Last week I was writing on a flight to Bentonville, Arkansas, and this week I am still recovering my energy from the fantastic event that is the Big Sugar Classic. Plenty have already recapped the event, and my good friend Peter Abraham just released a new episode of the Speaking Of Bikes podcast where he and Mark Riedy share their industry takeaways from PeopleForBikes’ SHIFT Conference. Given the recent news of Cannondale shuttering its North American headquarters, I found this discussion between two industry veterans very interesting.

With the event, the race, and the industry trends covered, what else is there to talk about? One elephant left in the room is the Life Time Grand Prix (LTGP). The series just completed its fifth edition and it is incredible to see how far it has come. Before the iconic gravel rave, Kimo Seymour, President of Events and Media at Life Time, indicated the series would be taken to new heights in 2027. With prize money set to grow “exponentially,” what else is on the horizon for the series?

In an interview with Velo, Seymour and Life Time’s VP of Marketing, Michelle Duffy Smith, alluded to further expansion in the coming years, including international races and wider distribution. We will undoubtedly hear more over the next two months, but for the time being the cards are being held pretty close to the chest. This short period with a lot of unknowns seems to be Built on Bikes’ bread and butter. There are no publicly available plans for 2027 to scrutinize, meaning the opportunity is ripe to speculate and analyze what could be good next steps for the series.

Around this time last year we looked at the LTGP trying to understand what the series’ endgame might be. The recent interview with Velo seems to indicate that the media machine behind the series is still its largest asset, an asset that can be grown with further investment or sold to the highest bidder. While I no longer see Life Time selling the series anytime soon, there are still interesting questions surrounding the possibility of outside influence. Is Life Time in a position to allocate more cash to their events arm or would outside money and expertise be welcomed?

Adaptability, the LTGP’s other biggest asset

As a close follower of the series since its inception, I have found its adaptability impossible to ignore. From one year to the next, the series has implemented changes and looked different with each edition. Increasing the prize purse has been a pretty consistent change but things like livestreams, wild card selections, swapping of races, and number of automatic roster qualifications have changed significantly. The changes might not seem so big from one season to the next, but looking at the series in year one and year five has really shown how comfortable the series is to experiment with new ideas.

“Innovate or die” is a toxic saying in the startup world, but the LTGP’s survival can certainly be attributed, in part, to radical adaptability. Startups actually offer a great analogy for how professional gravel and marathon off-road events fit into the wider cycling landscape. Gravel is in its infancy and it is easy for fans of established properties like the WorldTour and World Cup Mountain biking to write off a new product they know little about. The WorldTour and other professional disciplines also seem unbothered by this new and mostly grassroots discipline. The WorldTour has experimented with “gravel” stages, but no one even considers the possibility of gravel overtaking the highest tiers of the sport.

The chance of a gravel series or event becoming more popular than the Tour de France in our lifetime (no pun intended) is slim to none. On the other hand, events like one week stage races, lesser known one day races, and disciplines like mountain biking should be on notice. Go back twenty years and you would find people who just knew the Blackberry phone would always be the industry leader, then everything changed overnight when Apple entered with the iPhone. That’s a much more exaggerated analogy, but it shows what can happen when a novel product enters a stale industry and disrupts it.

Off-road series, but especially the LTGP, are disruptors and have made significant strides forward since the first grassroots races started taking place ten years ago. Adaptability has allowed the LTGP to go from an obscure offshoot of American cycling, to a professional discipline that attracts World Tour riders to its events. While talking at the SHIFT conference, Peter Abraham told me that the energy around gravel today matches that of other Olympic cycling disciplines decades ago.

Moving Forward

As fun as it is to throw ideas at the wall through these pieces, it is only effective when all perspectives are considered. We have covered a lot of the positives for the series, but before moving onto what the future might look like for the LTGP, we should look at the weaknesses. SWOT analysis is starting to become a bit overused in Built on Bikes pieces, in fact we already did this analysis a year ago, Still, it is a great way to lay out all the variables affecting a business. We won’t rehash any of the variables covered in that previous example. Instead we will use the knowledge we gained this season to build on it, in a much more abbreviated fashion. We’ll also only focus on the general factors affecting financial opportunities instead of more acute variables like race course logistics.

Strengths

Adaptability. We have already covered adaptability as a strength.

Recurring investment. Every year the prize purse is growing, which suggests Life Time sees the value of the LTGP as a media asset. Securing more funds year over year from a publicly traded company or sponsors with fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders suggests strong financials behind the scenes.

Internal stakeholders. Having been in many Life Time event media meetings this year, I have seen that the series is guided by the steady, but adaptable, hands of Kimo Seymour and Michelle Duffy Smith.

Independence from the UCI. This means no red tape and freedom to innovate on a different schedule compared to other disciplines.

Weaknesses (all double as opportunities)

No international events: Life Time needs to make it easier for the biggest cycling stars to participate in events and give the series a boost in global legitimacy.

Live stream engagement. For anyone at Life Time reading this, do not take this critique the wrong way. The livestreams of Life Time events are solidly executed and everyone on screen is great, but certain things might be holding back audience engagement. After seeing the live coverage of Gravel Worlds, my eyes were opened to what a gravel stream could be and to what fans actually want. That means more emphasis on culture and professional quirkiness that complements the vibe of the discipline.

Distribution. Again, I think having the streams free to view on YouTube and Instagram is great, for now. In a plan for long-term, accelerated growth, is live streaming on YouTube the ceiling?

Maybe. But Life Time has always indicated a desire to compete with the upper tiers of professional cycling. Taking a chance and making streaming exclusive to a platform like Netflix could be worthwhile. Test the idea with a single, exciting event like Sea Otter or Big Sugar, and reassess if it is a viable alternative. Most viewers probably have a Netflix subscription, so my instinct is that views and audience would expand.

Opportunities

Outside investment. Bootstrapping with internal funds has gotten the series this far, and there is a lot to be said for maintaining control, but a big determinant of growth for most startups is outside investment and expertise. While Life Time provides strong internal funding, there is surely always a desire for a little more. Outside investment would provide the extra funds, but also bring the experience of those doing the funding.

Private equity has left a bad taste in the cycling industry, rightly so, but the LTGP can be selective about who it partners with to limit the potential for negative influence.

M&A. One thing extra funds could be used for is acquiring entities that either expand the series or bring more media responsibilities in-house. Acquiring events from series like Belgian Waffle Ride and Gravel Earth would not only help events seeing lower pro turnouts, but also give Life Time international expansion opportunities quickly.

Acquiring the series’ production partner, BCC Live Productions, brings the most crucial media duties in-house while creating revenue streams from competitor events that also use the production company.

Threats

Macro economic factors. The bike industry is not out of the woods from the Covid boom and decline. From everything I hear, more rough times are ahead or already upon us. Brands might determine gravel teams are not worth the spend, or series sponsors might disappear. I do know from first-hand interactions that gravel is keeping some brands afloat, so gravel could also be insulated from headwinds and become a bigger focus for brands. Time will tell.

The real question

There is little fear of the LTGP not being able to grow over the next five years, but the biggest unknown is how much more it can grow at its current pace and scope of adaptability. As we have seen, seemingly small changes from one year to the next compound over time. The LTGP is adaptable, but the scope of its adaptations has been rather narrow. How much should the scope of series improvements expand over the next five years?

I believe the series should take bigger leaps from one season to the next, but set limits on how expansive they can be to avoid overly frivolous spending. The first five years of the series built the foundation and created sustainability. The next five years should build the frame of the house: improving the quality of operations, expanding the series’ reach, and positioning it to encroach on the relevance of other disciplines over the next ten years.

Building the frame

Separating the foundation that was set in the first five years of the series from the structural framework of the next five years can be a little hard to unwrap, even for me as the person making this analogy. The sustainable foundation included the establishment of a media machine around the LTGP, obtaining financial and operational stability, establishing branding of the premier off-road series in the US, and proving gravel and marathon mountain biking could generate true fans that are repeat customers. As I see it, the frame will consist of five pillars that set the series up to aggressively pursue and obtain market share from traditional cycling disciplines.

*Obtaining market share doesn’t necessarily come at the cost of other disciplines, it just means the LTGP gets a seat at the table with leagues like the WorldTour and the World Cup mountain biking circuit.

Establish a prize purse ceiling

Raising the prize purse every year has attracted more athletes and has helped grow the series thus far. To focus on other rapid growth levers, Life Time needs to find a ceiling amount for the LTGP prize purse. When Seymour announced that the purse would grow “exponentially” in 2027, my natural question was: when do these increases stop and where is the ceiling where the series sees diminishing returns from raising rider incentives? Ultimately, what amount needs to be awarded to riders finishing in the overall top ten to ensure that stars from every discipline of cycling seriously consider competing? Will $150K for the winner do the job, or will it need to be $250K? Solve that problem and refocus effort on other growth levers.

Scalable broadcasting

Life Time has established reliable broadcasting, but it does not reach audiences the same way other professional cycling disciplines do. Life Time can still keep BCC Live as the production partner for the series, but polishing the output to near perfection and moving streaming rights to a major streaming service feels like a requirement if the series wants to compete with road cycling and mountain biking over the next ten years.

Expand the sponsor ecosystem

The LTGP has gained premium cycling industry and industry-adjacent sponsors, but the only non-endemic sponsor of the series is the Ford Bronco Wild Fund. To have a chance of competing with other disciplines, the series will need to attract major consumer sponsors. Whoop sponsors the premier mountain biking circuit, and major corporations sponsor WorldTour teams and races. How does Life Time attract the next generation of sponsors over the next five years?

Solve the team vs. privateer dilemma

The privateer model is genuinely interesting and brings remarkable athletes and storylines to the LTGP, but the proliferation of teams creates a clash in storytelling and ultimately makes the format harder to understand for new viewers. Over the next five years, Life Time will have to find a way for these two models to live in harmony and create consistency. A possible solution could be requiring an athlete to be on a team, but capping the number of riders from the same team who can participate in any given race at two or three. Additionally, only one athlete from each team may compete for the general classification in the series. This is probably not a perfect solution, but it provides an example of what needs to be determined over the next five years to ensure series continuity before rapid expansion.

