Eric Heiden on the 7-11 era and becoming a bike racer

Here’s a very brief extract from a chat i had with legendary speed skater turned cyclist Eric Heiden, who was a founding father of the original 7-11 team, and was indeed on the roster for their first Tour de France

ST; As a celebrity speed skater how were you received in the cycling world?

EH; I would say the way I was received was mixed. A lot of them looked at me as “Gosh, who is this guy? He’s good at speed skating and athletics, but he certainly hasn’t out the time and effort into cycling” and though I was just taking advantage of my celebrity.

Others thought it was a way of promoting he sport, because here was somebody who already had a big name, and cycling was pretty small (in the US), and as a consequence of me participating that cycling in general would become more popular,

In the end, I think that most of the people I competed against probably had good respect for me as an athlete, and as a cyclist. I was never going to be a big grand tour rider, but I had the opportunity to try , and it was humbling, probably the hardest ting I’ve ever done.

I won a couple of races. I was National Champion in 1985, I think I performed pretty well and held my own in the Giro in 1985. I had a lot of other things going on at the time; school was my number one priority. When I look back I’m kinda frustrated that I never had the time train as hard as I think I really have, to see what my cycling abilities were – but, I enjoyed the experience.

ST: had you already put a time frame on your cycling career before you Tour de France crash?

EH; Yeah, I was slowly working my way through under graduate studies. In 1985/6 I graduated from university, and at that point I took another year off to participate in the Tour. But, medical school was going to take over, and once you start medical school you don’t have time for these other things. That was going to be a full time commitment.

I think that throughout my career I’ve looked at sports as something that you can do when you’re young, but you have to have something to fall back on as you get older. I’d set my goals of getting into medical school, and in 1986 I started as Stanford University in the fall, after the Tour de France.