Lane Maher (JAM Fund/NCC) hasn’t been on the start line at a US Cyclocross National Championship race since December 2019, where he finished 15th as a 19-year-old in the U23 division, won by Eric Brunner. For the next three years, he did not race a bike at all.
The 23-year-old New Englander took time away from racing his bike to focus on his passion for trains. He was happy for a year as a railroad conductor, his main journey on the rails along the Hudson River between Albany to New York City, and then worked toward a degree in civil engineering at Central Connecticut State University.
This year, he decided to make a comeback to competitive cyclocross racing. He will take the start in Sunday’s elite men’s championship race for USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships at Joe Creason Park in Louisville, Kentucky.
“In the spring, I decided I was gonna do a season again. I wasn’t really sure how seriously I would take the first season. I didn’t want to rush back into it, but it’s definitely turned into a full-on comeback,” Maher told Cyclingnews from his airport layover on the way to Kentucky.
“So this year was cut short a little bit. I was planning to do a full UCI season, but I broke my collarbone training the first week of September. That delayed it further. I only got the last two UCI races in, really. So Nationals is kind of less pressure now, and more just experience for next year.
“It’s the first big race I’ve done since I’ve come back to racing, so I’m really excited to see how it goes. I keep my goals pretty high. Even if I know I’m not at that level yet, I’m shooting for the top five, which I know is extremely ambitious. My results today don’t really support that, but I gotta keep them high so that I can get them.”
Maher has just four C2 races in the books this season, including a weekend at Nash Dash CX in Georgia, where he took a pair of top 10s, the second one third place. It was WTB Pivot’s Brunner, the 2021 elite ‘cross champion and three-time Pan Am winner, who won both of the Nash Dash clashes. The pair will again face off at Nationals and try to unseat defending elite men’s national titlist Curtis White (Steve Tilford Foundation Racing).
“I definitely see Curtis White and Eric Bruner as the two to beat. I think Curtis has a lot of motivation to keep that jersey, and I think Eric is in very good form, and he wants it back. I think the top 10 has some pretty top names, including Gage [Hecht],” said Maher,…
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