When you fall in love with cycling? How old did you start?
I started cycling in 1999, at the age of 11, together with my brother Christian. My father was a former pro-cyclist and World Champion on the track (1981). He was more or less the reason my brother and I started cycling. At first, I was not good at it, but I got better and better. It was 3 years later that I was sold to the sport of cycling. It was the Dutch Championships Omnium on the track and was leading the classification until the last discipline. I got beaten by a fraction, but it was the first time I got the excitement of winning big races and thinking about a bright future in cycling.
What means for you track racing? What is so special for you? Tell us about of the competitions, your goals.
Track racing is always something special for me. Because the track in Alkmaar is only a few minutes away from my home, I started cycling there. I got my biggest results on the track during my career, so it always has a special place in my heart. The speed and action makes it such a great sport to do and to watch.
I’ve won the European Championships on the track (stayer) in 2011. So far, this is my biggest result on the track. Besides that, I’ve won 9 Dutch Championships titles, plus an overall win in the classification of the Sixdays of Zürich. I’ve got still a few goals to ride for. I want to win the Dutch Championships again this year and the biggest goal is the win the European championships for the second time.
How do you train for short races mainly based on snap and power?
In the summer season I ride a lot of regular criteriums on the road (with normal road bikes). These races are mostly 80 kilometers, around 2 hours of full gas. Because of the many turns in one lap (a lap is around 1 kilometer), there is a lot of acceleration out of every turn. It’s like a two-hours during interval session, which makes it a great training for the short races on the track. In the winter I do a lot of mountainbiking. With short hills and lot of intervals it’s great training as well. Besides, if the road is too wet or frozen, it’s great alternative to keep training during the cold winter period.
Your favorite track discipline.
I like stayer racing the most. Probably in most countries it’s nowadays the least known discipline, but it used to be the most prestigious and well-known discipline in the early days of cycling. With 8 or 9 riders in the track which each one his own motorcycle and pacemaker, the race is packed with action, tactics and a the sound of the horsepowers of the motorcycles. The speed is always high, with an average speed of sometimes 80 km/h and max speeds above the 100 km/h! It looks like an easy discipline (you just follow your pacemaker, right?!) but because of the high speed and the motorcycles, there is a lot of wind what makes is very tough. You have to be a great team with your pacemaker to become the best.
Your relationship with Affinity Cycles.
Back in 2010 I got in contact with Jason Gallacher, the owner of Affinity Cycles. We met at the Sixdays of Tilburg and stayed in contact afterwards. In 2012 Jason and I talked about a sponsorship and I came over for the summer to race on the track and road in the United States. I got some great wins on the track and on the road and we started planning the next seasons. We agreed that Affinity Cycles would sponsor me and my brother, so we could ride the Sixdays and madison track races as Team Affinity Cycles. Last season we rode a lot together in the summer in Germany and some Sixdays in the winter period. In 2014 I started my first fixed-gear criterium in Puerto Rico for team Affinity, which was a blast for me.
Even your brother Christian ride like you on the track.
What are your relationships?
There is competition among you?
Christian is my brother and is a few years younger than me. We started cycling together, so there was always some competition among us. I’ve always done my best to get the best out of all my races. I guess for my brother, he wanted to compare his results to my results, from his side has there always been more competition. Last year we rode together some races, like the Sixdays of Amsterdam, so we didn’t had compares ourselves but we had to work together to get the best results. I think we rode pretty well together.
What do you think of the Criterium races, we’ll see you take part at the Red Hook Criterium series?
So far, I’ve done only one fixed-gear crit, one in Puerto Rico back in 2014. It had a great starting field, with a lot of great riders like the Cinelli-team. I managed to get a sixth place, but was battling for the win the whole race. I would love to see how far I come in a Red Hook Crit. I’ve got the skills to handle a track bike, the only thing I have to work on is how to handle it on the road. I hope the mountainbiking in the winter is helping to improve it, so I hope to ride it one of these years. I think I can get good placing, but winning is something different. There are so many specialist, if I want to beat them, I have to do some more races to improve myself.
Are the future of cycling?
I think the fixed-gear crits is a part of the future of cycling. People are getting tired to watch a six-hour during stage of the Tour de France. They are looking for action-packed, short adrenaline sports. Like BMX, fixed-gear are sports that would be great for the future of cycling. It is easy to watch, it’s full of action and it’s only a short race. Even track racing could be a great part of the future of cycling. If they can find a way to make the races more interesting and more TV-friendly with on-board camera’s, I think the track cycling could be the future.
Road racing represents a big part of the journey through the world of cycling. Your expectations.
Road racing is of course the part of cycling with the most people participating. If you watch the Tour, you can see road racing is always going to be the biggest part of cycling. But they have to change the format of it to keep it interesting for the spectators to watch. Nowadays, time is too costly for people to stay home and watch a stage of 6 hours. The races could be shorter to keep the attention of the spectators. Besides that, they should make it more interactive to follow. The Go-Pro camera’s on the bikes of the pro-cyclist are giving the spectators an unique insight of a final sprint for example. If they could change it, that you can choose you’re favorite rider and watch his Go-Pro during the stage, with his heart rate and watts, it would make an even bigger experience. You can switch from all the riders and their Go-Pro’s to make it a personal experience.
Patrick off the bike?
The most time of the week, I’m working. I’m a sales representative for a Dutch company in Europe and South America. It’s nice to switch your mind to normal things, however there is always a lot of talking about cycling during a working day, because my boss is also a fanatic cyclist. In the weekends I like to hang out with friends and go to town to get a beer, or two…
Congratulations to Patrick Kos for taking the first ever Stehers title at the 2016 Copenhagen Six Days and the Dutch national Stehers championship!
PATRICK KOS
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Photo courtesy of Jason Gallacher Affinity Cycles