GamJams.net: Where Mid-Atlantic bike racers roll: 10 Questions With... Nick "Versus Gravity" Sachanda

by David Kirkpatrick, Features Editor

At a couple potato chips below 240 pounds, Nick Sachanda doesn't at first glance look the part of bike racer. But in his first season of competition, Nice came out and won his very first collegiate road race, and then stuck a solo break to win at Reston, one of the toughest and un-flattest crits in the region. In the battle of Nice Versus Gravity, Nick is laying down the hurt.

(photo by Joe Mallis.)

10 Questions With... Nick Sachanda

(GamJams) Tell us about your pre-cycling athletic background.

(Nick Sachanda) Before I started racing my bicycle, I was a football player, for 7 years. That includes 3 years in college (which was a Div. III school). Freshman year of college, one of my friends was training for a marathon, and I thought "I want to do something like that, but I don't want to run all that way," so I bought a road bike and did a sprint triathlon the following summer. Then 2 more the next. Then I got really focused on football, which lasted until the neck injury junior year that caused me to stop playing. Senior year, I decided I was not very happy with what I saw in the mirror, so I started running - up to about 25 miles a week (and down a whole bunch of weight) by the end of the year. Last summer, I ran a half-marathon and decided to get the bike out again for another triathlon - the Nation's Tri, right after I came out to DC. Shortly thereafter, I started riding more and running less...

(GJ) Why and how did you get started riding and racing bikes?

(NS) ...which happened after Sam Rynas, one of my GW teammates, put a flyer for the GW team in the seat rails of my commuter bike locked up outside of the law school. I saw it and thought it would be fun to have people to ride with. When I finally showed up for a group ride, discovered I was comparatively pretty strong, and found out they would let me race collegiate as a grad student, well, that was it. I'm sold. After a winter of riding with the GW and NCVC crews, my first race was at NC State in February. Now there's really nothing else I want to do with my free time.

(GJ) What aspects of your athletic background have transferred most readily to road racing?

(NS) Years and years of being yelled at by coaches standing on blocking sleds desensitizes you to taking criticism personally and teaches you to adapt on the fly. Also, the substantial leg strength developed playing football and then running up the hills of Cleveland, and year of aerobic base training right before I started were clutch.

(GJ) What's been the toughest part of racing bikes?

(NS) Really, the toughest part for me is finding the time to ride as much as I want to. Since I've been working for the summer, in order to get in 2 hours and not be riding through traffic or riding endless laps at Hains Point, I have to get up before dawn to ride - it's great, but waking up that early is hard. Also, dealing with equipment - ask my rear wheels or big chainring how they like me.

(GJ) Are you generally the type to bite heads off of babies or is it just the checkered flag that makes you so aggressive?

(NS) It's a finish-line thing. Usually I'm actually pretty laid-back. Which is not to say there aren't other checkered flags in life; I do want to be a litigator, after all. I will say that I do kind of ride with a chip on my shoulder, frequently feeling like I have to prove I belong with the guys who actually look like bike racers.

(GJ) Describe your typical training week, and how has that changed since you started?

(NS) As of the last couple weeks, it looks generally like this: Monday, run. Tuesday, AM ride, 2 hours. Wednesday, either 2 hours AM or evening hill ride. Thursday, either 2 hours AM or HP sprint night (note that I haven't made the hill ride or sprint night in a couple weeks, so there have been a lot of sunrises on my bicycle). Friday, 1 hour AM. Saturday, either 3-4 hours AM or race. Sunday, 2 hours with the Pro Shop crew in the evening. It was different during the semester, it will change again with the start of the new semester. For a while, I was doing the "ride as much as possible whenever you can/feel like it" thing, which is really only constructive to a point if you're not a professional riding 6 hours a day and don't know when to take some rest.

(GJ) Where have you learned what you've learned about training? Do you work with a coach?

(NS) A lot of credit for how much I know at this point is due to Bert "Sig-Sauer" Garcia, who has taught me much about racing, riding, and training. I did get to a point where I felt like I had exhausted my own knowledge about physiology, so I started working with Pete Lindeman, a teammate and real coach, last month. Working with Pete has been really positive - I very much benefit from having some direction.

(GJ) 15 seconds gap on the field, 7 laps to go. How do you convince yourself to hold onto the effort?

(NS) It takes a LOT of concentration to put yourself on the edge without going too far into the red like that. Things that helped: looking back and seeing the gap expand, people yelling at me from the sidewalks, Joe Jefferson's commentary, the song stuck in my head (LCD Soundsystem), trying to keep my focus to the next corner, pure adrenaline.

(GJ) What advice would "successful racer Nick" of July 2010 give to "thinking about racing Nick" of November 2009?

(NS) Looking back, I'm very happy with my first season so far (I'm planning on trying 'cross, too, so I'm not even almost done), so it's tricky to figure out what I would say to 2009-edition me. Maybe I'd have told me to focus the intent of my training earlier. That, and "do more intervals, because they will pay off."

(GJ) Reston was a hard ass crit that you won in grand style. Following that was the race which pretty much every single racer in MABRA has described as the best, most valid, hardest, sexiest, best looking, and funnest road race that's ever been conceived. How does your approach change from crits like Reston to hilly road races like Lost River?

(NS) Training-wise, not much changes for me. More hill repeats. In terms of race-planning, I'm not a climber - I have no delusions of grandeur here. Then again, my approach is usually pretty simple anyways - "aim bike, legs GO."

David Kirkpatrick is a Features Editor with GamJams and a Cat 3 with GamJams Racing. He is enjoying growing fame through his blog Flamenco Chuckwagon.