Looking for a job! : Rugg's Race Resume.

Timothy Rugg

Racing Age: 28
Weight: 150lb / 68kg
Height: 6ft / 1.8m

Five years racing as an all-arounder specializing in breakaways and prologues with a capacity to ride at the front forever.

Palmares


General Classification

Nature Valley Pro Ride team selection for NVGP
1st - Killington Stage Race
1st - Pennsy Classics Omnium
2nd - Tour of the Catskills
2nd - Sprint Competition, Killington Stage Race
3rd - Top Amateur, Nature Valley Grand Prix (NRC)
3rd - KOM Classification, Killington Stage Race

Time Trial / Prologue

2nd - Cascade Cycling Classic, Prologue (NRC)
2nd - Killington Stage Race, Stage 3 TT
2nd - Page County Stage Race, Stage 2 TT
3rd - Wilmington GP - Monkey Hill Prologue 
3rd - MABRA TT Championships - Church Creek 40km
6th - Tour De Toona, Prologue (NRC)

Road Race / Circuit Race

1st - Killington Stage Race, Stage 1
1st - Killington Stage Race, Stage 2 
1st - Morgantown RR - 2011
1st - Greenbelt Circuit Race

2nd - Mount Joy Road Race

2nd - Union Grove Road Race

2nd - Morgantown RR - 2010

2nd - Killington Stage Race, Stage 3 - 2010

3rd - Poolesville Road Race

3rd - Michael P. Murad Road Race

3rd - Elite National Championship RR 
3rd - Giro Di Coppi
4th - Tour of the Catskills, Stage 2
4th - Tour of the Catskills, Stage 3

Criterium

Most Courageous Rider - Air Force Classic, Clarendon Cup (NCC)

Most Aggressive Rider - Nature Valley Grand Prix, Stage 6 (NRC)

Most Aggressive Rider - Speedweek, Spartanburg Criterium (USACrits)

6th - Sea Otter Classic, Stage 1

6th - Nature Valley Grand Prix, Stage 2 (NRC)

6th - Air Force Classic, Clarendon Cup (NCC)

7th - Iron Hill Twilight Criterium (USACrits)

11th - Electric City Criterium - Speedweek (NCC)

Other...

• Hobbies: Musician (Composing, Performing, Listening), Humanitarian, Coffee Connoisseur.
• B.S. Information and Computer Technology. Minor in Business Administration.
• 10 year work history in Information Technology.
• Experience with Social Media, Leadership, and Sponsor Relationships.

Appetite for Adventure - An ode to 3 square meals.

Wednesday - July 10th

The summers in this particular part of the country have very long days and very short nights.  I woke up shortly after 5:00 AM from the sunrise and was in and out fighting the mosquitos that were taking over our campsite for the next couple hours.  We all slowly realized we weren't getting anymore rest and started making our way down the hill one by one to start the day off with a ride back up the pass we had driven up and down the day prior.  We experienced another omen on our hike back to the vehicles similar to the meteorite from the night before.  I've been throwing that "omen" word around more and more after reading The Alchemist earlier this year. I really appreciate the spiritual theme that everything in the world conspires to help you discover what your personal destiny is and you'll receive signs, or omens, along the way to help let you know whether you are on the right path to discover what you're living for.  As we left our campsite Chris and I spotted a moose running about 50 meters from our campsite.  I know what coincidence is, but I'm happier believing that moose was a sign that we were being looked after.  

11,000 feet above sea level.

With ascending and descending mountains being the easiest choice for a ride we all enjoy doing, we started the day with a 3-hour ride in The Rockies climbing over 6,000 ft. and ripping down switchbacks at times overtaking vehicles with our ability to descend much faster on our bikes.  Chris and Kevin made good use of a nearby lake to wash-up afterwards, but the rest of were anxious to pack up and get into Yellowstone National Park.  With it already being lunchtime and having only ate trail mix, cereal bars, and PowerBar bars for breakfast and lunch we had a tall task to use what energy we had left to see the hot spots in Yellowstone and make it through the Grand Teton National Park to try and finish the day in Jackson Hole, WY.  The rest of us would get a chance to hop in the rapids of the Gardner River to clean and cool off once in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone National Park is something everyone needs to experience in their life.  In our rushed visit we were still able to see a black bear, bison, elk, prong horns, marmots, moose, mule dear, and we even saw people saying that they could see a grizzly bear and her cub amongst some trees.  At that point it was too hard to see the bears and we were well into our express visit with only so much daylight left.  Along the way we did catch the Mammoth Hot Springs which we all agreed required much more effort than it provided visual appeal.  Basically it wasn't exciting at all.  Thankfully the geysers were very exciting and each one we visited had something unique about it that made it hardly redundant and rather interesting.  We only had to wait about 25 minutes to see Old Faithful burst and used that time to have some coffee and ice cream in waffle cones.  That was our idea of real food after the past four meals being little more than snacking.  We'd step up the bar on our next stop at the West Thumb portion of Yellowstone Lake making PB&J and Wheat Thin sandwiches to hold off our hunger until Jackson Hole.  We had to incorporate Wheat Thins as utensils to spread the PB&J since we had nothing else to use and despite our nomadic approach to life lately, we are all germaphobes.

