Cycling: Dixon native ready for record ride

Dixon native Spencer Seggebruch didn’t start out to be a champion cyclist. But after starting to ride while recovering from knee surgery, he just kept going.

A member of Team USA, Seggebruch has competed in international competitions in track cycling, and was the national champion in 2021 at the U.S. Track Cycling Nationals.

After winning two silver medals and a bronze in three different races at last year’s national championships, Seggebruch is looking for more next week at the 2023 U.S. Track Cycling Nationals at the Olympic Velodrome in Carson, California, located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles.

“I would like some redemption,” Seggebruch said. “My preparation has been a little more focused this year than it has been the past couple of years, when I was doing some international races at World Cups. I’ve shifted back my focus toward nationals, and that’s my main target this year.”

Seggebruch competes in track cycling, which is always held on a velodrome, a banked wooden track where riders compete in both sprints and endurance races. Seggebruch is an endurance racer, with a focus on individual pursuit, which is a time trial over 4 kilometers on the track from a standing start. He starts on his bike in a gate, and when the countdown timer goes off to start the race, the gate releases the bike and he takes off.

At the U.S. national championships, Seggebruch and other endurance riders compete in an international omnium, which consists of four races over the course of a single day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. The omnium features four different styles of racing:

• A scratch race, where every rider starts at the same time and the first across is the winner

• A tempo race, where each lap is worth one point for whoever crosses the start line first every lap, with points added up at the end to determine the winner

• An elimination race, where the last rider across the start line each lap is taken out of the race and the competition is whittled down as the race goes on

• A points race, where every 10th lap is a sprint, and the top four riders across each get points, which are added up at the end and whoever has the most is the winner.

Riders accrue points over all four races, and whoever has the most at the end is the winner. A strong performance in one race can make up for a lesser performance in another.

“It’s simple and complicated at the same time,” Seggebruch said. “Riders have different strengths and weaknesses, and they strategize for an omnium based on that. There’s a big mental component to it; with all the moving parts, you feel like you’re doing chess on a bike.”

Seggebruch started out in the racing world at 20 years old, when he was a math major at SIU Edwardsville. Every cyclist begins as a Category 5, and as they get more and more experience and win races and accrue points, they can move up through the rankings to Category 1, which is made up mostly of professional riders.

Seggebruch lives in St. Louis with his wife Paige and 17-month-old daughter Mara Jo, and works at investment firm RT Jones. He is a member of Big Sharks Cycling Club and races for the Chaney Windows and Doors UCI Track Trade Team.

He said his journey from beginner to elite-level cyclist was a gradual one.

“I played ice hockey growing up, but had a knee injury that sort of made it so I couldn’t do a lot of things after having surgery. I’m a very active person, and a competitive person, and cycling had always been something I kind of paid attention to; I watched the Tour de France every summer, and had a mountain bike and liked riding, so I decided to try racing as a way to stay active and competitive,” Seggebruch said. “I did the recreational thing for four or five years and really enjoyed it, and I also got a little bit better; it’s fun to see your progress, if only a little bit. But then there was a turning point: I got married in 2015, and my wife decided to start law school a month before we were married, so I ended up with a lot of free time.

“I thought I’d just ride my bike more, and as I got better, I started racing more, then traveling to more races. I always told myself that I’d just keep going until I quit improving, just to see how good I can get … and here we are eight years later and I’m on Team USA. I feel like I’m getting close to being at the top for what my goals could’ve been.”

Cycling has taken Seggebruch all over the world; last year, he raced in Colombia, Canada and Belgium. He said the visits to different parts of the world have really opened his eyes when it comes to how the sport of cycling is seen around the world.

“I’m not much of a traveler, really, but some of my races have been in weird places. But if there’s a start/finish line somewhere, it doesn’t matter to me, I’ll be there,” Seggebruch said. “You really learn about what cycling means to other countries when you race there – and you learn really quickly that the United States doesn’t prioritize cycling like other countries.

“In Belgium, for instance, cycling to them is like soccer in South America or football in the U.S. It provides a lot of resources and produces some of the world’s best cyclists. The government system is structured so that everything they do is subsidized so they can just ride and ride, and it’s really cool to compete against cyclists with backgrounds like that.”

In September, Seggebruch will attempt to break the U.S. Hour Record. He will travel to Grenchen, Switzerland, just north of Bern, to try and ride farther in an hour than any other cyclist in U.S. history.

The record right now is 53.037 kilometers, set in 2016 by Tom Zirbel. Seggebruch said he’s not aware of any rider trying to break the record in the last seven years.

“It’s not attempted very frequently; it’s sort of like a benchmark that a lot of professional cyclists attempt more toward the end of their careers, kind of as a way of trying to make a statement and leave a legacy,” Seggebruch said. “Each country has its own record, and there’s also an overarching world record, but there are some boxes that I don’t check to be eligible to attempt the world record, things that are not accessible to me who is still considered an amateur rider.

“Even if I get father than the world record, it wouldn’t count.”

The event is a time trial on a 250-meter indoor velodrome. From a standing start in a gate, Seggebruch will take off when the clock starts and see how far he can ride in an hour.

He is working with a consulting firm, Anemoi Labs/WattShop, that has organized two previous successful attempts to break the world record. The firm has experts who can determine the fastest tracks depending on weather conditions, elevation and time of year, as well as temperature inside the velodrome, the angle of the banking and the exact shape of the track, all of which varies since the tracks are made out of wood. The track of their choice is in Switzerland, which Seggebruch says is considered to be a fast track.

The banking also plays a role in how riders attack the attempt.

“You want to stay as close to the center as you can, because the higher up you go, the farther you’re riding,” Seggebruch said, “As the race goes on, it’s easy to ride a little farther each lap, and that adds up over 217 laps – and hopefully more. The goal is to ride the 250-meter distance as efficiently as possible, so you don’t end up riding quite a bit further and hurting your official measured distance.”

With his focus on training for nationals the last few months, Seggebruch is confident that he’ll have enough time after the meet to turn his focus toward the hour record. He will travel to Derby, England, UK twice in the next three months for aerodynamic testing and a practice hour record ride, then he’ll head to Switzerland in September for the official attempt.

“I feel like the training for those two events complement each other quite well,” Seggebruch said. “Training is very specific to the race you’re riding; you get into workouts where it’s not just getting stronger or faster, but building an exact quality you need in your power profile. The hour record is considered a long event, and the energy systems needed for it are different than the omnium.

“But I’ll have enough time to make the transition in training between nationals in July and the hour record attempt in September. I’m excited and looking forward to it; I feel like my abilities and strengths are well-suited for it, and I feel that I can beat the record – and I’m going to give everything I’ve got to make it happen.”