Expand the roster of races that can be used in the series

To make the LTGP appeal to a more global audience, the series needs to become a global one. The series has become a pillar of American cycling, so most of the iconic races should stay in the United States, but expanding to other geographies is crucial.

Life Time should also get creative with what types of races it adds to the series. The series brand is off-road, but having more road-focused courses will help develop team dynamics, capture the interest of road racing fans, and potentially attract WorldTour riders. Nothing would rocket the series into the stratosphere like creating a modern classic, like Strade Bianche. Obviously the single race prize incentive would have to be great to attract WorldTour talent, since they will not gain UCI points in the process. If the race becomes prestigious enough, like Unbound Gravel has, then money becomes a secondary incentive.

Scaling is the new mission

It has been fun watching the LTGP grow from a small collection of grassroots races into a legitimate professional sports series. Over the past year I have been lucky enough to attend multiple events as media and witness the behind-the-scenes action up close. The series has survived its early-stage startup phase, so now the mission shifts to turning that success into scalable growth over the next five years and, eventually, making gravel a top discipline within the sport over the following ten. Time will tell, but I am excited to cover and be a part of the journey.

In other news

In line with today’s story, the LTGP is proving to be a new scouting ground for WorldTour talent. With Kate Courtney already joining a top road team after success at various Life Time events, we have now learned that Melissa Rollins will be joining the EF Education-Oatly WorldTour squad. Rollins has been a consistent presence in the LTGP, and after Courtney’s initial success on the road, more teams seem willing to give off-road athletes a chance.

Even more exciting, in my opinion, are the rumors that U23 LTGP champion Kylee Hanel might be pursuing road racing next season. Hanel has already competed in road races with Visma-Lease a Bike’s development team and for Team USA at this year’s U23 Road World Championships. After placing fourth overall at Big Sugar, Hanel is making the case for U23 gravel as a place to spot raw strength and talent on the bike. She is a rider to watch.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

After a year’s worth of storytelling with Built on Bikes I have come to learn that time-crunched weeks can provide unique opportunities to get creative with my subject matter. I usually come up with story ideas on Monday, draft during the week, and publish a piece on Friday. As stressful as this can be, it has forced me to see the cycling ecosystem through a much more creative lens. This week is one of those that has required me to think on the fly, literally. I am drafting this article on a plane headed for Bentonville, Arkansas, for the Life Time Big Sugar Classic. As I sit here thinking about the creative benefits of time constraints, the past few months have shown me that there is another factor that contributes to my audience engagement.

Starting as a complete outsider to the cycling industry has proven to be my biggest strength in this journey. One year ago, I was on the same flight to Bentonville, and my anxiety was off the charts. I had only published a few pieces and I knew only one person who would be attending Big Sugar. A year later, I have a packed itinerary, almost too many people to catch up with, a newsletter that is reaching a much larger audience, and I am actively involved with projects I never thought possible. All this to say, my growth can be attributed to a lot of wonderful people providing me with connections in the industry, but also to the fact that my opinions and ideas have been able to stand out in an industry that can be extremely insular.

I don’t say this to toot my own horn, because I sure as hell have had to learn a lot from industry veterans along the way. It is the combination of their in-depth knowledge with my naïve enthusiasm that has allowed me to have real effects within the industry and on the development of the sport in the United States. This dynamic has also allowed people like Leni Carrillo and Sam Huntington to become forces to be reckoned with in the cycling world. While I have discussed this dynamic with my inner circle, it is something I think more people need to hear about. When industry veterans have pushed back on some of my ideas, my experiences from my professional career outside of cycling have given me the confidence to ask, why not? Why can’t cycling execute on lofty goals the way other industries do?

I hope to be able to share some big successes this mindset has provided, but for now, we will explore why cycling needs to draw on outsider knowledge and how we have a big pool of professional talent to choose from.

The benefits of being an outsider

I will not cover all my outsider stories because my one-year Built on Bikes retrospective provides a good recap of them. That said, it is useful to name the major benefits of being an outsider in an industry dominated by history and tradition.

Having the audacity

My professional career outside of cycling has taught me not to fear rejection or withhold ideas just because I have less experience than those around me. Majoring in entrepreneurship provided me with more opportunities to fail than I can count. Taking on a high-volume sales role right out of college completely desensitized me to professional rejection. And spending three years at a venture-backed startup has made me malleable and made sharing every idea a requirement.

My first article was with Natascha den Ouden, one of the biggest pioneers for Women’s WorldTour cycling. When I interviewed her, I was sharing my opinions and ideas as a pure fan of the sport, and they resonated. Now I am pitching ideas to brands and individuals that some insiders have told me are completely unrealistic and downright absurd. Instead of being discouraged, I have simply opened the door for dialogue, and I have confidence the results will speak for themselves.

Having the audacity and inexperience to dream has been powerful. Combined with the knowledge of equally adventurous cycling industry veterans is a dynamic we should exploit.

Being the connector

One of my sales mentors told me that the single most important thing you can do as a seller is be the connector. If you want something from someone, the easiest way to get what you want is to become invaluable to them. The nuance is that you must be completely sincere in wanting to help them, and almost never actually ask them for what you want.

Built on Bikes taught me this process in its purest form. It is not how I make my money, and it has always been a passion project that allows me to give back and grow the sport that has done so much for me personally. I have a unique professional network within the venture capital community and being able to offer that network to people within the cycling industry has been transformative.

I am always looking for the next connection or opportunity to grow, and I know who can make that happen. Offering my passion for the sport and my professional network to others, while asking for nothing in return, has allowed me to build relationships that go beyond the professional and into the territory of friendships. Eventually those I connect with return the favor and it has quite literally changed my life.

Outsiders are the ultimate connectors and help the cycling industry build bridges to other industries that can promote mutual growth.

Embracing imposter syndrome

Interacting with the unknown or unfamiliar can breed imposter syndrome. Even though I am firmly embedded within cycling circles, I still feel like an imposter all the time. It is a little contradictory to my previous points, but I really am not an expert and there is a lot I don’t know about cycling. That feeling goes both ways. Whether it’s an athlete or a cycling brand executive, I have noticed that my limited experience within the venture capital community can carry authority. What seem like minimal and unremarkable experiences to me, may read as expertise to others in a different industry. This point ties heavily to being a connector, but realizing that imposter syndrome goes both ways can make the networking process a lot less intimidating.

The challenges of being an outsider

I sincerely believe outsiders bring a lot to the table, but there are limitations to our effectiveness and ability to drive positive change in cycling. Knowing these limitations is vital and ultimately comes down to having some humility.

Knowing when you are out of your depth

Part of being effective as an outsider is knowing when to push through opposition and accepted industry norms, but it is equally important to admit when your proposed ideas and solutions are biased or genuinely unrealistic. There have been multiple instances where I published an opinion piece with strong convictions, only for someone to come out of nowhere and explain why I was plain wrong. If the person provides data and experiences to back up their criticism, and there is genuinely no workaround, you need to reevaluate your assumptions and research.

A recent piece I published about the issues facing women within the UCI Gravel World Series received this exact type of constructive criticism. Someone close to the subject, with knowledge that was not publicly available, explained where I was misinformed. I will eventually release a revision to that article, but if I had ignored this feedback, I would have done more harm than good. The new information has fueled new ideas for better solutions.

Accepting the lulls

Despite what my subscriber growth would suggest, my trajectory within the cycling industry has been anything but steady. The networking and breakthroughs that fuel my stories and my excitement can be very inconsistent. One moment it feels like I am making connection after connection and generating opportunities at will, but then I go six weeks without a breakthrough. If you want to break into an industry, you have to accept that the path is not linear and not get discouraged.

Writing this story from Big Sugar is a perfect example. I have now landed in Bentonville and networked for a few hours. I already feel a new wave of progress and determination. That happens at every event I go to, but the spacing between these events can be months. All I can do is keep writing and putting out ideas. It is not a bad thing in the end, just the natural flow.

Where outsiders are the most impactful

This is a section where I am ready to be proven wrong, but within cycling, outsiders seem to be most effective in two areas: marketing and financing. I have already talked about financing in this and previous articles, so we will explore how outsiders can shape how people view the sport.

Marketing

Someone who has been within the cycling industry for decades can become entrenched in their perspective on the sport. After all, cycling is rooted in tradition and history. My clearest and most controversial opinion as an American is the continued obsession with Lance Armstrong. Admittedly I was a child when his scandal broke and had no emotional connection to the sport, but when people hold a grudge that interferes with potential growth for the sport, my reaction is: grow up and move on. I will not name names, but during this year’s edition of the Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift I saw some within the media and industry spend more time complaining about Lance having a podcast, which does talk about the race and riders, than talking about the women racing. Meanwhile people my age only focused on the event at hand and saw cycling in a positive light.

The point is that decades of experience can form strong confirmation bias that ultimately interferes with one’s ability to connect with the demographics the sport most needs. The best example I can think of that combats this bias is when brands like Lauf work directly with people like Leni Carrillo to actively engage consumers. They were willing to trust a complete outsider to influence brand presentation and it has helped a small Icelandic brand become synonymous with gravel in the United States.

Prominent and successful examples of outsiders having influence

This is meant to be a shorter read, so instead of rambling on it might be best to point you to some examples of outsiders having real effect on cycling. Luckily I have already given them proper stories you can go read. If you have not read about these individuals and initiatives, these are some of my favorite stories I have been able to tell on Built on Bikes.

• Leni Carrillo, meme maker to taste maker and brand consultant

• Sam Huntington, making Hill Climbers the premier business network for cyclists

• USA Cycling Technology and Innovation Council, leveraging Silicon Valley’s capital and talent

• Nicolas Laurent, using his day job to sponsor an IRONMAN race

• James and Clare Grady, reimagining racing with Formula Fixed

• Jenna Tomiello, proving why women’s gravel deserves its own event

• Nina Machnowski, creating a leading development team from scratch

I will catch you next week with a recap of Big Sugar.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

One thing the two have in common is that no male riders will be on course on race day. That might not sound like a significant detail, but it’s one that has a real impact on the perception of an event, especially for the riders who are racing. In fact, it matters even more in the United States.

