My name is Dalton Thornsberry and this is my website. Some friends call me ‘Walt’, hence the logo.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere, and I loved it. I was always riding some version of a bike during those years and by ‘riding my bike’ I really mean spending all day building dirt jumps in my backyard just to tear ’em down again because there “wasn’t enough lip, dude.”
Eventually, my love for Frankensteined BMX bikes turned into a love for something more powerful and I found myself riding dirt bikes every day I could.
The cool part about getting faster in the motocross realm is that you develop new skills, you get good at handling the bike, you can hit some pretty massive jumps comfortably, and I even got to the point where I was starting to experiment with a bit of freestyle stuff (dumb).
The not-so-cool part is that the faster you get, the higher the risk you take on. I found myself constantly pinned on anything with a motor and at 14 broke my nose and collarbone.
This meant it was time for reconstructive surgery to fix my nose and 6-8 weeks of no riding.
That didn’t stop me; as soon as I was cleared I was back on the dirt bike only to crash that same day doing about 70mph on an old highway near where I lived.
That was the worst road rash and probably the worst pain I had dealt with. My parents weren’t happy.
I hung up the motocross gear and decided I needed to focus on not getting hurt so that I could consistently play all the other sports I loved.
I found swimming in high school and actually stuck around specifically to swim (more on that another time).
This was my first introduction to endurance sports. I absolutely loved the therapeutic nature of swimming and the constant chase of a new PR or bettering times and form.
I was extremely competitive in the breast stroke and short distance freestyle.
When I went to college to become an engineer I started swimming less and less, and eventually life took over and I was strictly lifting weights at the gym.
Quite a few years went by, and in 2019 I found myself in great shape from a lifting standpoint, but I didn’t feel I had the athleticism that I did when I was younger.
This led me to cycling.
At first, I was using the bike as a way to get in some cardio, riding fast and pushing myself. Of course, my ridiculously competitive nature got in the way and I immediately started researching how to race.
This is when I found crit racing.
In 2020, I raced my first criterium race ever at the Tour de Murrieta in Murrieta, CA here in Southern California.
I was dropped after being caught behind a crash about 15 minutes into the race and tried chasing my way back on for the last 30 (didn’t know about free laps).
Just after that event, global forces decided a race season wasn’t going to happen in 2020. I started riding as much as possible with no gym available to balance lifting and cycling anymore.
This led to hugely improved race fitness in 2021.
Fast forward to today, I’ve managed to navigate the Novice Category, move up to CAT 4, and more recently snagged my CAT 3 upgrade on the road.
I did have one problem though.
I noticed when seeking out anything related to cycling, it all felt the same.
As a kid, I wouldn’t have been inspired by any of the stuff I was seeing in the world and really, none of it would make me want to ride a road bike, that’s for sure.
So, at the end of 2020 I made it my mission to help change the landscape of road cycling.
My goal is to help bring some “coolness” to cycling and hopefully connect with others through the sport so that they understand we aren’t all the same, and there is a wide variety of personalities that all love riding and racing bikes for a wide variety of reasons.
Recently, I found the San Diego Velodrome, got certified on the track, and have met some amazing people in that space as well.
This all inspired me to start up my YouTube Channel Walt Does Bikes and share with you all video content that documents my life on the bike via that platform and Instagram.
My goal with this website is to bring you some cool new projects I’ve been working on.
I plan to share race reports, new videos, hopefully some photography, and many other facets of cycling right here.
I hope you’ll join me for the RIDE (get it, yeah, I’m an idiot).