Meet Jeremy Norris | Professional mountain biker/coach/nutritionist/poet

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeremy Norris and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeremy, how does your business help the community?
My business, Health Advocacy Racing Team or HART Cycling, is a health advocacy focused professional mountain bike team. Throughout our travels on the American Professional Cross Country Tour, to World Cups, and to high profile American classics, we talk with people about simple habits in exercise, nutrition, and mental health. Each of our riders also takes time to invest in younger riders encouraging them to continue in wilderness sports, competitive or not, enjoying the outdoors and getting daily healthy exercise. During our training and racing, we naturally inspire our fans to be more active and pursue athletic goals.

Competing in sports, and especially endurance sports, is a valuable tool for teaching people the value of discipline, tenacity, and patience in the pursuit of any goal. It teaches people to take a step back when things go sideways, reevaluate their position and resources, and power on toward their goal. It teaches people that building their competitors up, making them faster and stronger rather than putting down and sabotage is what will make people better, boost them to achieving and overachieving their goals more quickly. It teaches them that any skill or strength takes hours upon hours of dedicated, focused practice to build and that patience in that brings success. It teaches people that they can take what they have, even their body, and shape it over time with patience and discipline into the tool they need to accomplish their goals and dreams. Showing and teaching this to people as professional athletes on HART Cycling is something we find really awesome and we’re grateful for the opportunity we have in doing it.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
As I mentioned before, I started racing bikes when I was overweight, no endurance whatsoever, no idea what I was doing. I would watch the Tour de France, then go out and sprint around town pretending I was beating Cavendish, climbing up hills faster than Contador, almost crashing taking my hands off the bars to celebrate across an imaginary finish line. I was told by some well meaning but misguided coaches that I should enjoy mountain biking but I’d never go pro. I started racing pro at 18 partly because they said I couldn’t.

Cross country mountain bike is a brutal sport. There are 50-100+ starters in a mass start, three spots on the podium, and one winner. It’s a niche sport with very little money and a decent amount of expensive equipment. Most of college for me was spent training and racing on dilapidated equipment, driving across the country, sleeping in the back of my ’98 Impreza, finding all the free food I could so I could afford race registration. Through those years, the only results I came away with were 3rd at a 19-29 short track national championship, and a 5th at collegiate national championships.

Some good support came along in Tokyo Joe’s Racing Team. They bought me bikes, provided me with epic jerseys to wear, and gave me sushi for the beginning of my pro career. Eventually, I eventually gained a personal sponsor in MJB Labs and branched out to start my own team, Health Advocacy Racing Team, to focus on the national circuit and my goal of World Cup qualification. On HART Cycling, I’ve started to see long years of training paying off with more consistent, good results on the national circuit and a win at pro Colorado State Championships. My teammate, Sam, was able to qualify for two World Cups this year and the fire is burning hot for the motivation for both of us to throw down on the world stage next year.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh man, a week long itinerary in Fort Collins… We’d definitely have to start with a slow steady road bike ride up to my hometown, Estes Park. It’s a great 80mi out and back up and down one of the chillest mountain canyons to pedal. Best to spin up through Glen Haven, snag a cinnamon roll there, ride up the switchbacks, then take a break at the Inkwell & Brew for a mid-ride coffee. After that, riding a cruiser bike up to Old Town Fort Collins and eating at the Welsh Rabbit is the way to refuel.

