30 YeaRs of TuRbo

Thurlow Rogers q
Thurlow Rogers:
// Stor y and photos by Mark Johnson
W
30 Years of Turbo
hat is it with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and endurance athletes who stay at the top of their game forever?
Dara Torres swam in her first Olympics in L.A. and the
41 year old took three medals this summer in Beijing.
France’s 50-year-old Jeannie Longo, the winningest cyclist ever, raced
her first Olympic road race in L.A. and finished two seconds shy of
a bronze medal in the Beijing time trial, and placed 24th in the road
race. And then there’s Thurlow Rogers, the then-24-year-old American
who placed sixth in L.A.’s Olympic cycling road race, just behind fellow Americans Davis Phinney and race winner Alexi Grewal – and well
ahead of future five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain, who
didn’t even finish.
Today, like Torres and Longo, 48-year-old Thurlow “Turbo” Rogers is
still putting the wood to athletes half his age. In August 2008 the Los
Angeles-based Rogers, who works in the bike industry, rode away from
a field of 130 riders and placed third in USA Cycling’s 104-mile Elite
Nationals road race in Orange County, California. A month before that,
he had captured both road and time trial titles at USA Cycling’s Masters
Nationals event. In 2006 Rogers won the Masters World Championship
road race in Austria.
Rogers has raced against at least three generations of top cyclists:
In Europe in the early 1980s with Greg LeMond and Andy Hampsten;
in the mid-‘80s with Bernard Hinault, Davis Phinney and Steve Bauer
at the Red Zinger/Coors Classic races in Colorado; in the 1990s with
Raul Alcala, Bob Roll, Eric Heiden and Chris Carmichael at Redlands;
and in the late ‘90s, while riding with Scott Moninger on Mecury, Rogers
schooled a young Levi Leipheimer. All the way to 2008, and he’s still
going mano-a-mano with today’s future stars – “the kids,” Rogers calls
them.
“I started riding my bike to get in shape to go skiing,” Rogers recalls.
“And I realized pretty quickly that I liked riding and as a kid I couldn’t
afford two vices at once.” Within two years, Rogers was racing with
LeMond and Hampsten in Italy. Hampsten, who won the 1988 Tour of
Italy, recalls that during their time racing together, “Rogers was very well
known by hardcore cycling fans, mostly for being in breaks when it was
whittled down to the best Eastern Bloc riders. ‘Thurlow Rogers! Lui e
molto forte!’”
Greg Demgen is another contemporary from that era. Demgen was a
30 COMPETITOR MAGAZINE | JANUARY 2009
founding rider on the legendary 7-Eleven team, the first American to win
a European stage race (Switzerland’s Tour of Ruebliland in 1977) and
took a bronze medal at the 1978 Junior World Championships team
time trial with teammates Ron Kiefel, Greg LeMond and Jeff Bradley.
From his offices in Carlsbad, California, Demgen says in the early 1980s “Thurlow was one of the best riders in the world.” Prior to
LeMond’s tour successes, Demgen holds that Rogers’ fourth place GC
at the 1983 Peace Race that ran between Warsaw, Berlin and Prague
“was one of the biggest U.S. cycling achievements ever.”
Hampsten also recalls Rogers’ tremendous threshold for pain – an
essential quality for a sport that doles out suffering in buckets. “He was
racing very well as a pro with the La Vie Claire team in the early season
of ‘86,” Hampsten recalls. “He had a crash that resulted in massive road
rash that soon became infected. When a doctor came to look at it he
decided to scrape away the week-old scab, which was tremendously
painful to Thurlow. The director sportif was impressed how anyone
could take that much pain.” When asked about Hampsten’s story, the
famously reticent Rogers played it down. “Well, stuff like that happens
now and again. You got to deal with it I guess.”
Mark Fennell, 47, is a Santa Barbara-based cyclist who knows
Rogers’ pain threshold all too well. When asked if he’d be willing to talk
about his experiences racing with Rogers, Fennell e-mailed back good
naturedly, “You want the perspective of somebody who’s been taking
weekly beatings from Thurlow for 30 years?” Fennell first raced against
Rogers in 1978 at the Acton road race in Southern California. “LeMond
won, Thurlow got second. Alexi Grewal was there. All the top guys.”
That year Thurlow also won the Junior Worlds team tryouts time trial.
“Thurlow won that and LeMond was either second or third,” Fennell recalls. “That’s an indication of what a huge aerobic engine the guy has.”
Steve Hegg, a gold and silver medal winner on the velodrome in the
1984 Olympics, agrees. According to Hegg, Rogers and LeMond had
the most natural talent of all the U.S. riders from that era.
Fennell says he is “just staggered” by Roger’s 30-year record of cycling wins. “He doesn’t have the strongest jump and he doesn’t have
a great sprint. But somehow he gets a separation and he gets into his
time trial mode and the strongest fields in the country can’t bring him
back.”
Rogers is a savvy rider. Fennell recalls getting in a break with Rogers
at the 1996 Masters Nationals in Santa Rosa, California. “Thurlow was
A typical Rogers training week follows his counsel to stay away from
obviously the strongest. I was trying to take my pulls – essentially softtorpor-inducing intervals. “During the season, I try to race as much as
pedaling through, just doing enough to not get yelled at. Then, one time
I can. And now that I’m older, I rest three days then go out hard one
as he pulled through he said, ‘You’ll have to pull a tad harder than that.’
day before the weekend when I race. I try to ride every day, but I don’t
Within 10 minutes of taking slightly harder pulls, I got dropped. If you get
have anything against taking a day off the bike.” A typical week might
in a break with him, he’ll lure you into working harder than you really can.
have him on the bike an hour on Monday, two hours on Tuesday. “If I’m
Either you’ll pay the price by getting dropped or you’ll be so bonked at
lucky, two and a half to three hours on Wednesday, maybe the same
the end that he’ll beat you anyway.”
on Thursday…” and then another hour to an hour and a half on Friday.