The race we will be discussing is The Dusty Bandita, and I had the pleasure of interviewing its race director, Jenna Tomiello. While doing my usual interview prep, one question crossed my mind: what comes to mind if I think about women’s gravel in the United States? After covering various topics in women’s cycling, the one that rose to the top was mixed-gender fields. While it has become common for pro women to have their own start that ensures minimal interference from the pro men’s field, the mass participant rarely has the same experience.

Many consider the mass start format one of the distinguishing characteristics of American gravel racing, but is that characteristic actually a strength, or does it hamper efforts to get more women into the sport? As we learn about The Dusty Bandita we will gain insight into how the race has been successful and what that tells us about women’s gravel racing in the United States.

What is The Dusty Bandita?

The Dusty Bandita is a women’s+ gravel race that takes place every June in Ovando, Montana. It was founded in 2022 and was the first women’s gravel event in the United States. Today the race consistently fills registration with hundreds of riders attending. The race has also expanded to include categories for all women-identifying, non-binary, and para athletes. Beyond the basic facts, The Dusty Bandita’s inclusivity statement paints the whole picture.

The Dusty Bandita is dedicated to amplifying the presence of women-identifying cyclists in the male-dominated sport of cycling, where women make up less than 25% of participants in many cycling events. We aim to bridge this gap by providing a safe, inclusive, and encouraging environment where women+ can build confidence, push personal limits, and connect with a supportive community.

Through our events, we strive to dismantle the barriers that have traditionally kept women+ underrepresented in cycling. We offer opportunities to explore breathtaking landscapes while fostering a sense of belonging and camaraderie both on and off the bike.

Representation matters, and increasing diversity in cycling inspires more women+ to join, creating a ripple effect of empowerment, resilience, and connection in a sport that thrives on community. Together, we’re redefining what belonging in the cycling world means.

Origins of The Dusty Bandita

The Dusty Bandita’s identity is clear and well-defined, but what drove six women to build a first-of-its-kind event? It began when founder Bri Lui, Jenna and the others noticed a problem as they tried to convince more women to sign up for gravel races.

“I was talking with other women that I ride with, and at the time they didn’t want to race because they didn’t want to be racing alongside aggressive or competitive men. It was hard to convince them to join our local races, just because the competitive nature didn’t feel as welcoming. I think it was intimidating.”

The idea for the race did not come from a place of animosity, but from the acknowledgement that elements of gravel racing did not feel welcoming or accessible to a significant number of women. Jenna and the founding team identified a clear barrier keeping women from entering the competitive and challenging side of cycling, so they took a bet that they could create an event that meaningfully grows both the sport and the number of women taking part in it.

It is a familiar mission and one that has been a focus of several Built on Bikes pieces, so it was good to hear that The Dusty Bandita prioritized the race experience over getting from idea to revenue-generating event as fast as possible.

“We took our time too, we could have pulled it off in a few months and had a race that happened, but wouldn’t have been the race that we wanted to present. So we took a year to really put the time into creating the race that we wanted to present to the racers.”

This level of care and attention to detail is visible in every aspect of the event. From choosing a name that will stand the test of time to expanding racing categories, The Dusty Bandita is always striving to do what is best for the riders and its host town of Ovando.

The growth story

As Jenna covered the growth and changes to the race over the years, a second story began to emerge. The popularity and success of The Dusty Bandita were not surprising considering the quality of the event, but the demand signaled a real opportunity that event organizers should capitalize on. We will cover that later in this piece, but keep it in mind as we discuss the growth of The Dusty Bandita.

When discussing the number of racers participating in The Dusty Bandita, Jenna gave figures that showed not only sustained success, but rapidly increasing demand.

“We’ve increased the number of participants by 100 almost every year, and the excitement is still there. Since last year we went from 300 people racing and a 200-person wait list to 400 people racing. We still had a 200-person wait list, so there’s still that increased demand.”

When you consider that The Dusty Bandita is hosted in a rural town with a population of 58 people, the sustained growth and demand become impressive. Gravel has long been a sport people build a destination trip around, but the ease of getting to an event still plays a major role in attendance. The range of riders making the trip also speaks to the event’s reach.

“This year we had 400 women and non-binary athletes attend. We had 27 states represented and two provinces. It has been exciting to see that people are making a trip out here just for this.”

On top of the event’s growth and reach, post-race surveys consistently show what The Dusty Bandita does for women’s gravel racing.

“For about 25% of our racers, it’s their first gravel race ever. That’s been consistent year after year. So even as we’ve grown, you still see that 25% of the field are first-timers. The impact is more women are starting to race with us and then they’re continuing to race after they’ve done the Bandita.

We get responses like: ‘I did my first Dusty two years ago, and since then I’ve done every single one,’ or ‘it was my first gravel race ever, and I’ve competed in X many since.’”

The keys to success

What we know about The Dusty Bandita is that it is a grassroots race, serving an underserved community of riders, and taking place in a very small remote town in Montana. Yet the race has had no problem achieving year-over-year growth or executing on the logistics that make the race possible. This race can hopefully be the inspiration for more women’s-focused races in the United States, but what has enabled the Dusty Bandita’s success, and what could other race organizers learn from it?

While speaking with Jenna, it became clear that the path to success doesn’t have to be overly complicated. That is not to say that organizing the event takes a tremendous amount of work and dedication, because it does. That is required for any race to be successful. These keys to success focus more on the intangibles that make the event enjoyable to be at and the branding that draws riders in and ensures the race gets the respect it deserves. Two characteristics stood out the most.

Community relations as an operating principle

If you follow gravel closely, you will have heard about strained relations between races and their host towns. While most events have the full support of the towns they take place in, some can become inconvenient, burdensome, or downright destructive for locals. The Dusty Bandita route goes through private land and brings hundreds of people to a town of only 58. Maintaining strong relationships with the local community has meant that locals welcome and encourage racers year after year.

“Building good relationships with the areas that you have the race on is very important.We worked really hard with Ovando because like I said, it’s a town of about 60 people, and we can pretty much talk to everyone. We get a lot of feedback and we take a lot of time to meet with them beforehand. Getting their buy-in and getting their support for our races is super important and we couldn’t do it without them. And I wouldn’t want to do it without them.

They come out for the race. They cheer. It’s a big celebration for everyone in town too.”

Emphasizing that The Dusty Bandita is a race

Unfortunately, battling bias, whether it be unconscious or not, is one of the things that Jenna and the organizers have to be proactive about. When someone refers to The Dusty Bandita as a ride instead of race, it subtly implies that an all women’s event is somehow unworthy of being associated with competition. Jenna made it clear that The Dusty Bandita is a race.

“Something that I get more often than I would like is people assuming that it’s just a ride, and not taking the race part of it seriously in the way that they’re talking about it with me. We take the race part of it very seriously. I think that assuming that it is just a ride is part of that problem. Just because it’s an all women’s event, doesn’t take competition out of it. We have people who race and give it their all, and they’re elite athletes. We also have people who race and are doing it to complete it, and they are challenging themselves too. The word race, as far as our event goes, is really important.”

Another detail that adds to the event’s legitimacy is the inclusion of a prize purse. While few pros attend the event, for reasons explained below, Jenna and the team want to honor that the event is a race and that athletes put time and effort into attending and racing.

“We just added a prize purse last year and we’ll continue that moving forward. A little bit for the pro side of things, but more for just honoring and respecting what it takes to get there (finishing on the podium). It’s not like it’s a huge prize purse or anything, but for our long course, the top step gets $1,000 and we kind of go down from there.”

Focusing on the controllables

It is not unusual to hear people criticize a race if it overlaps with other big events, but sometimes that is genuinely out of an organizer’s control. Obtaining permits, permission from landowners, and organizing with a small community means organizers sometimes have a very tight window in which to put on an event. A challenge The Dusty Bandita has faced is overlapping with the largest gravel race in the world, Unbound Gravel.

On its face, this seems like a massive hurdle. For an event where every registration counts, overlapping with a race that attracts thousands of riders is not ideal. Looking at the facts paints a different picture.

The Dusty Bandita executes on raceday and puts on an event that creates a high volume of repeat customers. About 25% of participants are first-time racers, not the crowd you normally associate with Unbound. Unbound registers most participants via a lottery, and plenty of women who don’t get a lottery spot will be looking for an alternative event. Finally, The Dusty Bandita has differentiated itself on mission and race experience. People who prefer a women’s-only format will find the race and prioritize it in their schedule whenever it falls. Jenna broke down the challenge in her own words.

“Our race is on the same day as Unbound, and there’s no getting around that because of where we are and what our permits allow. For the pro side of things, that is tough, but we’re not going to pull too many people who would go to Unbound. We’re really happy to be a race for people who are just dipping their toes into gravel racing. I think we fill a really important niche there.”

The pitch to sponsors

One topic of interest was how Jenna pitches value to potential event sponsors. The demand and passion for the event are obvious, but what draws brands towards this unique event that overlaps with Unbound?

“The unique thing about our race is that there’s so many first time racers, so it offers this unique opportunity for sponsors to meet women at that point in time in their cycling journey. It’s an opportunity for any cycling brand or company that really wants to support inclusivity and equality in the sport and wants to support those women who are just stepping into it. From there, there’s so much room for growth within those women who are just starting.”

This point follows the same logic as the case we have made for more brand sponsorship of U23 and collegiate cycling programs. If a brand engages an athlete early, at a formative point in their cycling journey, the visibility and loyalty can last for years. The Dusty Bandita offers sponsors exactly that.

What comes next?

After learning about The Dusty Bandita’s impressive growth and demand figures and knowing they’ve already scaled to their max capacity of 400 participants, the question immediately became: when are you going to create a second event? While Jenna indicated a second event wouldn’t happen until at least 2028, she did acknowledge all signs point towards more Dusty Bandita events.

“If people are willing to come out to Ovando, Montana, which is a very rural town of like 60 people, I feel like there’s just endless possibilities throughout the country. So I feel like that is our next logical step.”

Is this what’s next for American gravel racing?

