At just 27 years of age, American Mike Creed of the Rock Racing team finished up his ninth year as a professional with his last road race of the season, the Tour of Missouri back in September. While coming through the ranks, Creed was crowned U.S. national champion 20 times and was a member of the world championship team 6 times.

Creed has had ups and downs in his pro career, facing illnesses with relapses of Epstein-Barr disease and back problems while racing for the Prime Alliance, US Postal and Discovery, TIAA-CREF which became Slipstream teams, and now with Rock Racing.

I sat down with a relaxed Mike Creed, the evening after the time trial at the Tour of Missouri where our conversation meandered starting from this year, to his outlook on suffering, his recommendation to USA Cycling for its endurance track selections and finally his goals.

"When I was seventeen and eighteen racing in pro races, it didn’t matter if I failed, I could go out and just lay myself on the ground and no matter what place I got, it was decent so that allowed me to get some really solid results and it took awhile for me to just finally realize that no matter you just need to suffer. It’s okay to suffer, everybody is suffering."

Read complete interview on RoadBikeReview.com