Bordine the Bullet

Bordine the Bullet:
Pro Cyclist to Pro Triathlete
Stor y and photos by Mark Johnson
K
arl Bordine is fast. How fast? Last year, race organizers disqualified the 34 year old from the Encinitas Sprint Triathlon
because his bike split was faster than the pro and elite riders. The directors assumed Bordine, then unknown to the tri world,
had pulled a Rosie Ruiz. Only after Bordine explained that he was
the 2007 USA Cycling Elite Time Trial Champion did the powerful,
6’3”, 190-pound rider get his age-group win.
While an undergraduate at Indiana University, Bordine spent a
summer studying in Europe and saw Miguel Indurain win the Tour
de France on the Champs-Élysées. “I didn’t yet understand how
the guy who didn’t come across the line first could have won,”
Bordine recalls. “But I thought, that cycling thing is pretty cool. I’m
going to ride across the country with my brother next year.” And
they did – in 28 days – averaging 113 miles a day.
In 2008 the Minnesota bike and tri shop Gear West created the
DKT Challenge: they would award $10,000 to any triathlete who
could take the fastest bike splits in five selected races across the
country, or $800 per race, if no one took all five. Bordine came
out of nowhere and took the fastest split in three of the Olympicdistance races: Life Time Fitness Triathlon in Minneapolis, the
Accenture Triathlon in Chicago (fastest by two minutes), and the
Toyota U.S. Open in Dallas. Oh yeah, he also qualified for the 2008
Ford Ironman 70.3 World Championship in his second triathlon
ever.
Riding across the country at a century-a-day pace was Bordine’s
introduction to bike racing. Today he is one of the fastest and mostrespected bike racers in the challenging Southern California racing
scene. Bordine had 13 bike race wins in 2008, including the pro
races at Arizona’s Valley of the Sun stage race and the Tour of
Murrieta stage race. He also claimed both the California State Elite
Criterium and Time Trial Championships.
But after a decade of racing bikes, three of those years as a pro,
last year Bordine decided to dabble in triathlon. And dabble he did.
Along with his bike split records in Encinitas, Chicago, Dallas and
Minneapolis, in his first season he had the fastest amateur bike split
at the Ironman California 70.3 triathlon. With those results, Bordine
decided he might have a future in this new sport. So he made it his
goal to be a full-time professional triathlete by the end of 2009.
Audacious for a 190-pound 34 year old, yes. But so too was
Bordine’s entry into the world of bike racing. After his ride across
the U.S., Bordine entered the Little 500 bike race (made famous by
the movie Breaking Away) and placed second. It was the second
bike race he had entered in his life. After graduating and passing
his CPA exam, he worked in accounting in Chicago for two years.
“Then I decided I didn’t want to look back on life and not have
given it a chance, so I did my first official USA Cycling race the
summer of 1999,” he says. That fall he moved to San Diego with
one goal: work enough to get by, then become a pro cyclist. Three
years later, Bordine inked a pro contract with the Colavita Cycling
team.
Today, going into his first season as a focused triathlete, Bordine
has already picked up sponsorships from Shimano, PRO, Nytro,
Oakley and Fluid. In 2009 he will target the half-Ironman dis1 COMPETITOR MAGAZINE | APRIL 2009
tance, including the Ford Ironman 70.3 World
Championship in Clearwater.
Matt Hoffmann fits Bordine’s bikes to his
Indurain-like body. The Carlsbad, Californiabased bike fitter has worked with other professional triathletes and cyclists including Michellie
Jones, and he says Bordine’s biggest challenge in transitioning from cycling to triathlons
is patience. “He’s going to need to learn to hold
back on the bike. And that’s a very hard thing
for cyclists, especially at his level.
He’s one of those guys who I believe
will gain by easing off on the bike and
running faster.”
In terms of training, Bordine is
spending less time on the bike now
that he has three disciplines. Has the
reduction affected his bike speed? “I
did not notice it last year, which I was
very happy with. But I had a solid
base of just cycling before I got the
running and swimming involved… I
had a little less snap, but the power
was still there. The running definitely
helped with increasing my oxygen
improve your cycling time with less money than
going and buying the newest and most aerodynamic equipment. Now, if you are at the point
where those 30 seconds or a minute matter,
then you have to go buy that equipment.”