After talking with Jenna, it is clear that her event is addressing a real and prominent issue in gravel racing. The problem is not unique to the United States, but in a country where cycling is still a relatively niche sport, structural problems in event culture weigh heavily on the growth of the sport. The baseline figures over four years for an event that happens in rural Montana and overlaps with Unbound cannot be denied.

• Year one field - 100 participants, sold out

• Most recent field - 400 participants representing 27 states and 2 provinces

• Overflow demand - 200 waitlisted at 300 racers and still 200 at 400 racers

• First-time gravel racers - 25% of the field for four years straight

• Possibly scaling from one event to two in only six years

These numbers present two opportunities for American gravel racing moving forward. The first is the viability and appeal of women’s gravel events, which could inspire a new wave of grassroots race organizers to start their own events. The other is for established gravel events to pursue truly separate races for men and women. While there would be added logistical challenges, the growth in women’s participation could justify the added cost.

I went into this project with little knowledge of The Dusty Bandita and now I cannot understand how I had not heard about the event sooner. The Dusty Bandita is a case study for what the future of American gravel racing could look like. Be sure to follow The Dusty Bandita as it grows, and share the story so this format can grow for years to come.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

As promised, we are back with a second piece this week. Besides releasing two stories, it has been a time-crunched week. I only had a few days to write, so logically I picked a topic that is complex, dry, and probably deserving of a very long and analytical article. I figured it might make more sense to explore this week’s topic with a shorter, hard-hitting piece. Instead of delving into countless rabbit holes, just exploring the facts and possible solutions will bring you up to speed on a topic that you have probably never heard of.

The original research angle for this piece was analyzing the current landscape of athlete management agencies across the men’s and women’s WorldTour pelotons. When researching that subject it quickly became clear that there is an extreme lack of rider representation data for the Women’s WorldTour. Athlete management of the Women’s WorldTour is relatively new and just now starting to take off, with The Cyclists Alliance reporting that only 47% of riders are being represented by a 3rd party. A reason for that might be the topic we discuss in this piece.

While researching that topic my attention was drawn to something else entirely. The systems set up to secure certain rights for riders look very different between the men’s and women’s pelotons. These are systems that secure standard contract obligations, including minimum salaries, insurance, and leave, and that negotiate structural changes for the sport, including rule changes and safety regulations. The way riders and teams are represented, and the way they negotiate with the UCI, are completely different. In the simplest terms possible, the men have a seat at the table with collective bargaining power while the women have decisions handed down to them. In this piece we will look, concisely, at rider representation and collective bargaining power between the men’s and women’s WorldTour pelotons.

Collective bargaining in the men’s WorldTour

The way riders in the men’s peloton reliably negotiate standards with both teams and the UCI is through collective bargaining and joint agreements. This is how most sports leagues work, with player unions, team associations, and governing bodies. In the WorldTour, every two years representatives for both riders and teams meet to discuss a joint agreement that outlines the standards we mentioned earlier.

The parties involved are the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA) and the Association Internationale des Groupes Cyclistes Professionnels (AIGCP). The CPA acts as the riders’ union and the AIGCP acts as the teams’ association. The current agreement came into force in 2024, and it is still the one in effect (more on this shortly). Its scope comes down to Article 1, which states:

“This agreement establishes the standards governing the working conditions of riders employed by a team registered or intending to register with the International Cycling Union (known by the French acronym UCI) as a UCI WorldTeam or a UCI ProTeam under Chapter XV or XVI of Part II of the UCI Cycling Regulations. “

In plain language, the joint agreement only applies to men’s WorldTour and ProTeam squads. Article 1 also caveats the agreement in the event of inconsistencies, saying the UCI regulations shall prevail in such instances. The agreement is meant to build on top of the rulebook rather than replacing it.

Other important articles in the agreement include:

• Article 5 - defining a standard contract

• Article 8 - forbidding trial periods with riders before signing them

• Article 10 - setting minimum salaries and establishing a salary freeze if negotiations stall for future seasons

• Article 18 - access to the CPA union and the ability to attend meetings with no consequence from their team

• Article 21 & 22 - establishing sick pay standards and insurance floors

The men’s joint agreement represents years of work and collaboration between riders and teams to achieve “fair” employment standards and advocate for riders’ best interests. It follows a simple structure that mirrors other sports leagues. The two representing parties are the definitive representatives for riders and teams, with no other intermediaries complicating the arrangement.

One would think the same arrangement is in place for the women’s peloton, but a 2026 salary freeze made it very clear that the process is different for women.

The 2026 salary freeze

In January 2026 the UCI confirmed that there would be no changes to the minimum salaries for either the men’s or women’s WorldTour. How that result came about looks very different on each side. For the men, it was a negotiation, and it followed the terms of the joint agreement between the CPA and AIGCP. At the time, CPA president Adam Hansen said the union was prioritizing broader structural reforms, including safety protocols and insurance standards, over immediate base-pay raises. That means the 2025 base salaries remained in effect. This outcome was intentional, and essentially a trade for future improvements elsewhere.

For the women, the freeze was an announcement. This is because the CPA has no oversight of the women’s minimum salary, or anything else in the women’s peloton. There was nothing to negotiate because there was no one to negotiate with.

How is this possible and is it as bad as it appears?

At face value, the information I just presented sounds bad, but there are several nuances to the issue. There are organizations representing women and even influencing UCI regulations and decisions. The detail that matters here is that they are doing that lobbying alone. There is no collective bargaining agreement between a women’s rider union and women’s team association.

That is why the decision to freeze the women’s base salaries came from the UCI directly. The women’s rider union may have been pushing for salary increases but at the same time, the women’s teams association may have been pushing for the opposite. That is a complete hypothetical, but goes to show how no open line of communication can affect the outcomes for the women’s peloton.

Who represents the women?

If there are representatives for both riders and teams that have seats at the table with the UCI, why is there no agreement? Before getting into the most likely answer, it helps to understand the landscape of unions and associations. While the men have the CPA and the AIGCP, the women have a few more players in the mix.

First, the recognized representative for the women is CPA Women, an offshoot of the CPA. CPA Women receives UCI funding and has claimed that they have lobbied successfully for things like extreme weather protocols, resisting wage cuts during Covid, maternity recognition, and reviving the Tour de France Femmes. CPA Women has UCI recognition, but there is another association that works extensively with women’s riders.

The Cyclists’ Alliance (TCA) is a union formed in December 2017. TCA surveys riders, provides legal services that were used by over 100 riders in 2025, and has established mentor programs. It was formed ten months after TCA Co-founder Iris Slappendel met with the CPA in February 2017. In unofficial accounts of that meeting, the CPA dismissed her concerns and advocacy for women’s cycling, asserting that it did not consider women to be professional. Just five months after that meeting, CPA Women was formed in July 2017. Today CPA Women describes itself as the only international association of professional female riders, a claim TCA’s existence clearly contradicts.

There is also a UCI Athletes Commission, an advisory body within the UCI that gives active riders a recognized channel to advocate for their fellow athletes with the UCI directly.

The situation is similar for women’s teams. The AIGCP claims to cover men’s and women’s teams, but another association called UNIO was created specifically to represent women’s squads. It is unclear which association has done more in recent years, but it is a notable detail.

Why is there no joint agreement for collective bargaining power?

Besides the existence of several groups claiming to represent women’s riders and teams, why is there no agreement between bodies that would create stronger bargaining power with the UCI? The two organizations that have already partnered for the men both claim to represent women and are recognized representative parties in women’s cycling, so why have they not agreed to anything?

There could be a range of reasons, but the most likely comes down to money being hard to come by for women’s teams. Unlike the men’s WorldTour, women’s teams operate on much tighter budgets and will be far keener to keep salary minimums as low as possible. A representative for the teams would argue the situation is not ideal, but the financial reality is that higher required salaries would do more harm than good and cause teams to disappear.

So why would the AIGCP sign an agreement with the CPA for the men? One documented reason is that the joint agreement was built into the official registration process for teams. The rest come down to things that benefit teams as much as riders.

• Salary floors protect the well-funded. They keep lower-budget teams from fielding cheap riders and undercutting on cost.

• Predictability is worth paying for. Standard contracts, defined notice periods, dispute guidelines, and free mediation benefit both teams and riders.

• Leverage. The men’s peloton can withhold labor at a grand tour and there would be massive financial consequences. At races other than the Tour de France Femmes, the riders have less perceived leverage.

We cannot know the true reasons right now, but this context should make it clearer why the respective parties in women’s cycling don’t see enough mutual benefit in a joint agreement yet. The system for the men’s peloton is not perfect, but it is a testament to the power of collective bargaining and why it should be something to aspire to.

What women have and what they are missing

Below is a quick and non-exhaustive breakdown of what women have secured through UCI regulation and what the men have gained on top through collective bargaining.

What will representation look like in the future?

Right now it seems like we won’t see collective bargaining anytime soon. But with the rise of women’s cycling, there is reason to hope that money quickly becomes a non-issue for better salary floors and added benefits. Collaboration within the CPA and AIGCP between their men’s and women’s divisions could also extend certain articles in the men’s joint agreement to the Women’s WorldTour.

It would also be an ideal outcome if parties like the TCA and UNIO had a seat at the table. That could cause more disagreements and slow negotiations down in a joint agreement, but it could also bring fresher perspectives when advocating for women in the sport. It could also lead to the women’s WorldTour adopting better regulations than the men’s. I have no clue what the right answer is, but hopefully this story will shed light on an important topic that is rarely discussed among fans and even industry professionals.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

While planning this piece, its original tone and commentary were going to be the harshest of any Built on Bikes piece I have written. It is on a topic I have thought about for the last year, and it deals with real grievances held by athletes and spectators. The UCI Gravel World Series is a collection of 45 gravel events that represents the UCI’s foray into gravel. While the series is still in its infancy, it has experienced a shaky start, at least with one demographic. Ever since the first Gravel World Championships in 2022, there have been multiple occasions where the professional women’s fields have had to navigate suboptimal racing conditions compared to their male counterparts.