Riding with Rogers, Fennell notes, is “like riding behind a motorcycle.
Weekends are for racing. “Being a master you have the advantage of
You know his attack is going to happen. Everyone knows he will dictate
being able to race more than once. That can be anywhere from an hour
the terms of the race. Everyone is watching him, yet still his success rate
to four or five hours” of racing in a day.
is huge. He has an uncanny ability to figure out how to win, or at least
30 years ago did Rogers imagine he’d still be racing today? “No way!
put himself in a position to win.”
When I was 18, the ancient guys were 26. When I started racing Kent
Rogers readily admits that as he ages, cageyness often trumps
Bostick was on the National Team and he was 27, 28 at the time and he
physical parity with his younger peers. “Smarts will help you over fitwas old. He was long gone. He was on his last legs. So then he went on
ness a lot quicker in cycling,” he points out. Rogers brings up the Elite
to make the Olympic team at 40,” Rogers recalls with a laugh.
Nationals road race where he got away with two riders 18 and 13 years
What’s changed since the day when a cyclist was washed up by
younger than he was. “Going into a race with the elite guys, and being
his late 20s? Rogers mentions Jeannie Longo as an example – “she’s
able to make a few of the right moves and finish well, that was an aweunstoppable” – and explains that “The whole health culture makes a
some high for me. I thought that was a great kick. But on the other end
big difference. The nutritional part of sports has improved so much that
I’m not the strongest guy out
it’s easier to stay healthy longer and
there. No way!” According to
not tear yourself down to where
Rogers, “Making some tactical
you hate the sport.” One particujudgments, making the right
lar equipment advancement also
moves,” is what put him in that
helped. “I still think the invention of
winning break.
Lycra shorts is the best thing that
Fennell notes that “Everybody
ever happened to cycling.” Rogers
knows Thurlow. They know the
does not have fond memories of
way he races, and they try to
“droopy wool shorts around the
-Thurlow Rogers
exploit that. They try to attach
legs.”
themselves to his train when he
He also ventures into the gym a
leaves the station.” Rogers says being so marked can frustrate him.
bit more than he used to. “If you get to my age, you need to go there
“But overcoming that is what makes bike racing fun. Overcoming the
sometimes so that you pull your shoulders back and you don’t look
odds. Whatever is thrown at you.” Rogers is like a chess player in that
like you’ve been riding your bike for 30 years. Caved-in chest, rounded
he relishes the strategy of how to win with 80 guys ready to exploit his
shoulders. It’s good to go to the gym every now and again to put some
every move. “It’s the spirit of competition and all the possible variables
weight above your head.”
that can happen in a race. If you are the strongest guy in the race, that’s
While Rogers is most well known for his awe-inspiring power and
great and you can dictate the race. But what evens out is that everyone
ageless bike racing talents, another story that adds to the “Turbo” mysrides against you. That’s what I find fun.”
tique is a run-in with O.J. Simpson a few years before The Juice got
Rogers attributes his longevity to always having a good time racing
into his fateful Bronco. Rogers picks up the tale: “I was riding up San
bikes. He has not taken a season off in 30 years. “I don’t ever think I’ve
Vicente Boulevard down in Santa Monica. He was making a left turn as
ever stopped riding. I’ve pretty much kept riding if only to make sure my
I was going straight. He had to slam on his brakes and I had to slam on
pants still fit.” Rogers also links his enduring passion for racing to the
my brakes so we didn’t run into one another. When I went to go forward
fact that he is not big on regimented training programs. Consistency
again he jerked his car at me, kind of to show me who was boss. It’s
and getting pleasure from the bike are key ingredients to his long career.
a Bentley in a nice neighborhood with blacked-out windows. It’s not
“I like racing. It’s fun. And I’ve never done it so crazily hard that I burn out
exactly the kind of response you would expect.”
on it. I’ve learned not to do too much of that way, way structured stuff.
Rogers, who did not yet know he was dealing with America’s most
All that structured stuff is mentally difficult, and that’s what burns you
famous football star, yelled at the mystery driver and kept pedaling.
out, not the physical part.” As past teammate Demgen puts it, Rogers
Behind him, however, O.J. turned around “and chased me down and
“spread his pedal strokes out over 30 years versus using them all up
pinned me to the curb with his car. I’m like holy cow, I can’t believe it’s a
in 15!”
Bentley, a Rolls Royce that’s doing this. It’s not exactly what I expected.
Rogers offers the same advice to cyclists who are just getting into
So I’m getting off my bike because I’m pinned against the curb. I knew
racing. “Do as many races as possible. Let doing the races train you bewhat was coming next, a confrontation with whoever the driver is. And
fore you do a training program. You learn twice as much racing as you
out comes O.J. He got out of the car and came up, said ‘Who do you
ever do training.” Rogers cautions against “structured training without
think you are trying to embarrass me?’ He was putting his finger in my
having the fun part. The people who do races and then go out and do
chest, and I’ve got the bike in between us. And in a physical confrontafive-minute intervals. In the long run, that is so mind-numbing that you
tion with O.J. I knew who was going to lose. So I’m keeping my hands
quit. You’ll go out and find something that’s more fun. You might as well
down on my bike. We went back and forth a few times. Then Nicole got
just go out and run 10Ks.”
out of the car and told him I wasn’t worth it. They got back in the car
and left. I went on and he went on and become more famous.” V
“Do as many races as possible.
You learn twice as much racing
as you ever do training.”
CompetitorCA.com 31