “I didn’t even think of bicycling for training. My brother took me mountain bike riding once, but he almost killed me before we even got to the dirt. I’d never been clipped into pedals before, and I fell over right in front of a car. I didn’t get hit, but it kind of soured me on the whole bicycle thing.”
When Bostrom made the move to the World Superbike he became one of DuHamel’s cycling converts, “Miguel DuHamel worked with Carmichael Training Systems, and was really pushing the fitness thing. They were all about training on a bicycle for road racing, and they just kind of saw me as a slacker. So I tried a road bike. I loved it.” Both Ben and his brother Eric have made cycling an integral part of their training programs, “You wouldn’t think it would be that important. Road racing on a motorcycle is all about upper body strength. Your legs don’t do much of anything. But you really have to concentrate. If you’re in shape, your mind works better.”
When Ben was competing in World Superbike he made his home in Italy where professional bike racing is a passion. While he was there he made friends with a local bike shop owner who also managed a pro cycling team, “He set me up to ride with some old guys to train with, 40, 50 and 60 year-old-riders. I thought, how hard can that be? As it turned out, they were old pros. On my first ride, I was hanging on in the back, and felt like I should take a pull just because of guilt. It was the worst possible timing. The road went straight uphill. The old guys dropped me.” With that lesson firmly planted in his mind the hyper-competitive Bostrom turned up his training, and entered his first bike race, “It was a Pro/Amateur road race that started in Bellagio and went straight up a mountain.” Bostrom won the race, and became a diehard fan of pro cycling. When he wasn’t racing motorcycles he was spending time in the team cars at the big bike races like the Giro di Italia and the Tour de France.
But DuHamel and the Bostrom brothers aren’t the only riders with a passion for cycling. Nicky Hayden’s ride to the 2006 MotoGP World Championship included time on a bicycle, "I try to ride every day for sure. Some days I do intensity, some days endurance, and I download it all from my heart rate monitor." Hayden knows that the fitness he gets from cycling will pay off on the track, “Cycling is a lot different and obviously, the MotoGP bike is a lot tougher to ride, and everything is happening so fast. You’re reading your pit-boards, looking for the braking markers and watching all the other guys on the track. Some of the tracks are longer and more open, but there are racetracks where there's just no time to rest on a lap and that's when fitness really comes into it.” Hayden’s passion for cycling has led to a sponsorship deal with Specialized bicycles. He now has Specialized road bikes and cycling gear wherever his ride on a MotoGP bike takes him.
Three-time World Superbike champion Troy Bayliss is another rider who’s hooked on cycling. Bayliss has retired from motorcycle racing, but when he was still racing and living in Italy he entered local bike races. To be competitive in both sports he spent as much time as he could on bicycles, “My shortest ride would be about two hours. Four hours was about my longest ride because I didn't want to wear myself down too much. Sometimes I was off the bike for a week or a week and a half, and that disheartened me. I didn't like missing out on my riding.”
The Bostrom brothers and Miguel DuHamel continue to ride and compete on bicycles. Last fall they rode in the grueling 24 Hours of Moab mountain bike race. DuHamel and Eric Bostrom’s team won the five person coed competition, and Ben finished fourth in the men’s solo race. Ben Spies does most of his riding on a road bike, but he entered the five man team competition at the last minute and finished eighteenth. Since moving to Italy to compete in World Superbike Spies has been training with pro riders.
There’s no doubt that for motorcycle racers there’s a connection between bicycles and motorcycles. The endorphin high that is more frequently associated with running is part of it, but there’s more to it than that. Bayliss seems to have the answer, “Cycling is definitely good for my fitness, and I love riding the bike. But I'm also much more of a pleasurable person when I've been cycling. It takes my mind away from everything and it's just really relaxing. It's a lot slower than what I'm used to, but I really enjoy the scenery and everything that's associated with cycling. It could just be the two-wheel connection. It's in the blood to ride on two wheels and that could be my problem with the bicycle as well.”