Whether it is having to navigate through amateur men’s fields, receiving no live race coverage, or participating on different courses entirely, there has been a growing feeling of animosity toward the UCI, especially among professionals in the US. Regularly seeing athletes take to social media to voice their complaints meant I adopted a pretty fierce sense of discontent with the series. A year ago I even confronted an official representative for the series and pressed them on the instances of inequality as certain events in the series. At the time my message seemed to fall on deaf ears, or so I thought.

After seeing another instance of women having to navigate potentially dangerous race situations at Sea Otter Europe, the time felt right to address the dynamics that lead to these instances of inequality. Coincidentally, while deciding to engage this topic, I was starting to watch the newest season of the popular sports comedy, Ted Lasso. It is a random connection to make, but watching Ted navigate the inequalities of women’s sport made me realize it would be best to approach this topic with understanding instead of spite. In this piece we will take a look at the facts, the actions the Gravel World Series has taken, and identify practical solutions that ensure equal racing for women and create longevity for the series and gravel cycling as a whole.

A closer look at the UCI Gravel World Series

Most Built on Bikes readers are in the United States, so the predominantly European series may be new to some. The UCI Gravel World Series consists of 45 global gravel events, each of which acts as a qualifier for the UCI Gravel World Championships held every year. Riders that finish in the top 25% of their category receive automatic qualification to the World Championships.

The series has already announced its first six qualifiers for qualifiers in 2027, and it has grown from eleven events at its formation in 2022 to 45 today. Europe hosts 28 of them, representing 62% of the series’ races, while all other continents host only two to five events each. This dynamic is important because most of the incidents we will discuss happen at European events. While the series is relatively new, in many ways it has become a lens into how the UCI might codify and regulate gravel if the discipline reached the same prominence as road and mountain biking.

Does the UCI really govern the series?

The Gravel World Series’ association with the UCI already places the series on its back foot. If you ask cyclists for their opinions on the UCI you will almost always hear frustration and discontent. The UCI has gained a reputation for focusing on non-issues within the sport and ignoring real threats to safety and competition. In the past the governing body has focused on trivial subjects like sock height and handlebar width instead of addressing problems that have led to serious injuries and even death in competition.

On women’s cycling, the perception becomes even worse. Rules and regulations, like handlebar width, have been enforced in the men’s peloton with the women’s peloton treated as an afterthought. Women’s competition is hindered as a result, leading to the UCI being seen as an “old boys club.”

With this reputation, having the UCI brand attached to any series draws an increased level of scrutiny. When athletes and fans see inequality and poor race organization in the Gravel World Series, it becomes easy to associate every shortcoming with the UCI. That association makes it easy to become dismissive of the series and lose hope that any action will be taken to solve the problem. But is the UCI really behind every issue facing the series?

As I found out, the answer is no. While the UCI officially sanctions the series, the organization that actually oversees its rules, regulations, and marketing is a Belgian company, Golazo Sports. In 2011 the UCI partnered with Golazo to create the UCI Gran Fondo World Series, and in 2025 the UCI extended their arrangement for the Gravel World Series until 2030. The real question is which issues rest with the race organizers, which with Golazo, and which with the UCI?

What does Golazo Sports oversee?

After some conversations with reliable sources and my own digging, I found that Golazo distributes detailed rules and regulations to race organizers, provides limited marketing support, and verifies branding compliance before events.

The rules and regulations of a UCI gravel event can be found in full on Golazo’s website. What is decided by Golazo and the UCI, and what is left to race organizers, roughly breaks down as follows.

So far this structure seems pretty standard compared with other UCI races in other disciplines. The biggest difference being Golazo acting as middle man between the UCI and the race organizer. The reality we are left with is a double-edged sword. On one hand, riders can be shielded from nonsensical bike and equipment regulations, but on the other, an organization operating on a different scale than the UCI is responsible for spotting shortcomings and implementing changes in a timely manner. The UCI is not always timely, but it has the personnel to research comprehensive solutions from season to season, which probably is not the case for an organization like Golzao.

What are the big issues, and who has the power to fix them?

We now have the facts to determine who currently has influence over the factors affecting the race experience of pro women’s fields. Three issues emerge as the most pressing.

When the pro women start

One grievance that has come up time and time again is the dangerous racing created when pro women have to navigate multiple age group fields of amateur men. The issue is not unique to the Gravel World Series, but there are well-documented solutions to it. The most prominent came from Life Time, which prioritized start times for the pro men’s and pro women’s fields. At Life Time Grand Prix events the pro men start first, followed by the pro women’s field, with a time gap of 10 to 30 minutes between the two.

For Gravel World Series events, two parties have influence over these inputs. The first, and most impactful, is Golazo’s regulation that the elite women’s field starts only after every men’s category has set off, including men riding a shorter course. That requirement applies only to events with more than 1,500 riders. Below that threshold, the structure changes, and below 500 riders the detailed procedure is a recommendation rather than a rule.

These regulations from Golazo are the crux of the issue, but organizers do have the ability to determine start time staggering, and even whether men’s and women’s races occur on different days.

The first step to fixing the problem might seem obvious, but it is not. Applying a blanket rule that prioritizes and separates pro men’s and pro women’s fields, like the Life Time Grand Prix does, works on paper, but not in reality. The Life Time Grand Prix by design ensures there will be well over twenty riders in both the pro men’s and pro women’s fields. Some Gravel World Series events do not draw the same volume of talent, so there could be events where only five pro women show up to a race.

Golazo representative and Gravel World Series manager, Erwin Vervecken has gone on record saying that in scenarios like this, pro women would prefer starting with a larger group that contains amateur women. This way stronger amateur women can provide some level of race dynamics instead of five athletes waging a war of attrition the entire day. So what is a practical solution?

A nuanced issue requires a nuanced solution. Instead of applying a blanket rule there should be contingencies for races that draw fewer pro women than would be appropriate for a separate pro women’s start.

• If the threshold number of pro women is met, an event should prioritize pro fields, with pro men’s and pro women’s fields starting first with at least a 10 minute gap in between.

• If the threshold number of pro women is not met, then the current start regulations apply.

I will be the first to admit that this is not a perfect outcome, but it will solve the issue for races that draw the most pro women and demand the highest standards of competition. For races that do not meet the threshold number of pro women, the current arrangement still works best. While it is not ideal for pro women and fast amateur women who will have to navigate amateur fields, those female riders are still the minority of the women participating. Every other age group woman participating would have a better race experience in this system. If a race director staggered the age group starts so that a male age group started, followed by the equivalent female age group, the result would be a far more stressful race dynamic, as women would have to navigate slower male riders in front of them and faster ones behind them.

Lack of live coverage

Let us be clear, lack of coverage is a major issue across all female disciplines and races, including the Tour de France Femmes, but there is usually some sort of women’s coverage. There have been multiple instances where Gravel World Series events have provided coverage of the men’s race, but not the women’s. The most notorious was at the first Gravel World Championships, where there was no live coverage whatsoever of the pro women’s race.

There is no excuse for a lack of coverage for events as big as the World Championships, full stop. But when we look at the structure and resources of other events, the discrepancy in coverage can be attributed to logistical challenges. If pro women are starting behind all men’s age groups, film crews quickly become another obstacle in the women’s race. Navigating film crews buzzing ahead to capture footage while also dodging amateur men could be a recipe for disaster and pose real safety hazards. Even so, we cannot just accept the lack of women’s coverage, especially if the men’s field is receiving coverage at the same time.

After conferring with direct sources, 2026 has allegedly been used as a test year for future broadcasting organized by Golazo. There is no indication that every event in the series will have live coverage next year, or that any coverage will be equal between the men’s and women’s fields. The other caveat is that live coverage will be a packaged event add-on that race organizers would have to purchase from Golazo, something that will not be financially feasible for some events.

Again we are left with a complicated issue and no clear answers, but one fact holds: pro women’s fields need to have equal coverage to men’s fields. Since it appears that Golazo is the entity pushing for and facilitating live coverage, it is on Golazo to ensure that coverage is equal. For races that meet the threshold number of female pros, the goal should be the highest quality broadcasting for both fields. For events with fewer resources, options should be available to present live race updates via social media. As we learned with Leni Carrillo, this approach can be as effective as a polished production.

If an organizer can only afford to cover one field, or if Golazo only has the resources to cover one, then there should be no live broadcast at all. Hopefully social media strategies like the ones we discussed with Leni can avoid that outcome. It would be a major blow to the marketing potential of events and the series, but in my opinion, if a compromise still involves any inequality, then it is not a real solution.

Course length differences

This controversy is one that lives and dies with the race organizer. In the past, multiple pro athletes from the United States have criticized the decision for women’s fields to race shorter distances than the men’s fields. A hallmark of American gravel racing is that pro men and pro women take on the same course. This is an outlier in the world of professional racing, though. It is common practice in Europe for pro women’s fields to race on shorter courses. European pros generally seem to have little issue with this setup in road racing, so it would make sense that European gravel events follow suit.

Therefore, I am willing to say this is not actually an issue with the series itself. I respect the discourse that American pros have brought forward, but this seems like a cultural difference and a decision that does not come from the UCI or Golazo, except at World Championships. A solution could be a requirement for certain World Championship events to follow the American standard of equal distance while others adopt separate courses for men’s and women’s fields.

Where this leaves us

After looking at the issues, the logistics, and the parties who control the operations of the Gravel World Series, we are left with a series that possesses great potential. The only thing standing in its way is a list of systemic changes needed to repair brand image and trust with female athletes and fans. The series is fighting an uphill battle given its affiliation with the UCI, but if it can make changes and exploit the benefits of being run by a third party in Golazo, then it could reach the prominence of other series like the Life Time Grand Prix and Gravel Earth.

For those of us who want change enacted, we have the benefit of dealing with an easily reachable entity that has near absolute power to make operational adjustments as it sees fit. The three problems that plague the series and hinder equality are complex, but there are relatively simple actions that could sharply reduce negative experiences for pro women in the series. We have discussed those short-term fixes, but there are still things Golazo could do beyond directly addressing these three issues. My proposed fixes don’t solve everything, so how does Golazo create a culture of continuous improvement?

