You may have heard about the Ginger twins if you have followed to domestic crit scene over the past five years. My twin brother Kevin, Ginger 1 and myself Conor Mullervy, Ginger 2 raced professionally from 2010-2015 with Team Exergy and Champion System Stan's NoTubes and focused mostly on the Criterium racing. Though we did not start riding till our Senior year in High School and did not take training or racing too serious until we started school in Grand Junction, CO at Colorado Mesa University. During our Freshmen year of College is when we first met Ben Turner and he then introduced us into the life of Cyclocross. We had the privilege of racing on Team CLIF Bar development cyclocross team. This was our first real team with great support from sponsors and a good race schedule. We where hooked!!!
For the next four years we raced road in the spring and summer for the University and during the winter we got to race cyclocross for Team CLIF Bar. Kevin and I learned so much from this program and really got to develop ourselves as racers. My biggest result in Cyclocross was during my last year in the U23 where I finished 7th at Nationals. Not only did we learn some great racing skills while on the team but also some good life lessons. We also got to learn about how the cycling life style is not always glamours. I still remember leaving Nationals in Kansas City after the ice storm rolled in. It was Ben, Kevin and myself in the big green biodiesel Team CLIF Bar school bus heading back to Colorado. This is when we learned that the heater in the bus did not work and all would be bundled in sleeping bags for the next nine hours. On the plus side we also had all the CLIF Bars that you could ever imagine to indulge in.
Once we graduated College we where both offered our first Professional contract with a road team called Team Exergy. This is when we had to make the decision on wether to focus 100% on the road or in cyclocross. We both decided to pursue the dream on the road for the next five years. After two years with Team Exergy we started racing for another pro team called Champion System Stan's NoTubes. We got to focus on our love of criteriums with this team while racing all over the country and parts of the world. Turns out that the big green bus with no heat was the least of our worries after driving all over the country in various team vans.
At the end of 2015 Champion System folded and Kevin took advantage of being offered a spot on Team CLIF Bar's crit squad for 2016. I chose to move to Australia and race on an elite team called GPM-Stulz out of Sydney for the year. This was hard because this was the longest the two of us had ever been apart and the first time ever that we raced on different teams. While in AUS I would watch all the Crits that where streamed live and watch Team CLIF Bar and Kevin kick some butt. This made me really miss the USA crit scene and racing on the same team as Kevin.
For 2017 we are now both with Team CLIF Bar and loving every minute of it. This winter we where lucky enough to have our team camp in California with the creator himself Gary Erickson. Besides following Gary though a ragging river with all our new team equipment and catching a staph infection from the water, this probably was one of the best rides and experiences of my cycling career. Being able to race together and coming full circle with CLIF Bar is something pretty special. We could not be happier and feel like home back with CLIF.
No comments:
Post a Comment