Someone recently asked me what advice I’d have for a young rider hoping to make a career in pro cycling. It is not the first time such a thing has happened. It’s understandable that anyone would read my weekly shtick of grumbling, bitching and general misanthropy and think, “Yes. I’d like my child to grow up just like that.”
Normally I point-blank refuse. For a start, I was never a junior rider so I don’t know what it’s like. If I were going to follow the very well-worn columnist- in-a-bit-of-a-deadline-fix route and write a column about what I’d say to my younger self, it would have to be, “Hey look, you need to accept that you’re fundamentally useless in a sailing dinghy and take up cycling. Yes, I know the clothes are terrible, but trust me, it’s the only way, because you’re not winning the America’s Cup. You won’t win the Tour de France either.”
This parent was more insistent. And there are a few things that, in all sincerity, I would say. The first is that handing out advice to a stranger is the last word in power without responsibility. It’s fun to do, it makes you feel respected and knowledgeable, and when you get it wrong the chances of someone suing you in a decade’s time for destroying their chances of winning the Tour are quite slim. If you are at the receiving end of the advice, be aware of this.
I would tell a junior rider not to train too much. One of the great pleasures of being 17 or 18 is that physically you get better with fairly minimal effort almost whether you want to or not. Practise the skills – descend, perfect your aero position, devise and stockpile excuses. Don’t worry if the WorldTour riders you follow on Strava ride 800km a week. They’re only doing that because they’re older than you, and they’re therefore very scared of you.
I’d tell them to be lucky. There are countless juniors whose whole careers rolled over and sank because they broke a collarbone just before the biggest race of their final junior season, so they never got to show teams what they could do. The corollary is that if you get the chance to break someone else’s collarbone, you should take it, because if you do it properly and time it right you’ll never see them again.
Don’t be too clever academically. If you are, people close to you will devote huge amounts of energy to telling you how much ‘better’ it might be to get four As at A-level and become an engineer. They are not wrong. The fact that they’re not wrong is very much part of the problem you’ll have disproving their theory. There is a danger you’ll have to cope with bike riding, studying, and arguing with everyone in your life about both of them.
Alternatively, be academically brilliant. In that instance you can do everything and no one gets to quibble about it. If they even try, you’ll be able to defeat them in debate without breaking sweat while simultaneously ripping up an elite Zwift race with your 6.5 watts-per-kilo threshold power.
6.5 watts-per-kilo threshold power. At a more serious level, if you’re not enjoying it, it’s OK to stop. Don’t fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy – “I’ve spent years on this, my parents have driven me to races, bought me expensive kit, learned about a sport they otherwise wouldn’t have cared about, I’d better keep going. This is what I wished for when I was 13, and now I’m stuck with it.”
Finally, remember to look forward to the day when you get out the far side of your career, with whatever results you cobbled together, and people ask you for advice about what their kids should do. It’s fun. Trust me on that.
This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.
