PEORIA'S ORIGINAL OUTDOOR STORE. SINCE 1971.

A member of the team since:
Spring 2007

What outdoor sports do you enjoy?
Orienteering, canoeing, mountain biking, running.... or all of them at once ADVENTURE RACING!!

What's your favorite product or brand in the store and why?
Ellsworth bikes (because they make riding single track and poorly maintained gravel roads a joy!)
Stella head lamps (probably the best in the world)
Pearl Izumi gloves (I hate cold fingers)

What favorite competitions have you participated in?
Adventure Racing (you get to run around in the woods for hours and hours, what's not to like??

What's your greatest achievement?
Probably the first time we beat Team Alpine Shop out of St. Louis last year at the Bonk Hard Chill advenure race. They are an awesome team and we had been trying hard to beat them for a long, long time!

What's your nickname and what's the story behind it?
Not really a nickname but my teammates blame me being European on things I do in races - when I change clothes in front of people the excuse is "Eh, he's European..."

What's a sport/outdoor lesson you learned the hard way?
To always bring an extra set of warm, dry base layers... getting off a long paddle in the middle of the night, being soaked from the hours of water dripping off the paddles is a recipe for hypothermia

What's the strangest/scariest thing that has happened during an event?
Paddling at the 2009 LBL adventure race with the waves crashing in over our canoe, it was getting dark and I was cooooold - and we were not even half through the race yet! And a few hours prior to that I almost steppon a snake going through the woods, right before we realized we had just walked 2km out of our way! It was a hard race!

Tell us how many hours a week you train and how you stay motivated.
5-10, depending on the time of year

Name the next item you're planning to buy from the store and why?
Probably more Smartwool socks... because they are simply awesome socks

What's your most useful advice for someone who's thinking about getting into your sport for the first time?
Try a small race in the area, like the Bushwhacker adventure race. Once you've done one you'll want to come back for more!!

What music do you chill to?
(apparently silence is his choice)

What music do you race to?
Whatever my teammates decide to sing (mostly the theme song from the TV series Cheers... "where everybody knows you name dum, dum, dum, dum"

What's the best advice anyone ever gave you?
Always look forward when you ride single track trails!

What's the most memorable event you've competed in?
One of the really long adventure races we have done, either Berryman 36 hour race 2009 which took us 32 hours or Planet Adventure race 2009 which took 34 hours to complete.

What is your favorite in race nutrition, whats the least favorite?
Early on in a race I like Perpetuem, later anything tastes good, like a McDonalds hamburger that has been sitting in my pack for 15 hours!

18. What new sport would you like to try and why?
Speedskating... it is fast and sounds like a lot of fun