“It’s Just Stupid Bike Racing, But It Means Everything”

Adam Myerson is a former professional racer and the founder of the Cycle-Smart coaching company. In his own words, he describes what he was feeling during this classic interview.

The fall of 2011 was a rough one for me. The prior season, 2010, was the best season I’d ever had. At age 39, I'd won the UCI Verge New England Series overall, I was ranked in the top 100 in the world, and I started cross nationals on the front row of eight. 

But in 2011, my life off the bike had just gotten busier and busier. Podiums from the year before were backsliding into top tens. Still good, but not what I was chasing.

Also, I was turning 40. 

At the Bay State cyclocross race in Sterling, Massachusetts, I was finally on the other side of all the stress and work from organizing my own race, the Northampton International, and I was getting some energy back for racing and training. 

I had finally made the front group at a UCI race. At two laps to go, just as we were getting ready to make final moves, I slipped sideways on a flight of stairs as I was dismounting, and slammed hard onto the wood. I went from racing for the win to limping in for sixth place.

When I finally got to Thom for the interview, I was starting to get it together so I could talk, and then Thom set me off again by asking straight away why I was upset. Thom is a real life friend of mine, and while I was deep in my own head, I talked to him like I would a friend who sincerely had asked me what was wrong, with no regard for the camera. You can see our other friends joking around in the background, not realizing anything was out of the ordinary.

I spend a lot of time thinking about why we race bikes. Why I race bikes. This clip just happened to catch me deep in it, and people responded to it. It resonated. We’ve all been here. We’ve all felt this way. We all know it’s just stupid bike racing. But... 

– Adam Myerson