Jmart, the talented athlete with a style all his own

A hard worker and an unbelievable athlete are the words we use to describe Justin Martin, our ambassador and athlete. Justin brings so much energy to the brand and his positivity is infectious. He truly is riding the Blue wave in style. Glad to have you as part of the family!

"Working with Blue Competition Cycles has been such an enjoyable and personable experience since the beginning of our relationship. The craftsmanship of their bikes are top notch and they allow me to push my fitness and skillset to the next level. I thoroughly look forward to riding this Blue WAVE for many years to come!” - Jmart

Blue Ridge Cross

Great second day for our team at CHARM CITY CROSS! Congratulations Hadley, Excellent job.

The woman, the legend, Liza Rachetto

It has been a true honor to have Liza as our ambassador. Liza is an awesome athlete, an amazing person, and one of the greatest coaches that we have had the pleasure to work with.

Liza Rachetto is one of the USA's most experienced Professional Cyclists, with a 17 year Pro Career racing events like the Giro Donne, Primavera Rosa, Fleche Wallonne, Amgen Tour of California, HP Women's Challenge, Philly World Cup on UCI Teams Chirio- Forno d' Asolo, Team TIBCO, TEAm Lipton, BMW - Happy Tooth, Hagens Berman Supermint and DNA Pro Cycling. 

She is also a 20 x Ironman Finisher including the 2023 Ironman World Championships Age Group World Champion and 2018 ITU World Long Course Age Group Champion aboard her Blue Triad Elite.

Liza's stable of bikes includes her Blue Chinook on the Road, Blue Triad Elite for Tri, and her Blue Norcross for Gravel adventures.

Liza runs "Liza Coaching" between Silicon Valley, California and Boise, Idaho with her husband Jono and has 3 Leopard Geckos as pets.

WE LOVE CHARM CITY CROSS!

Congrats to Camille for getting second place today at Charm City cross!

Erin Green, our professional triathlete and one of the greatest ambassadors for our brand.

Erin has always been a great part of the Blue family and it is a pleasure to work with her and her husband Matt!

After retiring from a 7-year career as a professional triathlete in 2019, Erin Green decided it was time to explore her native Idaho from a different perspective. Becoming an avid gravel rider and mountain biker, Erin has since logged thousands of miles on Idaho’s endless remote backroads and flowy singletrack. She is also a volunteer coach with a local youth mountain bike team in Boise, Idaho and is passionate about mentoring young athletes to find joy in their sport. When she’s not on her bike, Erin is running her own private dietetics practice, Erin Green Racing and Nutrition, camping with her husband Matt, and spoiling their cat, Rally.

photo courtesy of Matt Green. Thanks, Matt!

Groove Off- Road Racing

We are proud to announce our multi-year partnership with Caroline Mani and the Groove Off Road Racing Team. Caroline is a five time French National Cyclocross Champion and brings her years of experience along with Lauren Zoerner, a two-time National Champion and three-time Colorado State Champion who rode for the Blue Competition Cycles Factory Team in the past. We are excited to have this mutli-discipline team representing our brand in cyclocross, gravel and XC! Welcome to the Blue family!

Welcome to the Blue family Blue Ridge Cross!

 Blue Ridge Cross (BRC) is a junior cycling team dedicated to the support and enrichment of young female athletes. BRC currently supports 5 riders racing 3 different USA Cycling age groups: 13/14, 15/16, UCI 17/18. We are building a sustainable program solely focused on Female Development. Our race focus will be UCI National Events and the USAC National Championships in Louisville, KY - September through December 2023/24. Our UCI 17/18 rider Maddie Fisher previously qualified to race in Europe over a two-week block in 2022 and we are targeting for her to return to Europe in 2023/24 with an opportunity to qualify for  the world championship.

Drills Are For Everyone! by Jarrod Shoemaker

Jarrod Shoemaker retired this year from being a professional triathlete. He is now excited to be coaching elite and age group athletes to help them achieve their dreams. He is the 2009 ITU Duathlon World Champion and competed in the 2008 Olympics as well as being the 2010 and 2012 U.S. National Champion in triathlon. With many races on hold it opens up a new opportunity to improve your skills. Here is some of his advice on doing drills to improve your cycling.

Jarrod believes biking is not just about hoping on your bike and riding it. To be a proficient cyclist you should practice riding your bike in all conditions, practice drills and skills and become comfortable cornering. Most triathletes just see themselves riding in a straight line and think they do not need to learn to be skillful in bike handling, but just like learning how to swim and learning different parts of the swim stroke, learning more about the bike will make you a better cyclist.

Jarrod Shoemaker

- Pro Triathlete, Olympian

Being comfortable on the bike takes time and some work, but once you are comfortable you are better able to react to situations that occur around you, like a crash in front of you, a rogue water bottle skittering across the road or a pothole you did not see ahead of you. Below are a few good drills to practice in a park lot of area that is closed off to traffic.

The biggest piece of advice is: Look Where You Want To Go (Not Where You Don’t Want To Go)

1)      Slalom -  Place a few small cones, or water bottles, or pieces of bark mulch, or anything else softer and moveable (not rocks or other hard objects) in a line. Practice weaving in and out of them. One of the first things you will notice is that going slow and actually turning your bike is much harder than going a bit faster and leaning your body. As you get better move the cones closer together.

2)      U-turns – A lot of races have u-turns and unless you practice them they can be quite foreign. Set up a cone, or use the end of a line as the turnaround point. When approaching the turn try to do most of your braking before you start to make your turn, the allow you bike and body to flow into the turn and around it. The biggest thing is to look OUT of the turn, not down at the ground in the turn. Attempt to stay off the brakes while you are in the middle of your turn.

