Mountain Bike Race: Immigration

Blue Jeans Dept: “He looked at me funny,” recalls the proud father, Leonard, on the day his 29-year-old son finished seventh in the Tour de France, “and he said ‘What are you talking about, the race already started. All the other kids are two minutes up the trail.' So I run over to over to Ryder and yell ‘go, go, go, you're way behind.' “, according to Globe And Mail. It was the ignominious but promising start to an unorthodox cycling career that – thanks to three grinding weeks in France – will enter the annals as one of Canada's greatest, the best Tour finish for a Canadian since 1988. Among friends and family, the French triumph was no surprise for the adversity-plagued racer who's adhered to a strict training regimen since he was 14 and often chafed Canadian cycling authorities for his single-minded resolve to succeed on his own terms and as a young teen whose world revolved around a nine-speed Norco Bush Pilot, Ryder Hesjedal arrived at his first mountain bike race an hour north of the family's Victoria home looking conspicuously out of place in blue-jeans and a ratty T-shirt. The outsider feeling deepened when his dad noticed an absence of competition and approached an organizer to ask where all the other kids were. The kid in denim would finish second. As reported in the news.
@t ryder hesjedal, bush pilot