 Roy Nickman, Modern Road and Track Competitor. Originally from New York, Roy began racing as a promising amateur in Ventura, California in the late 1970s. He famously showed up to ride the 100-mile Cida Summit ride in tennis shoes while riding a big, swin bicycle. While in high school, he moved to Colorado Springs to train at the Olympic Training Center under the national coach Eddie Barisiewicz. Roy Nickman's road racing career spanned more than two decades. Roy won the bronze medal in the men's team time trial at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. His Olympic teammates were Ron Keifel, Andrew Weaver, and Davis Finney. Nickman rode in the 1988 and 1989 Tour de France for Team 711. He also famously rode in one of the greatest breakaways in the history of Paris-Roubaix in 1988. You're one of the best guys in this break. I'm doing what I can to sort of bulk up my way, pissing and eating at the back. Just float through when you have to, but you're one of the best guys in the break, you're going to be great on the cobbles now. To lead over these terrible roads is an advantage, and Roy Nickman, young in years and mature in mind, leads the high-speed charge to the forest of Arlenberg with 100 miles completed. The speed has been constantly high, and with the cobbles making steering difficult, the dangers are all too obvious. Less than a mile into the forest of pain, Nickman becomes a casualty. The banging and bouncing have caused him to blow out, and a cruel piece of luck so typical of this race is again shaping the outcome. Roy helped prove that Americans could definitely hold their own on the international racing circuit. During his professional career, Nickman rode for the famous teams of La Vie Claire, 1986-87, Toshiba Look alongside Greg LeMond, Bernardino and Andrew Hamston, 7-Eleven from 1988-1989, and Coors Light from 1991-1993. He originally retired from competition at the end of 1993 to take up coaching, serving as coach of the U.S. National Junior Team in 1994 and the U.S. National and Olympic Road Teams from 1995-1997. He returned to competitive cycling with the Mercury Team in 1998, combining racing with a role of assistant manager until 2000. He then worked in management for the AutoTrader.com and Prime Alliance racing teams. More recently, Roy has coached some of the most promising U.S. riders as part of the Lux Stradling Junior Team when he is not working shifts as a firefighter in Paso Robles, California. While acknowledging all of the racing support that he received beginning as a teenager, Roy is helping mold the citizens and racers for the future. Roy Nickman, Modern Road and Track Competitor and U.S. Bicycling Hall of Famer.