VeloNews: Carlsen jumps to the bigs at Qatar

One of Team Garmin-Transitions’ new riders from its U23 development program, Kirk Carlsen, is making his debut at the top level of the sport at the Tour of Qatar. VeloNews is following the neo-pro for the entire 2010 season.

On Sunday afternoon, American Kirk Carlsen will pin on his first number as ProTour-level rider before the team time trial at the Tour of Qatar. After years of racing for Garmin’s under-23 team, Felt-Holowesko Partners, Carlsen said he already feels at home with Garmin-Transitions.

Still, it’s a thrilling step up, he said.

“I’m not so much intimidated, but more excited,” Carlsen said. “I want to show people that I can race at this level. And obviously it’s really cool to be racing with the guys that I’ve always been watching on TV or reading about in the news.”

Carlsen grew up in New Hampshire, where his grandfather and uncle got him into cycling.

“I grew up in the projects with my mother,” Carlsen said. “I did a race as a 7-year-old and got second. Pretty much from there on I was hooked.”

After that first race on a Huffy mountain bike, Carlsen soon graduated to a road bike. He moved in with his grandparents when he was 11, and weekend training rides became the norm.

“I started doing nationals when I was about 13, and have done them pretty much every year since then,” he said.

In 2008, he won the U23 national road race after a 30-plus-mile solo attack.

Besides racing for Felt-Holowesko Partners, Carlsen earned European racing experience with the U.S. national team.

Read the entire feature on VeloNews.

Popularity: 1% [?]

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Home Page, News, Slipstream, Team Holowesko Partners/Felt U23 and tagged with Kirk Carlsen, velonews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.