thoughts from 39,000ft

insecurity, triathlon world champs, and more

Oct 28, 2024

I’m on a plane from Vancouver to New York City. It’s my 26th flight of the year, and probably my first without cycling kit. Maggie is sitting to my left and sad that I ate all the Halloween cookie we brought to share (it was a great cookie), and I have a crappy coffee to my right. My laptop is out, hence typing this.

We’ve just gone into a Wifi deadspot so my time spent working has had to come to a halt. I’m currently working on an article for Sync Ergonomics after Ironman World Champs in Kona. Sync are my main ‘client’ so to speak. I put client in inverted commas as I love working for them. It’s geeky TT tech at its best.

I interviewed some of the favourites for the copy that we were putting out in the run up to Kona. I came to a few conclusions, but the main one was clear: triathletes are mad bastards. As a cyclist, it is my given right to take the mick out of my triantelope cousins at any opportunity. However, to be perfectly honest, I have nothing but respect.

There’s something so very personal, very intimate about a triathlon. It’s a time-trial from beginning to end. You put everything on the line, and whether you win, lose, puke, faint or what - everything is on show.

I’ll write headlines about Sam Laidlow who broke the bike leg record and then blew up on the run, and of course Patrick Lange who won finishing up with an outrageously fast 2:37:34 marathon.

Yet, I want to tell the story of Matt Burton, an Aussie in his thirties who was all-in for Kona. He’s put his life on hold for the sport, been in and out of hospital, had more setbacks than anyone I’ve ever heard about.

I so wanted Matt to podium. I was dot-watching, and I don’t dot-watch anything, let alone triathlon. His race was over before it began, an adverse reaction to a jellyfish sting meant he had to call it a day just a handful of kilometres into the bike leg. From a house in Canada, watching over my morning coffee, I was gutted.

I’ve never met Matt, but I’ve worked and watched him over the past couple of years thanks to Sync. I chatted to him a few weeks back and he was telling me about his forty plus hour training weeks, how he doesn’t get to see his little boy as much as he wants and how his wife has always been by his side. He’s just a normal bloke who happens to be world-class at triathlon.

Sport isn’t always fair and the good guys don’t always win.

If you’re reading this Matt, I hope to god you’ll be back.

It got me thinking about my situation. I’m a good athlete, World Class on my day, but my future in sport is always fragile. Even right now, at the time of writing on the 28th October, my life is full of uncertainty. I don’t have a contract signed with a bike, or kit manufacturer yet. I do have about half of my budget secured going into 2025, but I have a lot more questions than answers.

I’m strangely calm. I had many sleepless nights at the end of August. When I was feeling at my lowest getting over COVID, staring down the barrel of uncertainty. Now, I feel okay. Things will start to fall into place, they always do. If what I expect doesn’t come out how I want, then I’ll improvise. That’s when I’m at my best.

I mean, I’m hardly the gold standard for job security…I’m a privateer bike racer and a freelance writer in the cycling industry. A careers advisor would have a field day, and my poor accountant struggles to put it all together. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t crave some security. There are always so many question marks, but at the same time I like it. It keeps me on my toes. I won’t be able to do it forever, but at this point in my life it’s the right amount of chaos.

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I’m excited for the next few weeks. We have a few days in New York City coming up. It’ll be another state ticked off my US list for this crazy year, and it’ll be nice to be a normal tourist. From there, it’s back to Vancouver for a week before my final adventure of 2024.

We’re riding from Vancouver Island to Santa Barbara, California. It’s some 2,800km and I’ll be going with my three housemates: Maggie, Riley, and Franzi.

I’ve had a few people ask why, my answer is always the same: why not?

It’s one of those trips that Riley told me about long ago on some winter training day in the Catalan mountains. One of those trips which I put to the back of my mind and hoped that one day we’d do it. Yet, the realist in me accepted that it’d just be one of those trips that never happens.

Luckily, I was wrong, and on the 9th November we’ll be heading off.

We’re taking a car, and sharing the driving. We’ll do 300km days, 100km or so in the car, 200km on the bike. Each day, we swap drivers. It’s the perfect way to do it.

For those of you that didn’t see, the road racing team, Ribble Rebellion, that I spent so much time and energy building this year is unfortunately closing. I like to see this trip as giving my crazy painted Ribble Rebellion Ultra SLR one last American adventure.

Oh, and one last thing. Yes Mac, I will mention Pumpkin Cross on Substack! Maggie’s Dad is, amongst many other things in the cycling industry, a race organiser. This past weekend, he put on ‘Pumpkin Cross’ in Maple Ridge.

In the middle of our off-season, both of us were bullied into racing. We both put emphasis on costumes, rather than performance. I came dressed as a bear in a tutu, Maggie was a pumpkin.

I got lapped twice, but I took three beer hand-ups. I’ll let you figure out the real winner.

Thanks as always for reading. Please do consider subscribing, there’s a free option!

Joe

Just as I’m about to hit post on this article, I see my Ribble Rebellion teammate, Max Rushby has hung up his wheels. It hurts. Max was the last guy I signed to Rebellion, but I’m so so so happy that we did.

I first came across him in I guess 2017, it was at some closed circuit race in Yorkshire. We were juniors, he was the King of the circuit and I somehow snuck away for my first-ever win. We never stayed close, but our paths would always cross, and then we were teammates.

I wish we could’ve kept Rebellion running for guys like Max. Great people, who maybe aren’t quite World Tour level but can compete with the best. You’ll be missed on the race circuit mate.

It kills me how many of my mates who I’ve watched leave the sport because of financial reasons. The UK scene is in its worst ever state for elite men. We have so much talent, but it’s lost. It shouldn’t be the norm that people are having to pay to ride for ‘XYZ Pro Cycling’. If you’re on a team that calls themselves pro, you should be paid, or it’s not a pro team. Simple. Not everyone has the luxury of being funded by their parents…

I’m absolutely gutted that we couldn’t carry Rebellion on for riders like Max. It was a team that gave: opportunity, a small salary and experiences like no other. What that team could’ve been for riders that didn’t quite fit the mould is insane.

Project TAG, proudly partnering (both for my athletic and influencing ability) with…

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.

Any money that I make from either my Substack or BMaC link will go straight back into supporting my 2025 racing project. I am planning on keeping all content on here free to view though.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joelaverick