• Finished 1st in my first ever Ontario Cup race -at the provincial championships! It won me a brand new Brodie Climbmax hard tail!
• 2007 Summer Solstice: Finished 61st in the 10 man category, but had the fast lap on the team @ 49.49
• 2007 Hot August Nights: Finished 2nd overall in a 5 man team; second fastest laps on the team next to an elite rider
• 2006-2007 high school races finished top 5 in most of the races
• Finished 4th overall in the expert category in the 2007 Spoke O’Motion Coulson Hill Weekly Series
• Finished 7th overall in the Epic 8-hour in the hardest category despite being one of the youngest teams in the race

Let me tell you this: It’s a beautiful summer day the sun is in the sky and the birds are singing. You heard something, its sounds like speed, laughter, its sounds like a group of people having the time of their lives. You walk closer and you can hear more, you here tick tick tick tick tick. But it more sounds like a group of mini machine guns firing at the same time. You get even closer, you here shifting of some sort. Now you can hear it getting closer to you. You’re thinking what the heck could this crazy ruckus be. There, you see the source of the noise and your eyes open up with astonishment. You think, "Man that looks like a lot of fun!"

"Rider on your left," you hear as the noise passes you by. And just like that the noise is gone without a mere thirty seconds passing by.

By now I hope you know what I am talking about in the paragraph just above. I am talking about the one thing in life that makes me who I am. Yes, you have guessed it…biking, also known as cycling.

I am Sam Rykhoff and I am here today to tell you who and I am what I do. I bike everyday I can rain or shine. I am a normal fifteen year old boy that loves to be active. Biking came to me when I was about five or six years old. My dad got me in to it. My first bike was a red grip shift Raleigh. I will tell you one thing – I rode that bike into the dust. I rode that bike till the wheels wouldn’t turn anymore. Then I got older and my bikes improved as well as my biking abilities. I got faster and stronger and my love for biking grew bigger every time I jumped up on to my bike. Nowadays, I can’t sleep when I start thinking about what is in store for the up coming season.

Personality is a good thing to have when you are in the biking world. If you have a bad personality and you don’t respect the place you are riding at you shouldn’t be biking. If you are the type of person that loves to respect people and respect the place you’re riding at… then biking is the thing for you. I would classify myself as the type that can’t shut up if he knows that there is a ride. When I here there is a bike ride I am ready that second. And if there is a ride the next day I can’t sleep known that I am going to go have the time of my life.

So biking to me is a big thing. If I don’t ride my bike, you might as well not even call me Sam Rykhoff.

Team mates doing what they do best -
knocking each other off of their bikes!

My plan for the upcoming season is to race in the Spoke O’Motion series and finish number one on the top of the podium. Also I would have to say I am planning on getting more into the Ontario Cup series and kicking some butt. I also plan on trying to get up into the expert cadet category.

It was a shocking race for me at the end of the 2007 season. With ZERO Ontario Cup experience, I ended up passing the race leader and finishing 1st in the championship race. Right then and there I told myself "holy cow that just happened!". Then the guy I beat came up to me and shook my hand with a big smile. At the same time we both said to each other “good race” and I found out that racing wasn’t about beating people and rubbing it in. It was about having fun and that day I had the greatest fun of my life. I found out that racing is not just about competition but really you should be looking at it as experience and fun. I found that out after about eleven years of riding.

So my goals for this season is to make new friends, help out with anything I can, respect the people I race with, try my hardest in every race, show people that you don’t have to ride bikes to race you can ride bikes to just have fun and be active. The number one goal I would have to have for this season is to be safe, have fun and try my hardest.