Payson McElveen: The Privateer's Path to Red Bull (Part 1)
Texas, Durango, and Mongolia. The rocky road to the top.
I never had privateering on my career map. I originally tried to go by the book: Top 10 at Junior World Champs, moved to France, and rode for the world’s best development programmes. Two years of COVID, some injuries and a lack of results meant I had to take an alternate route to make the pro dream work.
I’ve always said that I’m a lot more than just a bike racer, I’m a writer too. My results are important, but not the whole picture. Maybe I’d have made my transition to privateering a little bit easier if I’d chatted with Payson McElveen sooner.
This chat reminded me why I’m doing what I’m doing, and that I’m probably somewhere on the right lines.
-Joe
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“I’m a thirty-one-year-old, lifelong cyclist with an obsession with exploring the world”, Payson McElveen tells me over a hot chocolate in Girona.
Payson is arguably the gold-star athlete. He finished third overall in the Lifetime Grand Prix, has a mightily successful podcast, more than 80k Instagram followers, and a Red Bull sponsorship to boot. Oh, and an incredible moustache.
He’s the model that I look up to: a top-drawer athlete, but his power files and results sheet aren’t the full story.
He hails from Texas, escaped to Durango to chase the dream, and almost came up quitting. He once negotiated Keegan Swenson’s old car into his contract and traded it up for a van, which, strangely, led to the next phase in his career.
A man of humble roots, it wasn’t always Red Bull wings for Payson McElveen.
The Early Days
Payson grew up on an 18-acre “hippy sort of farm” outside Austin, Texas. From day one, he and his younger sister were immersed in the outdoors. It was the heyday of the Lance Armstrong era, and cycling’s global superstar just happened to be from Austin.
“I played all the classic American sports, but my dad was involved in grassroots cycling. A recurring knee injury pushed me toward the non-impact sport of cycling. I raced some road and MTB, but my parents always nudged me toward MTB.”
He quickly found success—at least in Texas.
“I realised how important role models were, especially Todd Wells. He was the top U.S. guy at the time. I remember his Specialized Factory Racing jacket was a prize in a giveaway. I kept bugging the guy running it—and won. That jacket made the pro world feel real to me. Half of those guys seemed to live in this tiny town called Durango.”
Durango calling
“Going to college was never a question in our house, and I headed to Fort Lewis College in Durango, to study Exercise Science and minor in English Writing.
There was a local development team - Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - which over the years has produced riders like Sarah Sturm, Howard Grotts and Sepp Kuss. The team had incredible resources because of Durango’s mountain bike history. All of a sudden I realised how much higher the level was. This team also taught me a valuable life lesson: having fun on the bike.
In hindsight, everything for me was about becoming a dominant racer and creating this awesome legacy. It was all ego. I wasn’t playing on my bike at all.
Then, late one winter everything changed - our team folded.”
Privateering before Privateering
‘McElveen launches his own privateer team for 2014’, CyclingNews announced, 11 years ago today. Little did Payson know, he had just hit the model which would define the rest of his career.
“To keep racing, I had to do it solo. I raised around $15,000 and became my own team manager. I doubled down and moved home to escape Durango winter. The first race of the year, I was flying. I started towards the back of the grid and was riding through people all day. I finished a few seconds off the podium, which would have been an auto qualification for World Champs.
It made me believe again that I had talent. I also knew that I had the pieces to have a real career. That result was a bit of a flash in the pan, I broke my hand a couple of weeks later. But, equally, that one result propelled me, almost spiritually, to the next phase.
I can build my own programme, I can build my own team, I can be the master of my destiny, and I can achieve results.”
Storytelling and Mongolia
“After that year of privateering, I had the results to be invited on to the Competitive Cyclist MTB Team for 2015. It was a pretty typical lower-budget domestic MTB outfit, but I learned a tonne.
Jason Sager was the manager of this team, and he taught me the importance of storytelling. Up until then, I hadn’t valued anything besides results, I didn’t understand how anything besides a result could be marketable.
There was one point, that I quit the sport. I had an awful race experience in Mont-Sainte-Anne, and my comfort level was off on the real technical stuff. I remember spinning back to the hotel and getting passed by the World Champion at the time. I looked at him and didn’t feel we were the same.
I’d given up on the dream for about a week, then I realised I couldn’t let go of training, I love training, and I love riding. I remembered what Jason had said about storytelling when an opportunity came up to race in Mongolia.
“Jason explained to me that if you win a race in a crazy place and there is an interesting story then it can be more valuable than having a crazy performance in a World Cup.”
If I were to go, then Outside Magazine would write a piece on me. The flight was expensive, almost $3,000, and I only had $3,500 in my bank account at the time. I was a senior in college and scraping by on these privateer programs.
I rolled the dice on myself.
I ended up winning dramatically and realised I was more suited to this style of racing. I’ve since heard through the grapevine that this was the first thing that put me on Red Bull’s radar.”