Aside from upgrading to more aerodynamic
equipment, Bordine cites getting in training time
and a professional bike fit as important ways to
improve bike speed. In time trials, form on the
bike can also harm or help racing speed. “An
Getting Fast on the Track
“Training with some
of the bigger guys
who come out to San
Diego, like Normann
Stadler and Jurgen
Zack – I realized my
pro days as a cyclist
were behind me, but
the possibility of
being a professional
athlete could still
exist in the world of
triathlons.”
flow. It helped me sustain longer efforts and it
transferred over to the bike.”
Bordine switched to triathlons for personal
and family reasons. “I was looking for something new. My wife had always pushed triathlons. She was a swimmer growing up – swam
at UCLA. And I swam when I was little and I did
have some background in running.” Bordine
was also inspired by some of the superstar
triathletes who train in San Diego’s hilly backcountry. “Training with some of the bigger guys
who come out to San Diego, like Normann
Stadler and Jurgen Zack – I realized my pro
days as a cyclist were behind me, but the possibility of being a professional athlete could still
exist in the world of triathlons.” Today, Bordine
has his eyes firmly set on that world. “My main
goal for this year is to race Clearwater as a
professional.”
When asked what advice he would give an
amateur or novice who wants to go faster on the
bike, Bordine says, “There are definitely ways to
and building upper body strength. He is working with a swim coach to fine tune his stroke.
Bordine compares swimming to golf: “If you
tweak it just a little bit, the golf ball goes way
off, and that’s how swimming is, too. It’s a lot of
technique. But it’s also that I haven’t used my
arms in eight years. I’ve actually tried to lose
body mass in my upper body. And now it’s like,
oh, I could use some of that back!” ■
underrated part of cycling is pedal stroke. It’s
something to focus on when you are time trialing. I still catch myself not doing the perfect
pedal stroke, not pulling up all the way or pushing forward all the way.” According to Bordine,
“the best drill for that is single-leg intervals.” By
riding with one leg either on hills or a trainer,
Bordine maintains that he has smoothed his
pedal stroke and improved his time-trialing
speed and efficiency.
In 2009 Bordine will focus on the half-Ironman distance races. “I don’t think my body is
ready for an Ironman. But the 70.3, the fourhour race, my body is used to that from road
cycling. The 56-mile bike lends to my abilities
more.”
“Swimming is my weak point. My mentality
right now is that I lose time in the swim, I gain
a lot of time back in the bike, and I try to hold
on with the run.”
With regards to swimming, Bordine says the
biggest challenges are improving his technique
We spoke to one of the other speediest cyclists in Southern California, Shaun Wallace,
about what cyclists can do to work towards blistering bike times like Bordine’s. Wallace raced
for Great Britain on the track in two Olympics
and has eight World Masters Championships
track titles to his name. “The best training for
time trialing is time trialing,” Wallace observes.
“But what people often don’t do is take it seriously enough.” Putting out a hard, steady
time-trial effort for the same distance you will
be racing, Wallace notes, is the best way to
get faster.
Wallace says that even when he was training
for road races and time trials, he trained on the
velodrome. “As far as physiology is concerned,
your heart and lungs, they don’t know if you
are on the track or on the hills or riding up and
down the coast. All they know is things like the
power you are developing and your leg speed.”
Workouts on the track “are the sort of efforts
you couldn’t do on the road, because there are
always cars or stop signs or weather conditions. The track has always been a key part of
my training, even when I have no intention of
racing on the track.”
California has velodromes in San Jose,
Los Angeles and San Diego. All three have
programs that introduce cyclists to track riding. Pam Jorgensen has been teaching track
classes at the San Diego Velodrome in Balboa
Park for 24 years. Open to riders of all levels,
the classes meet once weekly for six weeks
and track bikes are supplied to the students. “It
is a step-by-step program,” says Jorgensen, a
friendly cyclist who clearly loves to teach adults
and kids how to ride. “Even non-cyclists feel
very comfortable. It’s a great way to get riding with a group without feeling threatened or
scared.” And she adds that she sees riders
make dramatic leaps in their cycling speed just
four weeks into the six-week program. “Adults
come in as recreational riders. And especially
people who are new to cycling, they make
huge improvements in their times.”
For more information about the San Diego
Velodrome and to register for classes, visit
www.sdvelodrome.com.
Information about Los Angeles’ ADT Event
Center Velodrome is at www.lavelodrome.org.
San Jose’s Hellyer Park Velodrome is at
www.ridethetrack.com.
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