Strobel To Return To Racing Next Month

Washington State's Luke Strobel (Team Maxxis) plans to make his return to international racing at the UCI World Cup at Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, after breaking his hand at the Sea Otter Classic earlier this year. In a relatively straight forward collision with a stray hay bale that'd found its way onto the course, Luke broke his scaphoid clean in half, an injury that wasn't diagnosed until some time later. "I saw the doctor in Monterey and was told that it was probably not broken but that these things can usually take a week to show up. It wasn't super painful and in fact I was back at home after the Otter doing timed runs on my local tracks, before I got the x-ray. That showed the complete break, so I opted for surgery on May 5th and have been in a hard cast since then". Luke's maintained fitness riding his road bike daily and expects to get the cast off tomorrow week the 13th. Next step is cross country training around his 22nd birthday on June 24th, and then a month of preparing for a return to World Cup racing. "This has been so frustrating as I had my goals pretty much wiped clean by a simple crash. I"ve been staying fit, using a bone stimulator device to facilitate the recovery, and I really hope to do the final 4 rounds of World Cup in Canada, Australia and Austria. Missing the Worlds sucks pretty bad but my main thing right now is to be smart about this injury and recovery 100%." Despite the time out, Luke has still managed a high media profile thanks to sections in the movies "F1RST" and "Stars & Bars", a cover shot on Decline Magazine, and a bunch of features. Look for Luke getting back on track at World Cup Round 4. www.23degrees-sports.com.