Creating a culture of excellence

As we have seen, the Gravel World Series is sprawling and scattered across the globe. Cultural differences and the individual liberty granted to race organizers mean there can be large discrepancies in how races are run, presented, and perceived. Allowing organizers to make their race unique is a strength, but the small details that change from event to event can negatively affect pro women’s fields.

Beyond following the Golazo event guidelines, each event essentially operates in its own bubble. Race organizers are not learning from their peers or discovering new efficiencies and event structures that benefit all athletes. Since the number of Gravel World Series organizers is so large, Golazo is well placed to connect them to one another. One thing Golazo could be doing to create a culture of continuous improvement is to build cohorts of event organizers so they can share best practices, discuss the cultural differences that affect the perception of a race, and build a strong sense of community in the series.

Speaking of the series being scattered, I can only assume that the team at Golazo that manages the series is spread thin across 45 events spanning six continents. The UCI has already delegated the bulk of its responsibility to Golazo, so could Golazo distribute responsibility even further? We do not want too many cooks in the kitchen, but hiring employees to act as direct liaisons for geographical subsets of races would create more reliable lines of communication between organizers and Golazo. Hiring someone whose sole focus is equality in racing would also be a significant step forward.

A final note on understanding

The only individual I have named directly in this story is Erwin Vervecken. Right now he is the person at Golazo who acts as the key representative for the series. I will be honest: for a long time I have not had the best perception of Erwin. From sending him a message voicing my concerns about issues affecting the women’s fields to seeing his responses to other athletes who have pressed him on the issue, I thought his receptiveness was lacking.

Since reporting this story, however, I want to give credit where credit is due.. Conversations with people connected to the series who care deeply about the experience of women participating in it revealed a lot. First, communication between Americans and Erwin can expose cultural differences in presenting one’s thoughts. What is normal language for someone from Belgium might come off as dismissive or harsh to Americans who are unfamiliar with that style of communication.

I also was told there is good evidence that Erwin cares deeply about the issues discussed in this story. From requesting feedback directly from race organizers and athletes, to making real rule changes from season to season, he is attempting to bring more equality to the sport. While the decisions have not solved the issues, there is a real desire and intent to do so. I will always push for accountability when a bad decision is made, but for now I thought it was important to bring a little more understanding to the situation, just like Ted Lasso would.

There is a lot of work to be done, but I am hopeful the Gravel World Series can become the third prominent series in the sport alongside the Life Time Grand Prix and Gravel Earth.

In other news

USA! USA! USA!

USA Cycling had one of its most remarkable performances ever this weekend in Montreal. Americans Ashlin Barry and Brandon McNulty were crowned world champions in the U23 and Elite men’s road races. McNulty is the first American to win the elite road race title since Lance Armstrong in 1993. Anyone who reads Built on Bikes knows the work is happening behind the scenes at USA Cycling to make these results possible. Congratulations to the riders and everyone at USA Cycling!

Rapha

Last week, Rapha CEO Fran Millar announced that she would be stepping down from her position after two years of leading the brand. She said the strategic plan she worked on is well in motion, but the time has come for someone else to lead more aggressive execution. When the news broke, it felt like a generation of Rapha fans-turned-haters piled on, arguing that the brand has done everything wrong in the last nine years. They aren’t wrong that the brand has been in free fall, but I was quick to defend Fran.

In the last two years she has introduced a new strategy that focuses heavily on the American market and bets on American athletes making the sport popular at home. This is a humble brag, but this weekend reinforced that vision. The entire cycling world was just flooded with images of Brandon McNulty crossing the finish line, decked out in his Team USA Rapha kit. Rapha is not down and out. It is on the rise.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

The last few editions of Built on Bikes have spent a lot of time talking about sponsorship opportunities in professional cycling and how brands can position their products through this marketing channel. We have outlined how professional cycling can make a strong pitch to potential sponsors, including more tech-forward companies, and even outlined the benefits that brands can get from these strategic partnerships. All of those conversations have lived in the hypothetical. This piece provides an opportunity to examine a real-world case of a mid-sized venture-backed company sponsoring endurance sports, and to learn more about the logistics, finances, and outcomes of such a partnership.

After releasing a recap of the first year of Built on Bikes, I received a message from Nicolas Laurent, the Head of Growth at Ramify. He reached out to congratulate me on reaching the one-year milestone, but he also mentioned that several Built on Bikes stories resonated with him because his company recently entered the world of sports marketing by becoming the title sponsor of IRONMAN Nice. While it is common to connect with those who send messages and show interest in Built on Bikes, it is less common to receive a message from someone who is currently navigating the intricate sponsorship process for one of endurance sport’s most well-known entities.

After some initial conversations, Nicolas and I hopped on a call to discuss his experience of sourcing, negotiating, executing, and reviewing Ramify’s partnership with IRONMAN Nice. The hope is that this piece closes the loop between pitching sponsorship ideas and then making them a reality. Whether the reader is a Head of Marketing at a startup or a partnerships manager for an endurance event or team, this article serves as a real-world case study of a successful marketing campaign between tech and endurance sports.

Ramify

The most important half of a sports marketing partnership is the company that is actually shelling out the cash to support the sports entity on the other side of the equation. That meant it was crucial to understand what Ramify is, who it serves, and what it stands to gain from partnering with an event like IRONMAN Nice.

Ramify is a private banking platform that offers a digital alternative to traditional wealth management. Founded in 2021 and backed by firms including 13books Capital and Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, Ramify focuses on providing individuals with an approach that “combines wealth management expertise, technology, and a rigorous selection of the best products on the market, with a focus on long-term performance.”

Ramify fits the profile of a modern, tech-enabled company with no direct connection to sports or athletic performance. It also has some of the key traits we have identified in current backers of endurance sports, including private ownership and proximity to wealthier consumers who are more likely to engage in endurance sports. As we will see, all of these factors combine to make trust the core theme of Ramify’s partnership with IRONMAN Nice.

The idea phase

Speaking from experience, engaging in marketing activities at a startup can either feel completely greenfield with creativity and opportunity or narrowly confined because every dollar in the marketing budget counts. When a company decides to pivot into a new marketing channel it is taking on risk, but if the vision and opportunity of a new channel is presented correctly, it is possible to create buy-in from executive-level stakeholders. For Nicolas, the idea of sponsoring IRONMAN came from the need of a marketing channel that:

• Uniquely-engaged the demographic of people who would use Ramify

• Aligned with Ramify’s values

• Built trust in Ramify as a brand

For Ramify, the need to pursue a new marketing strategy arose because the company was approaching the upper limits of reach and influence available through its historical marketing mix.

“Historically, we’ve been focused a lot on finance media, blogs, newsletters, and magazines. It made sense because we offer wealth management and need to talk to people that are interested in that topic, but as a fast growing company, we need to expand and talk to more people.”

Nicolas said the initial ideation session on sports marketing looked at a variety of sports including golf, tennis, and sailing. Triathlon eventually won out as the desired channel for two reasons. The first is the window of time during which consumers are engaged leading up to the event.

“When you prepare for an IronMan, you can prepare and train for like a year. you think about it for a year in advance, every day.”

The second is a pricing paradox that ultimately targets the individuals that Ramify sells to. As triathlons get more expensive and exclusive, they will be attended by wealthier individuals, on average.

“IRONMAN has this unique position that it’s pretty expensive. It is getting more expensive every year, but it’s a very premium brand and there is little to complain about. You pay the price and you know what you’re paying for, so that creates a lot of trust in the brand.”

The dedication required to train and compete in an IRONMAN, and the reputation and prestige of IRONMAN events, combine to capture the thing Ramify is seeking most: trust.

“In our business, trust is everything,because you’re literally giving away your life savings to a company for them to manage. We needed an association with a high trust brand.”

Gaining trust with consumers is one thing, but gaining it from internal stakeholders who might have reservations around sponsoring a triathlon event is a different hurdle entirely.

Selling the vision internally

If you read my piece breaking down sponsorship money in the WorldTour and Pro Continental pelotons, then you might remember that private companies can make better sponsors since there are fewer criteria that need to be met to justify a sponsorship. In theory, having a founder who loves cycling could be the only factor that matters. Ramify needed sign-off from two executives, one who was on board from the start while the other needed to be convinced that this was the best decision for the company.

It is going to be rare, even at privately held companies, that everyone will be on board with a risky sports sponsorship from the jump. In this case, the burden of convincing an executive fell on Nicolas, but a lot of what I advocate for will require teams, athletes, and event organizers to approach prospective sponsors and convince them on their own. Nicolas’ pitch worked and will hopefully serve as an example of how to effectively win over holdouts. The first key to resolving an executive’s skepticism is to understand it. Nicolas described some of the skepticism he faced.

“At the beginning, it was like, what’s the meaning of it? What’s the link between what we do and triathlon? People weren’t sure it was relevant, not sure it was the right moment, not the right place to spend that money.”

The way Nicolas approached convincing those who were skeptical was to focus on presenting practical ROI data, while also demonstrating the importance of brand for a company like Ramify. His ROI case was straightforward.

“We used to spend that amount of euros to get X views, Y leads, Z clients. If we do things right for this campaign, it should roughly be around that. And if we are happy with previous campaigns, we should be happy about this one.”

The second point was the importance of the Ramify’s brand being able to create trust with consumers. Nicolas again drew a precedent from his company’s own marketing data.

“We just finished redesigning Ramify’s website, and a big part of our business is people booking meetings. We worked with a great agency to redesign our homepage to be more cosmetically appealing. Soon after launching the new page, we saw a 50% increase in the average amount people were booking meetings for. We had the same traffic, same people coming, but because they had more trust they were willing to invest more with us.”

If you are a cycling team or event organizer, it could be tough to tackle these lines of questioning and skepticism. The truth is that outside parties will not have access to a sponsor’s historical marketing ROI, but that does not really matter. Nicolas had to work with the data available to him, and that’s exactly what third parties should do when they approach potential sponsors. Bring proof of ROI you have provided to other sponsors, and tailor a pitch to companies that could benefit from a team’s or or athlete’s personal brand.

How much budget is needed?