Bison.

Mammoth hot springs run-off.

Cooling off in Gardner River.

"Backstreet's back, alright!"

Hiked to the top of Mammoth Hot Springs... Not as exciting as we expected.

Do not approach wildlife.

Geyser - My camera died before reaching Old Faithful. 

Yellowstone Lake - Chris and Sam were brave enough to enter the freezing water.

With more stops, views, and experiences I can summarize or even keep track of, we exited Yellowstone as the sun was setting behind the Grand Tetons.  This created an out-of-this-world view with a pink glow outlining the mountain range and a tiny sliver of a moon that seemed within reach of the peaks in a much lighter blue than the dark of the night and stars above it.  It really was something I'd expect to see captured on another planet or in a sci-fi movie more likely.  We rolled into Jackson Hole, historically a beaver-trapping and ranching town taken over by ski bums and novelty stores, starving and without lodging sorted out and less than a couple hours left until another day marked off the calendar.  We got turned down the first place we tried to eat being informed there was only one place in the town still serving food to an under-21 crowd, two-thirds of our party.  We found some pizza and I had my first beer since Madison, WI to take the edge off what had been our longest of long days since we hit the road.  Justin took care of finding us a hotel that ended up being recognized by some third-party I can't remember as bike-friendly and we crammed the six of us into one room again for what had been only our third hotel stay in over a month of traveling.  With the promise of continental breakfast and beds to sleep in I crammed in as much internet time as possible after not having cell-phone service or internet since South Dakota and fell fast asleep just after midnight.

Part 2 - The Home of the Brave

Tuesday - July 9th

Driving through Beartooth Pass the idea that we would fall asleep on top of a mountain without a tent in the wilderness rather than a proper campsite became more and more real as the cowboy in us took over.  Or was it the child-like recklessness we had been suppressing because we felt like we had to be adults or successful all the time?  Whatever is was, the wild and brave nature of what we were considering changed us all a little bit.  We were determined to live life to the fullest by simply living in the most ostensible fashion viewed by most civilized people.

Kevin Gottlieb presents: The Wild.

10,000 ft. elevation and flirting with disaster.

Lakes everywhere at elevation, which also meant mosquitos everywhere.

We ran into a couple traveling motorcyclists that were kind enough to let us know the rules of camping in a national forest to give us the least likely chance of getting attacked by bears and abiding by the regulations of camping in a National Forest.  Due to our stubbornness and unpreparedness for staying at a proper campsite anyways, we learned that as long as we stayed a quarter mile off the main road and didn't start any fires we would be left alone.  At least by the park rangers that is.  

With the sun setting and little time left to ride we spotted a hill settled in at 8,000 ft. elevation that ended up being a short hike off a long dirt road climb.  We were kitted up and descending the dirt road with the sun setting behind us for a short ride to take the stiffness of another long travel day out of our legs.  Everyone was on the same page.  We all knew we were living the dream and were eager to point it out as we all shouted out "America!" and "Are you kidding me?" and a dozen other euphemisms reserved for the experience of seeing the panorama of the Rocky Mountains, the lakes at the bottom of the vast valley's, and endless views of America's backdrop overwhelmed us all.  We weren't out for long because we all knew what we had agreed to and had left us with no option but to set-up our makeshift campsite.  

Got to find time to ride. 

Headed back to "camp".

We all ate as much trail-mix and granola as we could handle along with some Muscle Milk at the vehicles leaving everything but what we were going to sleep in, and on, packed away to limit our chance of an encounter with a bear.  Naturally we heard reports of increased bear activity on the radio earlier that day but the motorcyclists were nice enough tell us, "No one had been attacked and killed for over two years in this forest."  Kevin had inflated his queen-sized air-mattress to share with Justin and the rest of us slept on the ground with only our sleeping bags and sleeping pads.  Sam and I were really roughing it without sleeping pads and only the rocks, limited grass, and dirt to keep us pretty uncomfortable all night.   

