totally freaking awesome. awesome awesome awesome.

so years and years ago when i was a competitive cyclist i spent a winter down in austin tx, biding my time doing 30 hour weeks on the bicycle and basically living like a monk. i'd just made the jump to a cat. 2 and was determined to do it right. while down there i had the good fortune to land a job at Freewheeling Bicycles (no small thanks to Jay Thomas for getting my foot in the door there). aside from being an incredible shop to work at (nothing under $600 on the floor, health insurance, paid sick time, paid vacation, profit sharing ... all of this even for a part time seasonal employee like myself) it was chock full of good folks who were a pleasure to work with.

among them there was this uber-talented junior racer with a funny accent. sort of a brit-texan mash-up if you will. i think we let him build bikes and polish the ones that were already on the floor. on the bike he was almost always in the mix of the local pro/1/2 races and he was all of 17 years old. as well, he was always in the "final selection" of 10 guys or so on the fabled swedish hill bakery rides (sat/sun/wed. morning ... minimum 100 miles, paceline, etc. and so forth - arguably more difficult than some of the local races). anyway, the little guy graduated high school and moved back to britain (he had been maintaining duel citizenship) shortly after i knew him.

fast fw a few years and he's still been racing (myself however, not so much). as it is i've been following his career pretty closely and am always stoked when he pulls off a noteworthy "W" - and there have been a few. but maybe none bigger than his latest one, where he beat several pro-tour riders (cavendish, millar, wiggens to be exact).

ladies and gentlemen, may i introduce to you, the newly crowned British Professional Road Champion - Kristian House.



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