Every venture-backed startup will approach budgeting differently depending on its industry, level of funding, and current finances, but broadly speaking, I was interested in learning the ballpark budget Ramify had for a campaign like IRONMAN Nice. Nicolas first made it clear that there are two components to a sponsorship, each requiring a different kind of financial commitment. First is the sponsorship commitment, the upfront fee. Second is the cost of branding Ramify alongside IRONMAN through various marketing channels and activities. Nicolas gave the following context:

“Typically for a big brand, the second part, which is brand activation, will represent two to three times the amount of the initial sponsorship commitment. For us, it was less than one X, so it cost more to actually become a sponsor than it did to facilitate all the campaign amplification.”

Ramify ultimately took a more conservative spending approach that resulted in the IRONMAN campaign accounting for 10% of Ramify’s yearly marketing budget.

“We tried to keep it very lean and be very smart about which pro athletes to sponsor, who we get involved in the campaign, and how we brand alongside the event. All in, it was around 10% of our marketing budget for the year that was spent on this campaign.”

The logistics of sponsorship

What is the timeline for a major title sponsorship for an event like IRONMAN? Ramify moves fast as a company and has produced roughly 10x growth between fundraises, but the process of executing the IRONMAN campaign was not nearly as speedy. Ramify first made contact early in 2025, roughly six months before that year’s edition of the race. Nicolas and his team deemed that timeline insufficient and postponed the sponsorship to 2026. What Nicolas expected to do going into the campaign was very different from what actually played out.

“I thought, okay, we’re going to pay these guys, they’re going to put our logos everywhere. Everybody’s going to know about us, and it will be an easy check to spend. The reality is that that’s the minimum amount of work they’re going to do. The most amount of work you’re going to do is activating all around race day and running campaigns for six to twelve months leading up to the race.”

The actual mechanics were that Nicolas worked with a sponsorship manager who presented a visibility, awareness, and engagement package, all of which was open to customization and negotiation. Nicolas emphasized that the process was incredibly collaborative and both parties were eager to provide value to one another. He pointed to how helpful IRONMAN was during the selling process.

“We were invited to come to some IRONMAN races, to see what other sponsors were doing, talk with them, to get the learnings from them, of what works, what doesn’t, and how to ramp up the learning curve as quick as possible for us to succeed on our first campaign.”

What IRONMAN actually delivered versus what was contracted

Nicolas expected the contract with IRONMAN to be the ceiling, but it turned out to be the floor.

“I thought if we ask anything extra, they’re going to refuse or say, no, it’s not in the contract. It was absolutely the contrary. Basically, what they said is here is the minimum we agree on doing on our side, then anything you can do that will improve the athlete experience, we’ll push it forward.”

IRONMAN helped create three specific activations, each of which provided significant value to Ramify. The first was a video series that drew parallels between investing and triathlon, covering themes like being surrounded by high-performing people, building strategies, staying resilient, and thinking about long term. The production quality of the videos was high, so IRONMAN agreed to run all of them on its own social media channels to engage more athletes.

Second was a community 5K run with a professional athlete, held in the days before the race. Again, IRONMAN promoted it on its own channels so everyone knew about it.

The third was physical cards and flyers with QR codes that came in every athlete’s race bag. When athletes scanned the cards they were presented with a video of professional athletes who had raced the course multiple times, giving course-specific advice for race day. Summing up the experience, Nicolas said it was as much a partnership as it was a sponsorship.

The return

IRONMAN Nice took place recently, so the lagging benefits have yet to be measured, but I was curious whether Ramify had already seen any significant benefits from sponsoring. The answer was yes, but the benefits fell into three buckets, some expected and some that came as a surprise. The first bucket, which we have already covered, was brand awareness, trust, and association.

Partner relationships represented the second bucket. Ramify sits within a web of tangentially related businesses like private equity funds, real estate managers, insurers, banks, and more. Ramify partners with these entities, and the association with IRONMAN helped significantly.

“The week after the launching of the sponsorship, new and old partners came to us to tell us they saw it. It really helps because we need to renegotiate, rediscuss terms and conditions of our partnerships all the time, rates, how much we’re paid and everything. It’s very difficult to measure, but overall, they saw us as a bigger brand, a more serious partner.”

The final bucket was employer brand capital.

“I was very surprised, because some potential employees were discovering us through the campaign, and thus applying to our company, meaning we had a bigger pool of candidates that we could hire from. But also, our employees were super proud of being part of this company that was sponsoring IRONMAN, and it was so cool to see. It created some kind of pride.”

Why companies should consider sponsoring endurance sports

To close out our discussion, I asked Nicolas a question to pressure test my argument that more tech-forward companies should sponsor endurance sports like cycling. His view was that sports-related companies will still receive the bulk of the benefit, but behind them, the “non-sexy” companies benefit a lot by associating with beloved brands and athletes.

“We have hardcore fans that love when we talk in depth about investments, strategy, portfolio allocation, and everything, but they are a minority. The vast majority of people don’t want to talk about their finances. They don’t want to hear about it and they do it because they have to, but they are bored and they don’t want to talk about it. Coming through the angle of sports, it makes it so much easier to actually push our narratives.”

While it will not be the last time we investigate this topic, we have come full circle and gained first-hand perspective from a tech company that took a risk and sponsored a major entity in endurance sports. It is a valuable lesson for any party trying to convince prospective sponsors’ stakeholders to embrace sports marketing. Sports like cycling and triathlon draw in people who are deeply dedicated, aware of brands that associate with the sporting entities they love, and willing to spend countless hours thinking about both. I have loved some of the conversations that have come from my previous articles, and hope to share more success stories like Ramify in the future.

In other news

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Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

It’s time to get corporate again. Last week we took a detailed look at the sponsors of professional cycling teams with the intent of identifying opportunities for more modern, tech-forward companies to enter the sport. The thesis of that piece was that more venture-backed brands in the sport would bring more prosperity, and the data made a strong case for it. One key finding was that public companies do not necessarily present an ideal sponsor profile, since any decision to fund a sports team has to pass more scrutiny than at a private company where a founder can sign off at their own discretion.

That finding doesn’t mean public companies have less opportunity to affect endurance sports, and cycling specifically. Industries adjacent to cycling are booming, market dynamics are about to shift dramatically in the fitness tracking space. That market is on the cusp of having three major IPOs in the span of a year, with Ōura, Whoop, and Strava all positioning for entrances into the public markets. The numbers are undeniable: wearable technology and fitness tracking have exploded in popularity. But is this a real signal for the growth of endurance sports, and cycling in particular?

Endurance sport and fitness tracking are two fundamentally different industries, but they share a close relationship. There is no concrete evidence that companies like Ōura and Whoop are creating significant growth for cycling, so that is what we are going to explore in this article. What does the rise of wearable technology and fitness tracking mean for cycling, and is there a realistic opportunity for the sport to capitalize on the imminent market expansion, or has that ship already sailed? Alternatively, can endurance sports move these brands’ bottom line enough to make a tailored marketing strategy worth building during a period of hyper-growth driven by the mass consumer?

The big three

Ōura, Whoop, and Strava are all positioning for IPOs in the near future, albeit at different stages of the process. Last week Ōura publicly filed their Form S-1 with the SEC, signaling its intention of going public with a reported valuation of $16 billion. Ōura reported revenue of $1.21 billion for the nine months ending June 30, 2026, a 74% increase compared to the same period the previous year.

Whoop has not yet filed an S-1 confidentially or publicly, but it raised what is likely their final round of private capital at the end of March with a $575 million Series G led by Collaborative Fund. The company reported a valuation of $10.1 billion and said the round would accelerate continued US growth and new international growth.

Strava confidentially filed an S-1 draft with the SEC in February, but have not made any significant statements on the matter since. In May 2025 Strava, a funding round led by Sequoia Capital valued Strava at $2.2 billion, including debt. While no one is sure when the company will IPO, it still looks likely to happen within the next year.

The potential for these three companies to go public within a year of each other is a real sign that more people are becoming health-conscious, but will it translate directly into more people engaging with endurance sports like cycling? To get to that answer, it helps to understand more about the major players. Most of this story will focus on wearable technology, though some of Strava’s market data will be useful for putting these companies’ performance in context. We will come back to that later.

Ōura - capturing the mass consumer

Ōura makes smart rings that track health metrics including: sleep, activity, fitness, stress, training readiness, heart health, and women’s health. With sleek, Apple-esque marketing and continuous improvement, its rings have joined a select group of wearable, subscription-based products that have become synonymous with health tracking.

What stands out immediately in Ōura’s S-1 is that the business is strong. Beyond the nine-month revenue and impressive valuation, figures like FY2025 revenue growing 123% over FY2024 and trailing nine-month net income growing by 38x between the same time period in 2025 and 2026 show the product has clicked with consumers. The user data is where things get more interesting.

There are two numbers in this table worth noting that affect our view of Ōura in relation to cycling. The first is that under 20% of the brand’s hardware revenue comes from outside the United States. Ōura was founded in Finland but redomiciled to the United States in March 2026. The move makes sense considering most of Ōura’s sales are to American consumers, and the revenue concentration signals little need for endurance sports marketing outside the US. In their S-1 Ōura states:

“Internationally, we are in the earlier stages of our expansion efforts and plan to enter new markets using a disciplined, localized go-to-market approach.”

With an IPO on the horizon, the brand will almost certainly stick to their current strategy and lock down as much market share within the United States before looking internationally.

The other interesting metric is that approximately 72% of Ōura’s memberships are women. The female membership has compounded at roughly 143% since FY2024 compared to 94% for men. Ōura’s S-1 attributes this to women’s health as an integrated use case that spans cycle tracking, conception, pregnancy, and menopause. Ōura is not the only wearable to offer these features, but they are the one to build them as a connected product spine.

One final stat that shows the strength of Ōura’s product is how much of its business comes from word of mouth. Roughly 40% of new members were acquired organically, through existing Ōura ring owners sharing the product with their immediate network. That may explain the perceived lack of sports marketing at Ōura compared with a company like Whoop; Ōura haven’t had to buy attention at this juncture, yet.

Whoop - the athlete’s wearable

Whoop is a wristband wearable that, for all intents and purposes, provides users with the same data that Ōura does, but that’s where the similarities end. The company has not released anything as comprehensive as Ōura’s S-1, but with a large Series G investment, an IPO is clearly in Whoop’s sights.

