Ten Tips for Top Ten Athletes (but typically not much better than that)
Dani, KP, and I haven’t won UCI races. We can crack a top ten though, sometimes a top five or a podium. We can throw down at a local race, travel and hold our own in any domestic CX race or gravel race. Dani and KP have taken on the international CX scene like champs. As a team, we certainly have a few rad results and we also balance a range of other work. Dani in particular works long days and is well known for squeezing in a ride from 5:00-7:00 before a full workday (how?). KP is the queen of combining work and racing/training, working for Shimano and artfully making work trips also training trips. I have worked less than Dani and KP but I still support myself through a range of jobs, truly depending on the month. I also raced throughout college and would sometimes submit assignments in my kit after a race, ahhh. We don’t show up at races with a crew of support, we finagle and work our way into a significantly cheaper and simpler setup. Each weekend, we race against people who have budgets that are easily 10x ours for the weekend. Sometimes we are our own pit crew and we travel places where we have host housing, family, friends, or other sponsor/partner reasons to travel there. We’ve all grappled with and initially aimed for racing at the highest level on an international stage. However, I believe we found each other because while we still want to perform, we also want to live a balanced life filled with other interests, work, relationships, and other joys. We are fortunate that there is so much space within cycling to compete at different levels. It’s not always easy or obvious but there is so much space to commit, race, and ride in a way that feels accessible and good for our particular situations. When I was growing up, I immediately looked to the racers who were at the absolute top of the sport. These people are incredible. But the realities of their lifestyle and commitment aren’t realistic or even intriguing to many other riders. Our team falls in this second category. We want to race and also do so many other things. Sooooo, here are ten things we’ve learned for how to build a team that certainly sits squarely between having no support and a factory race setup. Some notes: KP and Dani started this team in 2018 and invited me in 2019. Over the years, we’ve worked with a number of sponsors/partners. We exchange a variety of gear and money for publicity, events, outreach, media deliverables, feedback, and general stoke. Each year we pick the races we want to go to and the team funds can cover the vast majority of these costs. When people ask me if I make money racing, I tell them, no, not really, but I don’t pay for it. This has worked well for us, it offers enough support while still allowing us to live big in other components of our lives. It’s a juggling act and we are all so pleased to have the ability to make it happen together. Top Things I’ve Learned About How to Create a Low-Key Career in Cycling While Also Living A Life Outside the Sport: 1. Rest: If you are going to be working, going to school, or doing much of anything outside of cycling, your number one superpower is rest. Your body takes in the stress from work as well as the stress from training and you can’t possibly train as much as people who only ride and race bikes. If you can, err on the side of rest. I’ve found that going into a race or a workout feeling a little over-rested (as opposed to over-trained or over-tired) makes me a happier and faster rider at the end of the day ~Riding makes you fit, resting makes you fast~ 2. Find friends who are organized: Cycling takes a ridiculous amount of coordination and organization. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that if you want to travel, race, or start a team with people, pick the organized ones. On race day, even if you have a tiny budget and drove across the country instead of big teams who flew their athletes, being part of an organized and prepared unit of people can make all the difference. Key tip: find a friend with a big organized toolbox, these are the ones you want! 3. Be nice: One of my favorite quotes is “Be soft and kind but take no shit” The cycling industry is small, it pays off (big time) to do what you can to show up feeling good so that you are kind to people. No one likes a stressed racer who yells at people. If you can be calm, kind, approachable, not an asshole, and remember that THIS IS ALL FOR FUN, you’ll make it way further in this sport and make more friends in the process. 4. Adapt: Our theme of 2019 was adaptability. Dani brought his one up after feeling impressed at what bodies can adapt to. Need to ride before the sun rises every day? Only have candy to eat on this ride? Your warmup was messed up because you got a flat? You have a meeting and group ride at the same time? Adapt! Do it all! Make it happen! It really is incredible how we can adapt both physically and mentally. We were quick to adapt to working, traveling, training, racing, and eating funky food or navigating sub-optimal sleep schedules, ya just do it! The more strategies you can have to keep your calm, find the things that keep you sane and happy, prioritize your needs within the circumstances around you, and tune into what you need, the better you’ll do! In terms of mentally adapting, we learned flexibility and how to organize our time to maximize efficiency and joy. Unlike racers who can schedule their entire days around training or racing, if you also work, it can take some logistical cartwheeling to make the days work, you’ve got it though :) just think of it as a