David Wilson: Cycling to Win |
| Angela White | Monday, 12 October, 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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David and Jen Wilson love the challenge of off-road trails in single-speed mountain bike racing. And a Lance camper is their home base at the race.  Some of us go truck camping to relax. We explore National Parks, go fishing, read books, and generally take it easy. Not David and Jen Wilson. These two athletes spend their summers challenging themselves and their fellow competitors in single-speed mountain bike racing. Single-speed bikes have only one gear ratio. As a result, they are lighter, simpler, stronger, and often more efficient than traditional multi-geared mountain bikes. In a way, they're the truck camper of mountain bikes. It's only fitting that the Wilsons pedal back to a truck camper, their personal team support vehicle and home base at the race.
TCM: How did get into truck camping? David: Camping has always been a family thing. I camped the whole time I was growing up either in a tent, van or trailer. My brother and I were always racing bikes as kids. When I met my wife we started racing bikes together. We even got a minivan and then a pop-up camper for our racing. It wasn’t convenient at all because we had to take a lot of time to set up. We called it our giant explosion. Friends of ours have a pop-up Hallmark that we really liked and we also saw some guys with Lance campers that have slide-outs. Originally, we were looking for a pop-up but then we found an older but good condition Lance truck camper online at a dealership. In the fall of 2005, we bought a Lance Squire 880. With all the tanks full, it’s around 3,000 pounds and I had it on a Ford F250 single rear wheel. I put air bags on the truck, but in the wind it was kind of scary when we went by eighteen wheelers. TCM: So what did you do? David: Well, the truck was really old and since I’m someone who cares about the environment I knew I shouldn’t be driving this truck. We saved our money and found a 2002 Chevy dually diesel with low mileage. Unfortunately, I burned up the motor with only 91,000 miles on it. Now we have a 2007 GMC dually 4x4.
TCM: That’s some bad truck luck. How does your camper help with your bike races? David: We’ve had the truck camper since 2005, but have been racing together since 1994. Honestly, we didn’t really see success until we had the truck camper. Since having it we’ve won a lot of races including three national titles, and we attribute most of that success to the camper. Being teachers, we have our summers off and there’s nothing to worry about except for racing. Summers with the truck camper means that we are able to race without spending too much money. Last summer we spent two weeks living out of the camper on some forest service land with our friends. We were getting ready for an event and we didn’t have to spend a dime. Before we had our camper, we would fly and rent a car for large national bike racing events. We were sleeping on junk beds at hotels before races. Not being in your own bed is the worst thing for athletic performance. We just figured a camper was an ideal way to be at our best. TCM: Describe a typical race day with your camper. David: Even locally, we take our Lance camper. We pull into the race site the night before, level off, eat dinner, go for a walk with the dog, do some yoga, and go to bed. The next morning we wake up, grab our bikes, and race. The furthest we camp from the race might be a mile away, which is like a five minute bike ride. While we’re there, we’re almost always boondocking. Usually it takes an hour and sometimes up to three hours for all of the racers to finish the race after we finish. We have to wait until everyone finishes for the awards ceremony. So, we are often hanging around for hours in a remote location. To not have access to food and a shower can be frustrating, especially after a race. To be able to take a shower and eat a meal is huge! It’s especially nice if we’re doing an event the next day or the next week. To refuel right after the race is very important so that we don’t hinder our future performances. We also carry all of our tools, clothing, and plenty of water in our camper. There's nothing better than finishing a race, refueling within minutes of the finish, and getting a shower so we are fresh and clean for the awards ceremony.
TCM: It sounds like you do some very intense bike racing. David: Right now we’re both in the single speed category. That’s racing with bikes that don’t have gears. They are like a big BMX bike. We might ride eighty to one hundred miles with one gear. Those are the endurance races. I did an event this past summer that was six days and I did different loops every day. Our riding styles work really well with the single speed, so we have been racing that way exclusively for the past two years. Jen has won two single speed national championships. Back in the 90s, we were attempting to become full-time racers and looking for sponsorships. The money dried up in late 90s, so I decided to join the military for four years. I wanted to go to college and the Army would help me. While I was in the military, my wife and I both got faster at racing. We found our niche. As we traveled around, we did the races we knew we would be successful at. At that point, we felt we would be happier if we worked normal jobs. Having health benefits and job security meant that we would still have a job if we got hurt. At that point, we stopped getting sponsorships on a serious basis. We still get some help from a few manufacturers including parts, clothing, and even free bikes. TCM: How do you carry your bikes? David: One way that we carry our two bikes is by putting them inside the camper. That’s if we are so close that we won’t have to stop and use the bathroom. If we’re traveling further, we’ll put the two bikes on a rack that we made with the ladder. It’s a little rickety, but it works. If we need more than one bike in a multi-day event, we’ll take the trailer with two bikes for each of us, extra tires, wheels, and spare helmets.
TCM: Do you have a special trailer? David: The trailer is my own construction. It’s a Pace trailer. I’ve set up the inside to hold all of our stuff. I learned “ghetto carpentry” when in I was serving in Kuwait. I put a drawer in the middle and it has my ten-by-ten canopy, two bikes that are mounted to top of drawer, air compressor, wheels, and spare parts. TCM: What else do you use your truck camper for other than races? David: We do go out truck camping other than races. It’s rare, but we do go out maybe once a year. Sometimes we’ll go to New Mexico. It’s hard to travel without a bike.
TCM: Congratulations on expecting a baby. Are you going to continue your races and truck camping after the baby is born? David: We probably won’t be able to boondock as much, so we’ll probably utilize campgrounds more often. We’ll need to use more electricity, water, and sewer, so we don’t think we will be able to stay in the backcountry as long. It’s doable because we have friends who are living in a trailer while raising a child and racing bikes. TCM: Is there anything else you’d like to share that we might not have asked you? David: My dad saw my truck camper and said, “I want one!”. He purchased a Weekender truck camper and went camping out west throughout the summer. Then his camper started leaking so he went out and bought an Arctic Fox nine foot camper with a slide. When they first got it, my dad’s girlfriend was skeptical, but now she is hooked because it’s like their sailboat. TCM: Very cool. Thanks for sharing your story and please send us updates on your bike racing adventures. David: We will.
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