Day 2 - The Baker Factor

Steve Baker will accompany TEAM headstrong during our Master’s Nats quest this year in Bend, Or.   As DS, I could not be happier. 

I must have met Steve circa 2005?   We moved into 400 N Main in 2005 and became next door neighbors to George Hincapie.  Soon, the neighbor became our friend.  In 2005, Teenie spent a season coaching him.   I got the cycling bug after Teenie instigated our first bike tour to Tuscany.  

You can’t be a cyclist in the upstate without knowing ‘of’ Steve.   He was President of the Greenville Spinners in those years while in a marketing position at Hincapie Sports.   In a different way than George, Steve was (is) Mr. Cycling in the Upstate.  Steve is Everyman when it comes to cycling.  He is articulate and an excellent writer.  He has a unique way of looking at things and often draws humor out of the mundane.

In 2008, Rich recruited Teenie and I to be mentors/coaches for the Hincapie Barkley Development Team.  This was an opportunity to get to know Steve much better.   In 2009, he and I took the Hincapie Devo Team to the first Junior UCI Race in the US......Red River Gorge Stage Race.   A week with a guy, under these intense circumstances, can move things down the road.

During the two years with the Devo Team, I went from riding to racing.  After we formed TEAM headstrong in 2010, we continued to have more contact with Steve both professionally and personally.   Our kits and gear were provided by Hincapie (no surprise) and Samantha Smith and Steve were quickly becoming ‘an item’.   As Sam, became a true core TEAM member, Steve became a close friend of the TEAM.

Steve joined many TEAM rides, taught skills clinics, and coached us at SCTAC.  He came to parties and helped us at races.   

While Steve has remained a Cat 3 by choice, he is a very accomplished cyclist.   He teaches spinning and even though he often trains sparingly, he is ‘forever fit’.  Steve is a student of cycle racing and most of all, a great teacher.

In the last weeks, he has helped with organization, suffered through brutal training to support us, and will serve as saunier and maybe even Assistant DS in Bend?   I really have not talked much about it with him as I know he will do whatever it takes to help us be successful.

Steve taught me to Anticipate and Intimidate in a race!  I will do my best in Bend.

Am I glad he is going to be out there this coming week?  Yes,  is an understatement. I am very glad he will ’be along’.   I am dead level sure that we will be more successful with him around.   And, by-the-way, Steve is a lot of fun.