Payson’s dramatic Mongolia win is an article for another day. A good lead the whole week, before turning deathly sick for the final TT. A fever, and no food for 24hrs. He hung by a few seconds, and most importantly, made it a good story.
“I think they saw me and said: well this American kid has just sorta sent it and done this race in Mongolia. That’s a little unusual, let’s keep an eye on him.
I felt liberated by discovering these longer multi-day events that I was genuinely good at. I also think having the pressure of three-quarters of my bank account invested made me go extra well.
That race recalibrated my level, both physically and mentally.
In part because of Mongolia, and because of Jason too, I started putting more things out there.
For lots of sponsors, especially Red Bull, taking the initiative in storytelling is everything.”
“It’s cool when Outside does an article, but I don’t want to rely on others to decide whether my story is worth telling. I just wanna make this a part of what I do; I want to take the initiative.”
Payson McElveen
Van Life
“Keegan Swenson, and I were both part of the Sho-Air Cannondale Team in 2016. It was a hybrid privateer-factory racing sort of thing.
Keegan had a car as part of his deal, and I knew he was moving up to the Cannondale Factory Racing team. My salary was $8,000 but I negotiated taking his old team car too. It had plenty of miles and little value, so I figured—why not?
I can't remember what my total budget was that year, but it was just enough to cover my expenses and pay my bills. I think this was also the year I agreed to help run Orange Seal's Instagram account. It only took me a few hours a week, but was money in my pocket, and brought my relationship with that brand closer.
I traded in that old team car and went in on a $27,000 full-size transit van. Van life was blowing up, and this was me going all in. I moved away from the Sho-Air structure in 2017 and onto the Orange Seal Off-Road Team. This was me fully embracing the privateering world.
I built out the van and did a lot of media around it - it took off. I think Red Bull noticed that as well; it was perfect for the market at the time.
This vehicle trade-up thing, as weird as it sounds, was pivotal to the next phase of my career.”
Gravel
“I won back-to-back XCM National titles in 2017 and 2018. That was the key to the momentum continuing and, ultimately, Red Bull committing to me. I’m not sure any of my current phase would have happened without those XCM Champs.
Everything changed in 2018. I signed with Red Bull, and my financial opportunities with the team and individual partners went up sharply. That was also the year Orange Seal urged me to do Unbound. I hated it, and DNF’d.
They kept on me about gravel, and I agreed to do Mid South the next year as training for White Rim. I won Mid South, and with the international attention of that White Rim FKT Film, it all started to snowball.”
When gravel came big to the US race scene, Payson McElveen was in the hot seat. He’d already won the Mid South, had a Red Bull contract in his back pocket, knew how to run a privateer set-up, and had become a master of storytelling.
It’s no wonder he’s flourished in this modern era.
Fun fact: Payson told me that the world-renowned development team, (and my former team!) Axeon reached out to him in 2015. They emailed asking if he’d be interested in signing, but ultimately decided to stick to MTB. A sliding doors moment.
My Reflections
Sitting across from Payson, it almost felt like looking in a mirror. I don’t have the rockstar moustache, but I’ve been that guy chasing dominance, driven by ego. I’ve also been that guy rolling back to the hotel, head in hands, wondering if it was time to quit.
The one time I came close to hanging up my wheels, I realised I couldn’t. Maybe I was too stubborn, too optimistic, or simply too stupid to stop.
Payson going to Mongolia was me going to race gravel in the US. It opened my eyes. I’ve built a model that—while far from perfect—blends writing and racing. I pull together solid results, but more importantly, I tell the story.
I’ve often been paid more, or had different opportunities, than riders who are more talented. That’s because, as Payson says, results are legitimacy—but storytelling is just as valuable. Maybe going somewhere cool and telling the right story matters more than finishing 30th in a pro-road race no one remembers.
I’m currently in what Payson referred to as the middle phase of his career:
"I wanted to build a well-paying, sustainable career. I never wanted results to become secondary—but at the time, they had to be."
Trust me, I’m far from having worked it out. I’m very much at the ‘offering to help run a brand’s Instagram account and help with the copywriting phase’ to keep racing, and some money in my pocket. But, slowly, I’m getting there - and most importantly on my terms.
How I signed Red Bull with Payson McElveen - Part 2’, is coming next week.
Payson’s Instagram: Here!
My Instagram: Here!
While you’re here…
I’ve added a paid subscription and a ‘Buy Me A Coffee’ link to this post. As the year progresses, I’m planning on building this blog and putting out articles which I’ve always wanted to write but for whatever reason, haven’t wanted to pitch.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joelaverick
Project TAG, proudly partnering (for my athletic, influencing and maybe pee location ability) with…
Great read, Joe. Good writing. Payson's a cool cat. Your "hero worship" really shines through in this one fwiw...