fun puzzle, and don’t forget Tip #1: REST IF YOU NEED TO OR WANT TO! 5. Don’t bother cold calling a sponsor, work through connections, always: It sounds fun to shoot off an email to Specialized asking for sponsorship, but in my experience, if I didn’t have someone introduce me and I hadn’t won big professional races, I’d truly never get a response. Talk to people, ask people you look up to, find a friend of a friend to introduce you to someone at the company. This sort of networking can be tough, but it will ensure your sponsorship inquiries are actually worth your time. 6. Be creative: Chances are you’ll show up at races and be on a start line somewhere with someone who has tens of thousands of dollars behind them in terms of gear, mechanics, travel, support, income. If this isn’t you, you’ll have to get creative to stand your ground on that start line. This could mean prioritizing races where you have a host-house you can stay in, this could also mean you drove for twelve hours and worked remotely in the passenger seat for a few hours while traveling. At one CX race, Dani and I had chosen to go light (and cheap) and travel with only one bike each. We raced the first day on a dry course and the second day it was shockingly muddy. Dani graciously offered to let me ride her bike as a pit bike while she worked in the pits and I raced. Yes, she’s the best. While this was a bummer for Dani on the day, we opted for the chances of having one good race instead of two nearly guaranteed bad races. At this race, there were teams with multiple mechanics and fleets of bikes. We were there staying at a host house and it was just the two of us with two bikes. We got creative, we made it work, and it ended up being an epically fun and great race for me thanks to Dani’s creativity and commitment to flexibility. Would it have been nice to have four bikes, eight sets of wheels, and multiple mechanics, certainly! Did we still compete and spend only about $600 for the two of us that weekend, also yes! The theme of the weekend: we’re doing it live! 7. What else can you offer that isn’t always a win? When you win big, people look to you automatically. Unfortunately, only a few of us can win so big that this happens. Most riders have to wiggle their way into good results and also present a combination of other intriguing factors. For example, we as a team have set up schedules in the past to write blog posts for each of our sponsors and we have made intentional time and travel plans in order to do events with sponsors. We spent an extra few days in Boston and had a super fun meet and greet at Firefly, a few weeks later we raced in Chicago primarily to spend time with Luke from TenSpeed Hero and have an open house at the studio. We have found ways to be valuable, fun, and appreciated outside of our results. While the results can help and are certainly fun, we have intentionally put ourselves in a situation where we are more than our results. We work with people who care about things like big adventures, creative endeavors, or providing feedback instead of solely relying on winning big races. 8. Communicate really really well with people who you work with: I cannot stress this enough. If you have come to an agreement with someone to work together, it is on you to communicate with them. For example, as soon as COVID hit, Dani composed emails to each of our sponsors outlining how this was affecting our seasons and changing the things we felt safe doing. We were able to connect on the uncertainty and I like to believe that we found common ground in understanding where each other was coming from and what we were experiencing. We were able to work together and make a plan as opposed to feeling scared to change the expectations we had set earlier in the year. 9. Learn how to make a killer deck: A deck is a sponsorship/partnership proposal that is typically a well-designed set of slides that showcases who you are, what you can offer, what you’d like in return, and why you are the person for the job. I use Canva (mostly because it’s free and easy to use). Our decks are typically 8-12 pages with colorful slides, pictures, clear concise wording, and an intriguing narrative throughout. We aim for a balance of personal and fun to mirror that while we are here for fun we will still approach this relationship from a professional standpoint, knowing companies and people are investing time and money into us. Also, proofread!! 10. Be realistic about what you can commit to: This advice stretches from committing to too many races, committing to too many social media posts, too much travel, too much training. Be realistic, how will you balance your job, training, racing, traveling, and partnership commitments? All of this adds up quickly and before you commit, think hard about if this will end up feeling attainable and mutually beneficial or if this is one too many things and will make you feel perpetually stressed. Particularly when you are working or in school in addition to racing, the little things can add up. Racing either once a month or twice a month can feel like a menial decision when you’re planning, but once you actually have to pack up, do work on the road, and recover, this can be a massive difference. Again, going back to rest, I’m slowly learning over and over that less truly can be more. This is a glimpse! If you have more questions that you believe we could answer, reach out! This stuff is tricky and we’d love to support you in navigating this sort of race/lifestyle balance. :)
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September 2022
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