Camp

By the time we all had settled into our sleeping bags and had made our truce to not make any bear noises or play pranks on each other a meteorite entered the earth's atmosphere.  From one side of the sky to the other the ball of fire disintegrated right before our eyes.  It was almost as if the meteorite was a sign that we were exactly where we were meant to be.  None of us missed it and it was such an amazing site that we had forgotten about potential close encounters with wildlife and had our eyes glued to the stars for hours as we saw shooting star after shooting star and called out constellations, satellites, and planets to each other until we eventually fell asleep.

Part 1 - The Land of the Free

Tuesday - July 9th

Quarq headquarters parking lot.

Spearfish probably sounds familiar to most cycling junkies because it's where the headquarters is located for Quarq, a company that makes the most reliable and economical crank-based power meter out there for cycling.  After a hearty pancake breakfast at the Millstone Diner we made a short visit to Quarq to see if we could take a tour of the facilities.  Unfortunately, renovations kept us from seeing anything, but everyone we met was super nice and we walked out with water bottles, t-shirts quickly converted into sleeveless shirts in the parking lot, and some SRAM trucker hats.  The morning couldn't have started off any better but the real treat was still to come.

Pancake Breakfast!

I was hoping we'd put the brakes on a little after a very long first day of travel, albeit amazing due to it's massive upswing in adventure at the tail-end of the haul.  It's hard to get six guys on the same page all the time, but we were in for what would be another long travel day through Wyoming, up to Montana, and back into Wyoming as we made an effort to get to Yellowstone National Park via the North entrance through Beartooth Pass where we reached our highest elevation at 11,000 ft. in the Custer National Forest.  Along the drive we stopped off at one of the most popular destinations for mountain climbers in the country, Devil's Tower.  Like Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower was a site that you can see in pictures everywhere, but until you see it in person you don't know what you are missing.  We found the time to rock scramble near the base, observe some brave climbers, and take some really inappropriate pictures before moving on.

Devil's Tower. 

Rock Scramble.

You can take Justin, Chris, Shane, and Kevin out of the South, but you can't take the South out of them.  Before we reached our destination and what would become a night none of us will soon forget, the Southerners were keen on stopping in Billings, MT at a Cabella's.  If you're unfamiliar with this gem of a retail store, it's essentially a Wal-Mart for everything outdoors.  I'm for the most part from North Carolina but I have never considered myself a Southerner along with Sam, the Australian guest riding with us, being the furthest South out of us all with little relationship to what the stereotypical person from The South lives for.  After some pro-longed gun appreciation by the Southerners on the team gears started turning in our heads about camping out in the wilderness.  We were all too frugal, or rather too cowboy to take the traditional camping approach - so we picked up a few mattress pads, sleeping bags, trail-mix, and some bear-spray and we felt like we had everything we needed to survive. 

Cascade Cowboys - VIDEO

Teaser before the Cascade Cycling Classic begins tomorrow night!

The Straight Shot!

Monday - July 8th

"We going to do what they say can't be done"

With the Elite National Championships and Madison, WI behind us we set off on a 15 1/2 hour trip all the way to Spearfish, SD.  Frankly the trip up to this point had been a bit of a disappointment.  Illness and injuries had plagued us all making team morale hard to maintain with expectations unfulfilled despite the circumstances we were trying to overcome.  I was reminded by a new friend from Milwaukee that when you don't succeed, you gain experience.  With that said, we put as much space between there and our first stop as possible as we made our way towards Bend, Oregon and the Cascade Cycling Classic.

After 10 mind-numbing hours of driving along Interstate 90 through Minnesota and South Dakota with little to entertain us along the way we arrived at our destination.  The turning point of the trip had begun at Badlands National Park.  With this park being unrestricted, the terrain became our playground as we tossed dried dirt clods at each other, hid in jagged edges in the earth, and climbed wind-eroded mounds of clay.

Everyone was a bit taken back with the view.

Wind erosion has made the Badlands a baren yet beautiful site. 

Keeling and Sam - Unrestricted Access at Badlands

Kevin the roamer is on a plateau in the distance.   

A rainbow for good measure.

Next up after the scenic drive through Badlands was Mt. Rushmore.  It was close to 11:00 PM and the lights that shine on our Founding Fathers was about to turn off.  This couldn't have worked out any better.  We were able to enter the park for free, walk right up to the Lincoln amphitheater uninterrupted, and take in the monument for all its impressiveness before finishing the long-haul to Spearfish by 1:00 AM where we crammed six of us into a room at the Holiday Inn.

Right before the lights went out.