By Steve Brunner
USA Pro Cycling Challenge
At one point in Tom Danielson’s career, journalists began to label him the “next Lance Armstrong”.  The year was 2005 and he had just won the Tour de Georgia, America’s biggest race at the time.  It was both a blessing and a curse. It’s like calling getting called “the next Michael Jordan.”

Six years later and a detour through the rigors of professional cycling, which included injury and illness, Danielson is proving his critics wrong. At age 33, he’s having his most successful year of his life, having finished 9th overall at the Tour de France last month and 3rd overall at May’s Amgen Tour of California. He enters the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, August 22-28, as one of a handful of favorites to win the race.

“For me, in 2011 everything is coming together; I’ve learned a lot,” Danielson said.  “It’s just all started to work. That’s what this sport is all about. If you’re going to really reach your potential, you have to go through a lot of stuff and overcome it. I’m in a good place. My head’s right, my training’s right, and my family life is great.”

When Danielson begins the USA Pro Cycling Challenge time trial prologue in Colorado Springs, he'll be riding in familiar territory. He is something of folk hero in Colorado Springs, having set the record in the Cheyenne Cañon Time Trial on a scenic but tough 3.1-mile course that climbs about 1,250 feet. Danielson nailed it in 13 minutes, 34 seconds in 2006. Since then, many have tried to break his record but only Colorado Springs optometrist Leroy Papowski came close with a 14:19 in 2010.

Danielson and wife Stephanie have a 17-month boy Stevie, and for the first time in his career, he’s able to finish off a season living and training in his hometown of Boulder, Colo.  Two days after his first time racing through France, he retreated back to Colorado to prepare for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge.

“For sure it’s a big goal of mine,” Danielson said. “I think, along with Christian (Vandevelde), the goal is to win. Our team is really is excited about the race. The race really suits me well. I’m a high-altitude racer, no doubt. The climbs, the two time trials, it’s really a good race for me and most importantly it’s in my own backyard, which provides me extra motivation…the Vail time trial will be key.”

Danielson was able to scout many of the key courses and called the climb over Independence Pass “nasty and much harder” than expected. “The altitude and length is going to hurt a lot of people. There is no going in and out of the red zone. There is just the red zone. I got a little dizzy at the top and that was on a training ride.”

The man they call “Tommy D” didn’t grow up a by-product of high altitude, or even in cycling, preferring motor racing.   

He got his start in cycling after his mother convinced him that his passion for motorbikes would lead to bodily harm. After taking up mountain biking in his native state of Connecticut, he found an equal thrill on two wheels, albeit human powered.
“I got the same high mountain biking as motor cross,” he said. “And I found out I was pretty good at it. I easily won my first race.”

Danielson is built for climbing. He’s built for high altitude with a huge lung capacity. Even his extended rib cage is a sign he’s a different creature.

“When I was a little kid, I’d get picked on. Other kids would laugh at my chest,” he said chuckling. “Well, I’ve got the last laugh. I found out it was good for something --- cycling.”

His mountain biking led him to Fort Lewis College in Durango where he actively competed in mountain biking, eventually finding his way into road cycling. In his first year as a professional in 2002, he won the Quinghai Lake’s stage race in China, a renowned race that takes place exclusively at high altitude with a couple of stages finishing well over 10,000 feet.  He repeated his win in 2003. It’s where he discovered he was a good high-altitude racer.
  
His early career success had him winning Asia’s biggest race, the Tour of Langkawi, also in 2003, Tour de Georgia in 2005 and Tour of Austria in 2006, the same year he finished sixth overall in the Tour of Spain, one of the Grand Tours.

In 2007, he suffered through a crash and herniated disk and it took until the end of 2008 at the Tour of Missouri to bounce back, finishing fifth overall in what was then America’s second-biggest bike race.

Many cyclist get their first crack at the Tour de France in their mid-20s. Danielson hit his first at age 33. Only a month ago, in the run up, he recalls talking to Vandevelde a few days before the overall start.

“I didn’t feel like I was totally back until I finished 9th at last year’s Veulta,” he said, referring to the Tour of Spain. “It’s all led to this year’s season. I feel like a young 33. I still think I’m progressing. I look to guys like Levi (Leipheimer), (Chris) Horner, and (Ivan) Basso. Those guys are all still really cranking well into their 30s. This sport is about accumulating a lot of strength over the years.”

Danielson said this year’s Tour de France was a dream Tour for the Garmin-Cervelo team. From teammate Thor Hushovd’s two stage wins and week in the yellow leader’s jersey to the squad’s impressive team time trial victory to his 9th place overall as top American.

“Looking back, it was an unbelievable experience, kinda hard to describe,” Danielson said. “We had this team training camp the week before the race and I was talking to Christian Vandevelde. I asked him what it was like, and he said it was fast and never eased up. The pressure for every second, every place, every point for a KOM or sprint was important for teams and athletes and their sponsors. He was right. The speed never let up. The amount of spectators is insane. Like nothing you can imagine when you’re going through it---just a tunnel of noise and hands and feet. Crazy. Controlled chaos. I loved it even when I was suffering. As a bike racer, that was a defining moment.”

He will try to create new memories on the roads of Colorado in late August.

PikesPeakSports.us site manager Tim Bergsten contributed to this report.