3)      Rocking the bike – While riding in a straight line start to shift your weight one way and then the other. Moving your bike out to the side. Although you feel like you are moving your body, in reality you are more moving your bike, because your center of mass has to stay in the middle and you weigh a lot more than your bike. As you get better with this drill and much more advanced, you can try to reach down and touch the ground on the side opposite where your bike is.

4)      Stay in Your Square – In a parking lot use one or two parking spots and start to do circles trying to stay in the spots. The tighter the circles you can go and you can stay in one spot. The key to this is actually to use your brakes to counteract the force of your pedaling. What??!?! Yes, try slowly engaging your brakes while you are trying to pedal forward and you will see that you actually can control your bike with how much pressure you put on your brakes. Just remember to let the brakes go if you get in trouble, not squeeze them!

5)      One Leg Drills – While riding your bike un-clip one shoe and just pedal with one leg, try to do this for 20 seconds, then 20 with both and then 20 more seconds with the other leg. Try to keep a smooth stroke while pedaling with one leg and focus on the pull back along the bottom. This also will help with balance on the bike.

6)      Follow The Leader – Once you have advanced and feel confident, find a friend and take turns following each other around the open area. Reacting to somebody else and their moves makes you learn to be loose and confident, as opposed to being stiff and rigid. Try to follow them as close as is possibly safe as they go through u-turns, corners, and slalom. It is a great way to learn to react and move your bike without really thinking.

Although those are just a few good drills, they are great to start the learning process of how to feel more confident riding your bike. Take some time in a parking lot or closed off area to get yourself feeling more confident on your bike and it will show in how loose and comfortable you can ride. A great example is riding with a cross wind, did you know that the more tense you are the worse you will do when gusts of wind push you, instead you should be loose and relaxed allowing the wind to push you are you to react.

Have fun and be safe!

Enjoy the Journey, For the Destination May Suck! by Kirsten McCay

I am Kirsten McCay and I just became the newest member of the Blue Factory Racing Team. I live in Colorado and I’ve been a highly competitive triathlete for over 20 years and have had my share of ups and downs during my long training and racing career. I have been fortunate enough to have raced in Kona for the Ironman World Championships, I’ve qualified for the Age Group World Championships, and I’ve been on the top of the podium in many local and regional races. But my triathlon experiences haven’t always been so jubilant. Recently, my “A” race for the entire 2020 season was postponed 4 months because of the COVID-19 virus. Most races are being canceled or postponed over the next couple months, with no one knowing when they will resume. And I just got my brand new BLUE Triad Elite triathlon superbike and I don’t get to race it for months or longer!

My advice to you: keep training as if you were going to race. You likely blocked out the time anyway to prepare, so keep your training going as much as possible. But since you don’t know when you will actually race again, make sure you are doing all your favorite workouts! That way, if your race never happens, you will have enjoyed your training time. If that means training with a friend, call up an old friend or training partner that you haven’t seen in a while and catch up while you are training. If that means binge watching a show you’ve been wanting to watch for a while but haven’t had the time, get on your treadmill or your trainer while you are watching. If you have a fave cross-training workout (mine is the step-mill), get on that as much as you want.

Even the training you may not love, the high mileage weeks, the hill climbs, the long runs and rides, they all have a lot of value on your mental state and outlook on life. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, working out, getting outside, getting fresh air and sunshine, and getting your blood flowing, have all proven to help with stress, alleviate symptoms of depression, and increase your general health and well-being.

There was a time, about 12 years ago, when I stopped enjoying my training. I trained hard only to do well in races. For about a year, I didn’t perform as well as I wanted to. The season culminated with my “A” race which didn’t go as planned, and I ended up crossing the finish line in tears. My husband at the time saw me cross and immediately ran over to make sure I was OK. He thought I had hurt myself or something, but I hadn’t, I was just disappointed in my performance and my result. I told him I wanted to do better, I didn’t have fun at all, AND I didn’t even make my goal time. He suggested I take a break from racing, and I agreed. I spent the next 2 years taking a break from training and racing and focusing on some other areas in my life that had been neglected. In those 2 years, I actually signed up for a couple races thinking I was ready, but then as they got closer, I realized I wasn’t excited to train, so I chose to cancel the races.

After 2 years, I was ready. I missed training and racing and I picked a race and started training. I enjoyed training, but didn’t actually LOVE it. I raced for a year and then had a bike accident where I broke my collar bone. It was 2 weeks before my “A” race that I had been training like crazy for with a huge goal. I was out for the season. I was so depressed, I cried, ate a crap ton of junk food, gained weight, felt sorry for myself, and laid in a recliner for 8 weeks letting it heal. When I was able to move again, I was extremely grateful for movement and training and strength and started training with a vengeance. I loved every single workout that I had previously taken for granted. I enjoyed every minute I spent swimming, biking, and running, and saw my training and my sport with fresh eyes. I trained more than ever with a big goal for the following season which I crushed!

Ever since then, I incorporate all my favorite workouts into my training. It helps me love and appreciate even the previously dreaded workouts like time trials, speed workouts, and long long days. This year I am back to a full season of racing after taking about 2 years off while I was pregnant and had a baby. I trained through my pregnancy and after my obligatory 6 weeks off after delivery, I was back to building up my strength and endurance and get back into racing ASAP.

This year I have another big goal for my triathlon season. I started picking up my training miles in December and by mid-March I was up to 22 hours a week. I was right on track to rock my May 2nd Ironman in St George, UT when I got the email about the postponement 2 days ago. Was I bummed? Of course! Was I devastated? Not at all! I am going to keep enjoying my training for another 4 months and I will be so ready to race in St George on September 19th.

You can follow me on Instagram #fitnessdivakir and on Facebook @FitnessDivaKir and of course @rideblueusa and #bluefactoryteam