printable versionPolice logistics coordinator now top amateur in mountain biking
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
Benjamin Albracht, logistics coordinator for the university's police force, now finds himself the top-ranked beginner with the National Off-Road Bicycle Association. Upon returning from a stint in the Army, Albracht found that he excelled on wheels and started competing.
Benjamin Albracht, logistics coordinator for Stanford's police force, is ranked the top beginner's-class mountain biker in the country by USA Cycling—not bad, considering that he competed in his first race less than a year ago.
At the national finals, held in late September in Mammoth Lake, he finished second in his class. A few nights later, he went online to check his ranking with the National Off-Road Bicycle Association, a division of USA Cycling.
NORBA has five more advanced levels. But when he clicked over to the beginner's rankings, there he was: number one, nationwide and across all age brackets.
"The person who wins in mountain biking is the person who goes out the hardest," said the wiry 32-year-old. "I can do that pretty easily."
He talks about himself in a calm, almost world-weary way. It could be from his three years in the Army, which included combat service in Saudi Arabia and Korea. Or it might be his four years of hardcore snowboarding and partying at the University of Utah, which compelled him to join the service in search of structure and discipline.
Albracht's intense nature seems perfectly suited for each of those chapters, as well as his current cycling exploits. At Stanford, his high energy level and commitment clinched his role in the Department of Public Safety.
Chief Laura Wilson said Albracht worked at the department prior to her appointment as chief two years ago, but he was on a temporary contract. She hired him on permanently that same year because he was both a solid fleet manager and a tireless worker.
As logistics coordinator, he stores and issues equipment, and keeps track of inventory. When officers need radios or bullet-proof vests, they call Albracht. He and logistics manager Terry Bella also oversee the department's 45 vehicles.
"I hired him full time because he had a proven track record with us," Wilson said. "He wanted to learn and grow. He wanted to be part of the organization."
Actually, Albracht just wanted to be a part of Stanford—first, as a student, and later in life, as an employee. He would have liked to work in one of the math or science departments, but just to be safe, he e-mailed his resume to every department in the university.
"The only department that responded was the police department," he said. "What my mother instilled in me was the value of hard work."
Albracht was raised by his mother, his parents having divorced when he was just 7. His father, who now works in the Pentagon, was a career Navy man; and like other military offspring, Albracht's childhood requires a road map.
He was born in South Dakota, spent his toddler years in Florida and came to Coronado, Calif., after that. His family moved to the Philippines for a few years, and when they returned, his parents divorced and he bounced between three states before moving to the Bay Area with his mother in 1985.
From 1990 to 1994, Albracht attended the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, as a math major—the last two years as a snowboarder backed by a startup sportswear maker. He had been boarding since 1988, when, he says, most ski resorts still didn't allow it.
"It was brand new," he said. "It was fun to do something different."
After dropping out of college and putting the wild times behind him, Albracht went into the Army. He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and deployed to Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, where he spent six months maintaining a half-mile security perimeter around a U.S. base.
"They put us in a post in the middle of nowhere," he said, recalling how soldiers would pass the time making scorpions fight. "You got to see after a while which ones would always win and the ones that were the most poisonous."
Upon returning to the United States, he turned right around and went with a unit that monitored North Korean troop activity from the 3-kilometer "demilitarized zone" between Korea's warring halves.
For weeks at a time, he would sit in a hole with high-power binoculars—trying to elude capture, and worse. "I've had a lot of live rounds come close to me," he recalled. "I am one of the few Americans who can say that I've been in North Korea."
He was there for 13 months, and when his assignment ended in 1998, he began competing in triathlons. He soon realized that he didn't like running, and he was not a strong swimmer. But he surged in the biking portions.
Albracht had ridden bikes all his life, but not competitively. Then last spring he entered his first mountain-biking races. At the 10K Sea Otter Classic in April, the largest of NORBA's qualifying races, he placed second among beginners in his age group.
"I went into it only trying to finish in the top half," he said. "I was, like, in tears at the end of it. It really was shocking."
He wears red and white when he competes, and he trains with the Stanford Cycling Club. He rides regularly with cyclists who do a 20-mile loop at lunchtime that starts on Page Mill Road and winds along Arastradero and Woodside roads. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, he'll sometimes do the loop in reverse.
Fellow biker Greg Gomez said Albracht once rode over old La Honda Hill—a well-known obstacle among the locals—in just over 18 minutes. Lance Armstrong, who has blazed the Peninsula's back roads a few times, reportedly humped it in 15.
"That's three minutes behind the world champ," said Gomez, a sales manager for Siebel Systems in San Mateo. "I am amazed at what he can do on the bike."
Not surprisingly, Albracht has switched gears again, now enthralled with road-bike racing—a sport that he says requires more strategizing and teamwork, as opposed to raw strength and endurance. He has had a handful of top-10 race times since June.
At Stanford, he doesn't have a badge or get much time to bike at work. But he says his job is one thing he won't be reconsidering anytime soon. He puts his heart into his work, and he says his colleagues do, too.
"This place believes in service," he said. "Working here, I know I'm making a positive change."