Riding all the trails in Horsetooth Mountain Parks, Lory Park, and Blue Sky down to Devil’s Backbone would have to be on the itinerary somewhere. The days of riding would have to be followed up eating at places like the Rio, Rare Italian, Jeju Sushi, Little on Mountain, or Star of India. And, of course, the ideal lunch spots of Tokyo Joe’s and Torchy’s Tacos. Fort Collins is the Napa Valley of IPAs so a sampling of the local breweries is a must. My favorite breweries at the moment are Purpose, Equinox, Stogy, Prost, Coopersmiths, and like a true Fort Collins resident, my basement. These are each awesome places to hang out and drink a beer. Visiting the bigger breweries at New Belgium for their free tour and tasting beers at Odells is also a great time. But are we feeling wine? Cafe Vino, the Welsh Rabbit, and the Retreat all have awesome wine selections and lovely atmospheres. Coffee? Every Day Joe’s, Genesis, Bean Cycle, Little Bird, and Stary Night all have great coffee and atmospheres. But my favorite hangouts for the confluence of coffee, beer, wine, and poetry are the Retreat and especially Wolverine Farms. Then there’s the Whiskey, Social, Sunset Lounge, and Ace Gilletts for those stronger drinks and chill vibes.

We would have to have several afternoons/evenings spent drinking various drinks, wandering Old Town, and reading and writing poetry. Overall, any friend of mine on my itinerary better be ready to eat a lot, drink a lot, hang out a lot, and burn off all that eating and drinking with several hundred miles on the bike.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Some huge shoutouts I have are for the Colorado High School Mountain Bike League, Boulder Junior Cycling, Andy Clark on Ciclismo racing, and of course, my coach Ann Trombley. Each of these showed me from a young age the value of the discipline, dedication, and patience I’ve touched on in an incredible balance of brutal competition and fun in the sport of mountain bike.

The Colorado League has always done an amazing job at encouraging athletes to push their limits while also showing them that the number on the results sheet isn’t everything. Measures of personal achievement or improvement, smaller goals to accomplish in racing or riding, and just good old fashioned unquantified, unqualified FUN are recognized and celebrated there. They celebrate every single rider from the varsity champion (racing a world class race), to the last rider on course just out there to ride some laps, they champion kids on bikes and it’s awesome. The environment they have worked so hard to develop has become an awesome, fully inclusive place to be as competitive as you would like.
My first race with the league as a freshman I was an overweight, non-athletic 13yo just looking to have fun on my mountain bike. I’d go out and pedal my legs off to finish 130th and be STOKED about it. Four years of encouragement, coaching, and awesome race experience later, I was lining up against the top ranked rider in the world, racing local pro races on the side, racing at the front end of varsity races, and loving every second of it.

Boulder Junior Cycling is where I cut my teeth on national and international racing. Starting around my sophomore year, I trained and raced with BJC throughout the summer. Their investment in me as a rider, teaching me to really race rather than just go out and survive, teaching me how to really train instead of aimlessly ride, and many other things are an incredibly important part of my journey. They have built a great program developing riders into racers.

Andy Clark, head coach at Ciclismo Racing, has been a wonderful friend and mentor to me since I moved up to Fort Collins in 2019. His investment in me as we both invest in the kids on the program has been monumental in my development as a professional athlete. One of the key things Andy has and continues to teach me is the importance of the basics. Whether it’s the most basic skills of standing on a bike, braking, cornering, or things like weight lifting for general strength, taking time off the bike to focus on core strength. Learning to apply these things outside of riding bikes and teaching these things to the kids makes me a much better rider and a better person.

Starting to work with coach Ann was one of the largest pivotal moments in my career so far. Before then, I had been floating from coach to coach or, the worst, trying to coach myself. I was chronically overtrained, getting injured all the time, and not performing well. Working with a coach as knowledgeable, patient, and understanding as Sydney-2000 Olympian Ann Trombley was exactly what I needed to get on track to being fast. There were times when she almost dropped me as an athlete because I just wouldn’t do the workouts properly, but I eventually learned to ride easy so I could ride HARD. Coach Ann continues to coach me toward victory on the national and international circuits.

Without these two organizations and two coaches, there is no way I would be where or who I am today.

x

Website: HARTCycling.com

Instagram: @chucktnorris @hart_cycling @jeremytnorris

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chucktnorris/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mtbforhim

Other: coloradanmountainbiker.wordpress.com

Image Credits
Image #2 – Puerto Rico Cycling, image #4 -Dan Porter, Image #6 – Sam Davenport