I showed up in tennis shoes, tank top and running shorts, 35-pound bike in the middle of the Reno winter. Everybody else had their leg warmers on, Italian bikes. I ended up getting second place out of it. It was a 28-mile race, 4 laps around a 7-mile loop right in front of my house.
They convinced my dad that I must have some special talent. So my dad got me a new bike, a Cinelli at Rick's Bike Shop. I got the shoes, the shorts. Two weeks later I started my first race in Sacramento and won my first 11 races.