Frischkorn is a professional road bicycle
racer on Team Garmin-Chipotle on the
UCI Pro Continental Tour.
Article updated: 7/1/2009 5:01:38 PM
After dreaming of riding in the Tour de France for much of his life, former Charlottesville resident Will Frischkorn was not disappointed. The 27-year-old took second place in Stage 3 of the Tour this summer.
That was Day Three in the 21-day
race,” Frishkorn says “It was a pretty
amazing couple of days because this
was this team’s first Tour together and my
first Tour, so to come in second was great
for our momentum and morale.”
Frischkorn was born in Charleston,
West Virginia and now lives in Boulder,
Colorado, but he has spent training time
in Virginia as well. His family moved to
Charlottesville when he was 16 and he
attended St. Anne’s Belfield.
He turned
professional right out of high school,
coming in first place in 1998 in the U.S.
National Junior Championship. He continued
training and competing from his
Charlottesville home base in 1999-2000,
and traveled to Richmond once a week
to train at Bryan Park.
He is still in touch with Charlottesville’s
Blue Wheel Bicycles shop owners
Roger Friend and Scott Paisley, who
sometimes raced with Frischkorn on Tuesday
nights in the Bryan Park Race Series.
“It’s 60 miles from Charlottesville
to Richmond, and Will was known to
ride his bike to Richmond, do the
race, and then hope somebody from
Charlottesville could give him a ride
home,” Paisley says. “But if not, he
had the capacity to ride his bike
back to Charlottesville.”
Frischkorn’s dad, Carl, is a member
of the Mid-Atlantic Bicycle Racing Association,
and started biking at the same
time as his son.
“I’m very proud of him,” Carl says.
“He has an amazing sense of commitment
to do what he does. It’s a hard life.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not like being a big
name in the NBA or NFL and getting
paid lots of money.”
Will is a professional road bicycle
racer on Team Garmin-Chipotle on the
UCI Pro Continental Tour. In mid-fall he
made a trip back to Charlottesville as he
does during the “off-season” once or
twice a year.
“When I’m not training, I like to go
skating, skiing and hiking and I spend
time on house chores that have been
building up,” Frischkorn says.
“I also love
Northern Italian-style cooking.”
In his VeloNews journal, Frischkorn
talks about taking time off the bike.
“While I should have been jumping
up and down every morning … I was actually
feeling a bit of the “end of the season
depression.”
It’s no surprise that Frischkorn would
feel let down during the off season. Cyclists
tend to hit their peak when they are
28 and 29, so Frischkorn is well aware
that 2009 could very well be a challenging
year at the Tour.
Article first appeared in SBQ Issue #8, May/June | May, 2009
