Sometimes Adam Craig’s biggest competition is his own quest for adventure.

His career as one of the nation’s elite cross country mountain bikers is ambitious enough with training, travel, and the races themselves against Olympic champions past and present and others like himself in search of similar status.

Then there are fringe benefits, like the opportunities for fun and adventure world travel affords a 25-year-old who grew up enjoying the outdoors of Exeter, Maine.

He has kayaked in China and Africa, raced rally cars in the great Northwest, relaxed on the beaches of Curacao and Puerto Rico, and wherever he has trekked on six continents he has always searched out new places to ride his Giant bicycles.

It’s a juggling act that isn’t always successful. In the days just before an International Cycling Union World Cup event in Champery, Switzerland, a month ago, he found an out-of-the-way route in the Alps that combined scenery and biking challenge, so rather than rest he went riding.

It didn’t affect his World Cup effort that weekend, as he earned his first top-10 finish of the year. But upon returning home to Bend, Ore., for what was supposed to be a week of rest, Craig went on another unplanned excursion he simply couldn’t resist.

Five hours later, the long ride seemed worth it. A few days later it wasn’t, and as the result of a cumulative lack of sleep and dehydration he missed his next scheduled event, a National Mountain Biking Series race at Park City, Utah.

Fortunately for Craig it wasn’t a priority event for him, so he used that forced rest to prepare for last Sunday’s race on what he considers his home course on the World Cup circuit at Mont Sainte Anne, Quebec.

“I definitely couldn’t ask for any better,” said Craig, “and I’ve kind of decided that’s how I’d try to do something like this. Whenever I’m in a place, most of the other people I’m racing are focused only on the race, but I’m trying to race and have fun, too.

“Like in Switzerland when I went and did a big ride up in the mountains, I’m 99 percent sure I’m the only person out of the 250 guys in the race who went and did that because I like exploring.

“But it kind of bites me, too, because I went home and went exploring in Bend and came down with a cold I’m just getting over now. It takes all kinds, I guess.”

After finishing a disappointing 22nd at Mont Sainte Anne – where Craig had placed fourth in 2005 and ninth last summer – the Dexter Regional High School graduate is now gearing up for a rare second straight Canadian stop on the World Cup schedule this weekend at St. Felicien, Quebec.

Craig doesn’t know a lot about the St. Felicien course but is optimistic it is similar to the terrain in northern New England where he began competitive mountain biking a decade ago.

“We traded in 9,000 feet of elevation in New Mexico for St. Felicien and a new race that sounds exactly like Bangor City Forest riding,” Craig said. “Just flat, rolling, rooty technical nasty riding like I grew up on.”

Craig currently is ranked 21nd among more than 200 riders on the UCI circuit.

“It’s been kind of up and down this year,” he said. “But now I feel like I’ve pretty well settled into a groove, because the fitness is good and the racing is coming around.”

Such timing could be fortunate for Craig, whose busiest stretch of the season is upcoming.

After racing at St. Felicien, Craig will represent the United States at the Pan American Games in Brazil on July 14, and from there he returns to the Northeast the following weekend for the USA Cycling Mountain Biking National Championships at Mount Snow in West Dover, Vt.

Craig first gained national attention at Mount Snow as a teenager and hopes to earn his first national elite men’s cross country title at this year’s meet.

“Most people are complaining about the Pan Am Games being so close to nationals, but I’ve decided that’s going to protect me from myself because otherwise I’d be out in Oregon fooling around making myself tired all the time,” said Craig.

Craig plans to race cross country, short-track, and Super D (downhill) at Mount Snow. Craig is the two-time defending Super D national champion and the 2005 national champ in short-track competition.

“I’ve been waiting for nationals to be at Mount Snow for a while,” he said. “I’ll be racing those hard actually trying to be the elite national champion for the first time this year, which seems like if I’m fit I should. It should be my race to lose, but you never know.”

The maturation process

Should Craig earn that national championship, it would mark another significant step on a fairly rapid rise within the mountain biking world.

But as he has moved up those ranks, he has had to adapt his approach to the sport.

Craig now has a full-time coach in Bart Bowen, a retired professional racer who holds U.S. championships in road racing and cyclocross.

“I’m starting to get away from the only-child syndrome of doing everything myself, and now I’m getting a little help from people who want to help,” said Craig. “It’s been good, for sure, but it’s a transition going from calling your own shots all the time.”

Craig gets additional support from Giant teammates Carl Decker and Kelli Emmett, as well as the support team that travels with him, including road manager Elke Brutsaert, an Orono High graduate and former professional racer.

“Having that substantial base helps for sure,” said Craig.

Success within the business also has afforded Craig new opportunities off his bike. He writes for mountain bike publications, has been active in bike design for Giant Bicycles, and makes occasional media appearances on behalf of his sponsors.

But the public side of his job is a place where he’s not quite as comfortable as when he’s racing or training.

“I’m from a small town and have never been that good at self-promotion,” he said. “I probably could be a little better at it when it comes down to it, but I’d just as soon be anonymous.”

That does happen – sometimes. On this day he went unnoticed as he ate lunch with his dad at the Countryside Restaurant in Corinth. Several days earlier, he was stopped by a mountain biking enthusiast from Nebraska while making his way through a Chicago airport.

“Stuff like that happens once in a while and that’s fine,” he said. “But being from Exeter, Maine, there aren’t a whole lot of people walking around like somebody should know who they are, which is fine with me.”

An Olympic quest

Craig’s current goals are geared toward one particular event that would make him much more well known outside the mountain biking community – the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

And while the last two seasons of World Cup racing have been mostly about individual achievement, they’ve also included an element of teamwork designed to help Craig achieve that Olympic ambition.

The top five national teams in cumulative World Cup points for 2006 and 2007 will be eligible to send three riders to the 2008 Olympics, while other nations will be able to send a maximum of two.

Craig is one of the top contenders to represent the United States in Beijing no matter how many bids the team earns. He has four podium finishes during more than three years of full-time riding on the elite World Cup circuit and was destined for top-10 finishes at the 2005 and 2006 world championships until being derailed by mechanical issues – he placed 21st in 2005 and 17th last year.

He’s currently the top American in the 2007 World Cup points, just ahead of veterans Todd Wells (29th), Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (37th), and Jeremiah Bishop (47th).

“This year we’re trying to keep our nation’s ranking as high as we can so we can get three starting positions, and we’re looking good now,” said Craig, who helped the U.S. team move into fifth place with his top-10 finish in Switzerland.

Once the number of berths for the U.S. team is established at the end of the year, it will be every rider for himself next spring in several World Cup races as well as the 2008 world championships. The top U.S. point scorers in those events will head to Beijing.

And while Craig already has been to Beijing once – to kayak – and will return in August to test the 2008 Olympic mountain biking course, competing there next year is his prime objective.

“This year we’re trying to race a bunch and get those team points, but next year I’m not going to race much at all,” said Craig. “I’m going to have a real good winter of training in California or Arizona, get some good blocks of fitness in, race a little bit to get in shape, and just be ready for those World Cups, for those are it.

“You get ready for those in May, you make the team, then you rest and then get ready for the Olympics. It’s pretty cut and dried.”