Former Olympic mountain biker and longtime Bend resident Adam Craig retired from pro racing after last season, but he remains busy with mountain biking-related business.(Giant Bicycles/submitted photo)

The intense workload of racing, traveling and training had become too much for Adam Craig, and he knew it was time to walk away.

But although Craig officially retired from professional bike racing after last season, mountain biking remains a significant part of his post-competitive career.

While he is no longer racing for Giant Bicycles, the longtime Bend resident is still working for the global bike manufacturing company as an ambassador, traveling the country for product development, marketing and sales events, and numerous video shoots. And he is becoming heavily involved in the building and stewardship of trails, in Oregon and across the United States.

The 19-time USA Cycling mountain bike national champion competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and spent about 20 years as one of America’s most accomplished mountain bikers. But two decades as a pro racer was long enough for Craig, 35, who says he had grown weary from the rigors of racing and training the past couple of years. As a pro racer, he was sponsored by Giant for the past 15 years.

“So I had the opportunity to continue working with Giant and to continue being involved in the cycling world without competing, and I feel fortunate to have that,” Craig says. “I think maybe if I didn’t have that opportunity to stay involved I might have continued racing. But I think there’s a lot of things we can do in the bike world that can be inspirational and constructive.”

Growing up in Bangor, Maine, Craig got his first mountain bike at age 12 and began competing in local races. By 15 he was racing at the highest level of the junior ranks, and in 1998 he earned a berth on the U.S. junior world championships team.

He went on to become a three-time U.S. U23 cross-country champion from 2001 through 2003. By 2004, Craig had moved to the mountain biking mecca of Bend and had established himself as one of America’s elite cross-country mountain bikers.

“Getting on a World Cup podium for the first time in 2004, in Italy, was definitely a pretty big surprise and I overcame a big hurdle in my career,” Craig recalls.

Craig went on to claim USA Cycling elite cross-country national championships in 2007 and 2008 and the 2007 Pan American Games gold medal. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he got off to a slow start but finished a respectable 29th out of 50 riders.

He failed to qualify for the London Olympics in 2012 after coming down with a flu-like illness just before the World Cup events that essentially would decide which two U.S. male mountain bikers would go to the games.

In 2013, Craig gave up World Cup cross-country racing for enduro racing, a sort of all-mountain style of riding in an individual time-trial racing format. In enduro, competitors are timed on multiple designated downhill sections of a course. Craig placed ninth in the 2013 Enduro World Series championships.

Craig says he has taken the time to reflect on his pro racing career and he feels fortunate to have achieved so much success at a variety of mountain biking distances.

“I feel good about all of it, and also feel good about moving on from it,” he says. “I don’t have an underlying ultimate competitive urge to just be out there going as fast as I can all the time. It feels good just to step away from that, without a doubt. My body needs a break from all that. My brain needs a break from all of it. I think for the next couple years I won’t be doing any racing, and then who knows? Maybe I’ll do some enduro events here and there or something, but I might not. We’ll see.”

Craig’s parents still live in Maine, and he is an only child. He has never had much time for a wife or girlfriend, he says, because he is “just now recovering from the global vagabond lifestyle. So hopefully that’ll change soon.”

One of Craig’s closest friends is another longtime Bend resident, Carl Decker, who was teammates with Craig for all of Craig’s 15 years on the Giant pro team. Decker, 42, is still racing as a pro, but he says it feels different without Craig there this season.

“We joined the team together, so that changed the dynamic a little bit,” Decker says. “He’s committed to not racing, just because he raced so much for his entire adult life. He needs to kind of stop and see what it means to him.”

Craig says what he will miss most about racing as a professional is the international travel and the strong sense of community among the racers.

“I’ll definitely miss seeing folks around, but I’ll still get to some events here and there,” he says. “It all comes around.”

Though he says he is still quite busy with Giant, Craig is taking the time he had previously dedicated to training to focus on trail stewardship, including trail building, access and advocacy. He has worked with the Central Oregon Trail Alliance, and he is also helping with the launch of the 
Oregon Timber Trail, a 670-mile mountain biking route across the state from south of Lakeview to Hood River that is more than half singletrack.

“I’m excited to have some time for that,” Craig says of trail work. “I’ve always been passionate about it, I’ve just never had the time to dedicate to it. I’m looking forward to trying to make some good things happen in the future here.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318,

mmorical@bendbulletin.com

“I feel good about all of it, and also feel good about moving on from it. I don’t have an underlying ultimate competitive urge to just be out there going as fast as I can all the time. It feels good just to step away from that, without a doubt.— Adam Craig