Matt Kelly, the surprise winner of the junior cyclo-cross world championship in Poprad, Slovakia, in 1999, is back.

Kelly is the newest addition to the Subaru-Gary Fisher pro mountain bike team, and will fill the spot formerly held by Trent Lowe for the 2006 season. The youngster from Wisconsin briefly rose to prominence after his world’s win, but, unlike many of his contemporaries, never parlayed that first big win into a solid career.

Kelly’s return to the pro ranks ends a four-year hiatus from the sport, which began in 2001 when the Wisconsin native pulled out of the Tour of the Gila and simply walked away from bike racing. Kelly spent the next four years lounging on beaches in Hawaii, skiing in Colorado and working on organic farms. To the bike racing community, the talented youngster who rode for the DEVO development program, the U.S. national and Trek-Volkswagen mountain-bike teams as a junior, went down as the sport’s most talented victim of burnout.

But Kelly returned in the summer of 2005, racing mountain bikes locally on the Wisconsin Off Road Series and cyclo-cross on the U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross series. His results were promising; good, respectable, but not earth shaking.

Enter Ryan Atkinson, the assistant brand manager for Gary Fisher bicycles, and fellow Wisconsin resident. Atkinson and Kelly frequently brushed shoulders at local bars and restaurants in and around Lake Mills, Wisconsin. When it came time for Subaru-Gary Fisher to fill its roster for 2006, Atkinson was at a loss for finding a second male rider, one to ride alongside four-time U.S. national champion Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski. His informal communication with Kelly proved fruitful, and eventually Kelly, once touted as the most-talented “burnout” rider, had a jersey, bike and job.

VeloNews: Why Matt Kelly?

Ryan Atkinson: We had a pretty consistent team from last year. We knew we’d be brining back Willow and Jeremy, and with Heather coming on, we just had to fill the spot for one more male rider. No one athlete naturally fit into the spot. Lots of people were on our radar screen at the time. I had seen Matt at the local state cross-country series races and in and around Lake Mills where I live. I was crossing paths with him as he was getting better and better over the season. I ran into Matt and his dad at a bar one night. I had told him over the summer that he could count on riding a Fisher bike if he wanted one, and he told me he was really focused to go big for 2006.

We hadn’t filled the spot, and Matt seemed like a perfect fit. He’s a guy who knows how to make a bike go fast. He’s got a huge engine. He may not have been training at the level of, let's say, Jeremy, for the last five years, but he has the utmost confidence in his own ability. With the amount of talent he has he can definitely compete. I don’t think the level of racing in cross-country men’s racing right now is so deep that Matt can’t compete. Plus he’s a Midwesterner. Fisher’s heritage is in California, but the company is a Midwestern company. If you go to the Wisconsin or Ohio state cross-country races, you’ll see more Fisher’s than just about anything else. People from the Midwest love to see Midwesterners succeeding. We saw that with Cameron Chambers who lives in Kansas. He has this hero status in his state. That stuff sells bikes.

VN: Are you at all concerned about Matt’s history with burnout?

RA: We talked to him about that. He’s a real person, like all the other racers at that level, and real people can stumble sometimes. When I first talked to him I said “let’s look at this as the mellow year and see how you do.”

We’re thinking long-term relationship with Matt right now. That’s what we’re into. We don’t want him to kill himself and not come back. He has a lot of confidence right now and wants to start winning races. We don’t want him to burnout though.

VN: Matt, after coming back to racing this summer, did you expect to have a contract with a mountain-bike racing team for 2006?

Matt Kelly: Ha. Definitely not. I was not planning on it moving so fast.

VN: What were your racing plans for 2006?

MK: I wanted to do some road racing. I though tit would be good to get some base back and just race on the road. I was talking to some road teams, TIAA-CREF, Advantage-Bissell and the [United Pro Cycling team]. The interest was there on my part but I got turned down by everyone. But I think it’s good. I can focus more attention now on a few races than getting spread out over a bunch of races. I think that’s what burned me out to begin with.

VN: What will be your key events?

MK: Nationals is going to be it. I want to focus mostly on nationals and be in good shape for the other races. The NORBAs, I should be in good shape for 90 percent of them. Maybe I won’t be going the best at Sea Otter or the L.A. NORBA, but I should be near 10 percent for the other ones. I really want to get a spot to New Zealand for world’s too. It’s a place I want to go but I can’t afford a plane ticket right now.

VN: How did things go for you in your last mountain-bike race?

MK: The last mountain-bike race I did my bike kind of blew apart on me. I had one goal for 2005, which was to win a WORS race. The first one I did I was seven minutes back and in 18th place, pretty bad. I got about a minute faster each race and by August I was going pretty good. In my last race I was in third place and I could see the dude in first place around the turns. I thought I could catch him. But then my chain broke and my derailleur hanger came off. But then I did ‘cross racing and felt like I was gaining speed, maybe 30 seconds at each race. But I got sick in San Francisco and my season fizzled out after that.

VN: When and why did a return to racing start to sound like a good idea?

MK: I don’t think there was any real point that I can pinpoint. I really like being outdoors and exercising and being healthy. I like getting out skiing and having a nice time breathing and being by myself. I guess I got back into it watching the Olympics in Greece and thinking that I missed my chance to be there. Be it in Beijing or Spain, I want to be there in the Olympics.

VN: What do you want to go in?

MK: Mountain biking.

VN: What is your pre-season preparation looking like?

MK: I just want to get a lot of miles in, probably some surfing too for core body strength and do a lot of yoga. I’m going to keep it mellow and just enjoy being back riding. I’m going to Santa Barbara after Christmas and will probably be there training through the end of April. I want to start the New Year off there.