June 24, 2010 (Banff, AB) – Best known for her recent 2010 double Track World Championship titles in the Omnium and Points race, Tara Whitten is also Canada’s 2009 Time Trial champion on the road, and placed 8th in the time trial at last year’s Road Worlds. This year, Whitten is racing for Specialized Mazda Samson G Conseil women’s road team. We caught up with her one week prior to the 2010 Canadian Road Championship in Edmonton just after her GC win at the Banff National Park Bike Fest to find out about her transition from track to road racing, her recovery from her recently broken elbow, and how she’s feeling about defending her National Time Trial title.

Congratulations on your overall win at the Banff Bike Fest!
Tara Whitten: Thanks!

How was the transition from track to road?
TW: I took some time off after the Track Worlds, and had started gearing up for Panamerican Championships when I learned I needed elbow surgery. That gave me some forced time off the bike, but I’ve been back to training for five weeks now, and I can feel some fitness coming on.

How is your elbow – and are you swearing off mountain biking after breaking it in Moab?
TW: My elbow’s getting better, and I’m in physio to work on my range of motion. I’m not completely swearing off mountain biking (laughs), though I might avoid technical descents for the next few years. It’s tricky though – you know, I could get injured road racing too, so I’m not going to start avoiding too many things.

How much road racing have you done so far this year?
TW: Not much just yet – the GP Gatineau last weekend was my first road race this season. I felt rusty in the Time Trial on the Saturday, like I needed to remind myself how to do this on the road. The road race the next day was fun – I’m getting back into it.

What are your goals for Nationals?
TW: I’m hoping for a good Time Trial – it’s in my home town, and I ride that course all the time. It’s a good course for me, mainly flat. For road racing in general, I’m working on using my strengths strategically, so I’ll be thinking about that next weekend. I’ve found that riding smarter is harder on the road than on the track, since road races are so much longer – that’s a long time to have to keep thinking about positioning.

What’s coming up for you after Nationals?
TW: After Nationals I’ll have a few weeks of training, and then I’m going to race at the Cascade Classic. After that, I’m hoping to go to the 2010 Road Worlds, but it will be tough to balance that time-wise with Track Nationals. We’ll see how it works out.

Thanks Tara, and good luck next weekend!
TW: Thanks!

April 14, 2008 (Edmonton, AB) – Tara Whitten, from Edmonton, Alta., broke onto the Canadian track scene last year, winning both the Omnium and Match Sprint national titles. But it was in the individual pursuit where Whitten made her mark this year, riding to a string of top-ten performances at World Cups, and hitting some of the fastest times by a Canadian rider in the last several seasons. Pedal spoke with Whitten about her baptism of fire at the World Cup level, and how a top Nordic skier found herself riding around in circles.

This was you’re first year racing at the World Cup level after a breakthrough at Track Nationals – tell us a how you got into track racing?
Tara Whitten: I was introduced to track racing by Roger Tetrault, who runs the track program for my club (and sponsor) the Velocity Cycling Club. I knew Roger through cross-country skiing, but he had been telling me for years that I would make a good track cyclist. Finally in 2005 I started coming to the track as cross-training for skiing and I really enjoyed it. Then last spring I found myself mentally burnt out and in need of a serious break from skiing, so after some time off I decided to focus more on cycling for the summer. Initially my goal was to make the provincial team to go to the Track Nationals, but things just sort of escalated from there!

What was it like racing at the World Cup level so early in your career and was it intimidating coming in during an Olympic year?
TW: This year was definitely an adventure, and I had to learn an incredible amount in a very short period of time. Until last September, the only tracks I had ever seen were the two outdoor concrete velodromes in Edmonton and Calgary! I never appreciated when I was a skier how many things you implicitly learn about your sport as you are progressing through it. Having skipped those developmental steps in cycling, I quickly learned about many basic things that I simply didn’t know. The racing was the easy part: just ride as hard as you can for three minutes or so. Everything else was hard – I basically had a high-speed crash-course in how to be a track cyclist! At times, especially at the beginning I was quite overwhelmed and terrified, but I had a ton of people helping me to learn the ropes (especially Tanya Dubnicoff and Eric van den Eynde). And while at times it was scary and intimidating, it was also new and exciting, which made it a lot of fun.

How much cross over is there between cross country ski racing and track cycling?
TW: I believe there is a huge cross-over with all endurance sports. Fitness is fitness. Just look at the current pursuit World Champion Rebecca Romero – four years ago she won a silver medal in rowing at the Athens Olympics, and she has now transferred that fitness into international success in cycling. My years of cross-country skiing have given me a substantial aerobic base, and I have always had a lot of natural strength and power, so that has allowed me to make a very quick transition from skier to cyclist. From skiing I also know how to train intelligently and how to race hard, and those things are fairly universal across sports as well. Now I just need to learn how to spin!

How did you feel about your ride at the Track World Championships? Is every race still something of a learning experience?
TW: To be honest, I was disappointed with my ride at the Worlds. Throughout the season my expectations for myself kept increasing, and I was really hoping to have a breakthrough performance in Manchester. But now in retrospect I appreciate how far I had already come in such a short time, so I’m prepared to be a little more patient. I am really excited to have a whole summer ahead of me now to train specifically on the track, and to work on all the aspects of the pursuit that will make a difference in my performances next year.

How does a former cross-country skier from Edmonton train for World Cup track races during a Canadian winter without a velodrome?
TW: Well, it mostly involves a lot of time on the rollers and the computrainer in my basement. I’ll admit that as a cross-country skier it was tough to train inside for most of the winter, but I felt like it was especially important for me to do mostly cycling-specific training since I am new to the sport and lack the pedalling efficiency that comes with time on the bike. Luckily I don’t get bored easily – DVD episodes of the West Wing got me through many a training session! And whenever I started to lose my sanity, I would pull out my skis and head outside to enjoy the beautiful Edmonton winter.

Can we expect to see you on the road scene more next year as well, or will you continue to focus on track?
TW: My focus will continue to be the track, but I will definitely enter some road races and time trials this summer to complement my training.

What are your plans for next season?
TW: I would like to get more experience racing in North America this summer so that I feel comfortable entering the points and scratch races on the World Cup circuit next season. That being said, the pursuit is the event that I really love – I have a strange passion for just putting my head down and riding as hard as I can for 3km. What could be more fun?

All the best and good luck.
TW: Thanks a lot!