17 February 2015

I didn’t set out with the intention of having a whole racing team. Back in 2011 I thought it would be fun to have some English Cycles kit, and to race in it myself. Then Lee, who I had raced on the local Hutch’s shop team with, asked if he could join me. So there were two of us. Then late in 2013, I met with Andrew and Lauren to discuss their custom builds, and Andrew inquired about joining. Three! Then Adam saw Andrew in EC kit and wanted to join in. Followed shortly by Colby (who had raced the OBRA TTT the last two years on a composite team with Lee and I). All of a sudden a decent five man squad! One of the fun things has been building each rider’s preferences into a custom race bike – mine is the first frame I did with a carbon ISP, built up to be as light as possible. Lee’s has an ovalised steel ISP and Di2. Andrew went for a round ISP, a steel fork, and is just getting the frame built up with a mix of mechanical Ultegra and Dura-ace. Adam just picked up his bike a couple of weeks ago – I don’t have the studio shots yet, but a few pictures are attached here. Full road race disc brake build, with carbon ISP, hidden cables and Di2. Lots of variation, but all in team colors!

Last weekend was our first team get-together. Unfortunately Lee was recovering from the flu and couldn’t make it, but the other four of us enjoyed a beautiful sunny ride outside of Salem (thanks to Andrew for hosting and a great route!), which boasted some really fun, low-traffic roads, some gravel and even a ferry crossing!

After my crash last year, I’m not sure how much I will race in 2015, but I’m very happy to have these great guys to fly the flag for me. I’ve added a ‘Team EC’ tab to the website – at some point here we’ll get more pictures and bios added.

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