A Coldwater athlete has found his sweet spot in the highly competitive cycling world with ultra-distance racing.
After close to a decade of adrenalin-pumping mountain bike and cyclocross racing at the national and international levels, Ben Sweet found his energy wasn't spent at the end of a three- or four-hour race.
"Late in the race, I felt better and better," he said.
So, this year, the 20-year-old transitioned to ultra-distance cycling.
This fall, he entered his first race, the Psycho 48, competing in the 24-hour Time Trial North American Championships in Bayboro, N.C.
Sweet and his girlfriend, Abby DeGroot, packed up their vehicle with a borrowed time-trial bike for the 15-hour drive to Bayboro. The race had a mass start at 8:15 a.m. on Oct. 18 on a 57-kilometre loop route on open roads.
"It was great," said Sweet. "I wasn't really taking any breaks. I stopped maybe eight or nine hours into it to put on some warmer clothes for the night and get some food."
At the pit zone, DeGroot would hand him a bag with water bottles and food. He had to stop to fix bike lights and take bathroom breaks but otherwise kept cycling.
At 8:15 a.m. on Oct. 19, he stopped and texted in his distance (plus, the bike had a tracker on it) of 793 km.
Sweet not only won the race, but set a course record. His win qualifies him for the Race Across America, but Sweet has other ideas.
"I want to break the cross-Canada record," he said.
He is planning to cycle 5,747 km across Canada next summer and attempt to beat the record of 13 days, three hours and 49 minutes held by Chris Bruckner, of Inuvik, N.W.T. That means he will have to cycle about 450 km per day.
Sweet will continue to train over the winter through fat biking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, weight and cardio gym work and likely a trip to Spain to train and run a cycling camp.
Sweet has a top-notch team behind him. His coach is none other than Rob Holmgren, a national-level mountain bike and cyclocross coach and the father of 2024 Paris Olympic cyclists Gunnar and Isabella Holmgren. Holmgren runs Stimulus Performance Training, and Sweet is one of his athletes.
"He's taught me so many things. He's been my coach since I was 14 or 15. He's been helping me come up through all my cycling," said Sweet.
Holmgren makes up a training plan for Sweet.
Sweet also goes to sports physiotherapist Spencer Bell from Back to Function and Bell Chiropractic in Orillia, who also works with Gunnar Holmgren and has worked with numerous Olympic athletes.
"They keep me in tip-top shape," said Sweet, who stands six-foot-one and weighs 195 pounds.
Sweet prepared himself for the 24-hour race through two long-distance cycles this past summer. He cycled 860 km around Lake Ontario via roads, and he cycled the 460 km, off-road Colt loop in the Peterborough area.
“Both of those, I was going for the record on them and I set the record on both of them,” he said.
Sweet completed the Colt loop in a little more than 21 hours, beating the record by six hours, he said.
It took him 37 hours to cycle around Lake Ontario, but he doesn't know if it will count technically because he encountered a problem.
At the Thousand Islands Canada/United States border, guards would not allow him to ride his bike across. He had to hitchhike across the border in a truck, with his bike in the back.
So, why would anyone want to cycle into the night, and so far?
"I just like being outside and I'm very competitive. It's a good avenue for me to see how far I and how fast I can go. I’'m definitely an adrenalin junkie," he said.
While Sweet enjoys numerous cycling disciplines, he is "focusing now on the really long stuff."
He is looking for sponsors for his cross-Canada race and other races. Anyone interested in sponsoring him can email [email protected] or follow him on Instagram at _ben_sweet.