Founded in Boston in 2012, Whoop has become the other name that dominates the dedicated health-tracking category alongside Ōura. How it got there is a completely different story. The wristband has found its way to the average consumer, but only after years of strict association with athletic performance. You even see this play out within the company’s cap table with star athletes like Mathieu van der Poel, LeBron James, and Cristiano Ronaldo listed as investors.

Of the two companies, Whoop is the one consistently tied to endurance sport, with partnerships including UAE Team Emirates XRG, Alpecin-Premier Tech, and the UCI Mountain Bike World Series. If we zoom out we will also see that since 2017 Whoop has signed over 20 institutional sports partnerships, whereas Ōura has only recently ramped up their own sports sponsorships. Whoop was built on sports marketing, and Ōura is now using sports to supplement its growth.

While we don’t know their internal marketing data, Whoop seems to be proof that professional cycling is producing a real benefit and drawing new members to at least one mainstream wearable. Whether it remains a justifiable marketing channel once these companies are in the public markets is another question entirely. With the approach of these two companies being starkly different, the answer lies within the battle to maintain market share.

Hold up, Apple just threw a monkey wrench

On Wednesday, Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 12 product line introducing several new health and hardware features that overlap with those of Whoop and Ōura. The timing is hard to read as coincidence, with Ōura charging toward an IPO. Ōura and Whoop have done the hard work of market development and validation, and now Apple will try to use its brand capital to boost hardware sales. Assuming most of Ōura and Whoop users track their stats on an iPhone through the companies’ respective apps, Apple has a real argument that their new watches will consolidate and simplify users’ health tracking.

Ōura rings and Whoop bands are low-profile sensors that offer no value beyond their tracking capabilities. Apple Watches allow users to listen to music, view and send communications, and search the web in addition to their health-sensing capabilities. The added utility argument is undeniable, but will that be enough to dethrone the brands we have been discussing?

While Apple is launching a new watch with popular features, most consumers will just view it as a new model for a product platform that is already over ten years old. The association consumers have with the Apple watch is not fitness, it’s a convenient extension of their iPhone. While the simplicity of Apple operating systems might make the Apple Watch more appealing to older consumers, young and tech-savvy consumers already associate best-in-class health tracking with Ōura and Whoop. A final moat for the two devices is their simplicity. Neither has a screen to distract users or pull their attention away from exercise or other tasks. The Apple Watch has existed for over a decade and has had various health tracking-sensors, and still Ōura and Whoop thrived. It is unlikely that changes with this new generation of watches.

The logical path to mutual benefit

The logical path to any particular endurance sport benefiting from the success of wearable devices and health tracking is that the platforms begin prescribing exercise based on a user’s health metrics. In July, Garmin, the maker of several health-tracking watches and devices, acquired TrainingPeaks. TrainingPeaks is the maker of the most popular training platform for endurance athletes, with planning tools and virtual training product. Garmin and TrainingPeaks are already directly tied to cycling with their products, so it makes sense that cycling will benefit from this acquisition and business trajectory. Can the same be said for brands that market to the mass consumer?

We have covered Strava’s 2025 Year in Sport report before, but it is worth revisiting because the data it contains complicates any pitch that cycling can benefit from the success of Ōura and Whoop, even if they were to start prescribing precise exercise to users. In Strava’s report, cycling ranked third among the most recorded activities behind walking and running. The social data compounds that trend. Hiking clubs grew at a multiple of 5.8, running clubs at 3.5, and cycling clubs at 2.8. Respondents also named mountain biking and gravel cycling the second most intimidating sport to take up, behind skiing and snowboarding. Put bluntly, running is the sport positioned to benefit the most from the rise of health tracking, not cycling.

Another path to mutual benefit is what motivates users. Gen Z respondents were 75% more likely than Gen X to say a race or event is their main motivation for exercise. If cycling is to benefit from the rise of Ōura and Whoop, then the path forward is a mix of increasing accessibility and utilizing events to spur interest and motivation. There’s one problem…

Realistically, cycling does not have the power to effect this change, so the wearable companies would have to find utility in the sport, provide accessibility, and use events in a way that has a measurable impact to the bottom line. Here is how Ōura and Whoop market with cycling.

How Ōura can encroach on Whoop

Ōura has made a hard push into sports marketing this year, becoming the official wearable of Team USA and the LA 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games and a multi-year agreement with the LA Dodgers. These partnerships still cater to the average sports fan, which keeps the focus on the mass consumer. Whoop has established itself with pro, amateur, and new athletes. Whoop has proven that endurance sport as a marketing channel can build trust with this population, so there is plenty of market share on the table for Ōura to take advantage of.

With 72% of Ōura’s members being women and a product spine of women’s health features, Ōura has a chance to undercut Whoop for these female athlete segments, especially the recreational athlete. Women’s sports are an extremely effective marketing channel, and that efficacy only increases when you look at cycling.

The obvious answer is to become a sponsor of the Tour de France Femmes, though the broadcast route is more crowded than it looks. Whoop signed on as headline sponsor of Warner Bros. Discovery’s international cycling coverage in 2024, but MyWhoosh took over as lead sponsor of WBD’s live cycling for the 2026 season. The path to undercutting is simple and cheap to start. Begin by sponsoring a handful of top female cyclists and backing one of the strongest teams in the peloton, FDJ United-SUEZ. For a company of Ōura’s size, the investment is relatively small and low-risk. Get on the radar of more female endurance athletes, establish brand recognition in the European market, offer a competing storyline.

If Ōura pairs this strategy with running-focused campaigns, the campaigns prove effective, and the company starts to steal significant market share from Whoop, then more aggressive paths take shape. If we look a few years down the line and Ōura’s overall business model has lead to a valuation even higher than $16 billion, and especially if they are more involved with a user’s active exercise, then a major acquisition could establish the brand as the definitive wearable for cycling. The main target would be Zwift, which was last valued at ~$1 billion in 2020 during the Covid boom. Acquiring Zwift would mean owning the title sponsor of the Tour de France Femmes, and a direct integration with the go-to virtual training solution for cycling. It would not only undercut Whoop within cycling, but could remove its relevance in the sport entirely.

How Whoop navigates a fork in the road

We have outlined how Whoop has successfully used an international athlete marketing strategy thus far, but how will they navigate a new world where its biggest competitor is gaining momentum with an imminent IPO and a valuation roughly $6 billion higher? Does it speed ahead with its current strategy and begin to more aggressively pursue the international mass market before Ōura can, or does it double down on its targeting of performance minded individuals to take on companies like Garmin and Coros?

From Whoop’s Series G press release it seems like it is pursuing the former and prioritizing the mass consumer with assistance from new strategic investors like Abbott. Whoop has spent years helping elite athletes improve performance and longevity and now describes its mission as becoming the “preeminent global health platform.” Sports marketing will continue to play a major role in that growth, but the strategy must become more nuanced, blending the athletic performance narrative with a stronger consumer health narrative. Whoop could outmaneuver Ōura by becoming the preferred wearable of both athletes and health professionals and building a more robust diagnostics platform behind their hardware.

Strategic partnerships and acquisitions would likely play a major role in achieving this goal. Whoop already has a connection with one company blending athletic performance with metabolic health for the mass population: Human Powered Health. You can read the previous Built on Bikes piece on Human Powered Health to get the full picture of their platform and mission, but their leadership and experience in healthcare would be a valuable asset to Whoop moving forward. Whoop is already a partner for Human Powered Health’s Women’s WorldTour team, so a relationship already exists between the two companies. A full acquisition could combine the platforms to provide the best health tracking metrics on the market.

Finally, a partnership with an internationally recognized health service would only bolster its position. Admittedly, this is not a claimed area of expertise for Built on Bikes, but there are options available. Last week we mentioned Maven Clinic, and a partnership with a similar company could certainly be an avenue Whoop pursues to align with global health and gain a stronger foothold in women’s health. It is important that Ōura has partnerships with healthcare entities including Johns Hopkins, Eli Lilly, and Mayo Clinic, but Whoop still has a chance to build this narrative internationally before Ōura can.

A new frontier

The world of connected health and fitness tracking is about to change rapidly with new IPOs, innovations, and partnerships. Two companies sitting at the forefront of that change are Whoop and Ōura. Cycling and endurance sports have an undeniable connection to the space, but only Whoop has made that population of consumers mission critical in its marketing strategies. There is something to be said about Ōura being the first to IPO, and it plays directly into their strategy of capturing the mass consumer in the United States and becoming the preferred wearable of women.

With Whoop likely to IPO in the near future, there are so many paths available to each company to achieve their mission and capture large swaths of market share. Both brands may stick to their guns and move forward with their current strategies, which are working just fine right now, or one can pivot to encroach on the other’s territory. Ōura seems poised to do so with athletic sponsorships and international expansion, while Whoop seems set to stick with its current strategies to become the definitive global health platform. We will see how the battle plays out, but consequences have real potential to affect endurance sports and cycling one way or another.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

More recently I have explored broader analysis, including research on the market implications of the Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift. While that piece shifted focus to the WorldTour, its core purpose remained the same: growing the sport in non-European markets and engaging more financial backers and fans. This week is another exercise in analyzing the upper levels of road racing to understand current market dynamics and identify ways to attract better financial support for the sport.

There are currently 55 teams competing across the Pro Continental and WorldTour levels of both men’s and women’s cycling. Between them there are over 173 sponsorship positions at the title and primary sponsor levels. It is not a stretch to say the majority of these sponsors are not particularly well known outside of cycling. These sponsors certainly receive value from their team affiliations, but their overall impact on the sport is limited by the scale of their financial output. Grocery stores, flooring companies, and postal providers do not exactly signal financial prosperity in an era defined by tech and AI.

This week is a deep dive into the current sponsorship landscape of professional cycling. It will look at what types of businesses currently influence the sport, the financial implications of those sponsorships, and the market dynamics they create. It’s possible to have a future where professional cycling teams attract more tech-forward sponsors with deeper pockets, but understanding the current reality is the necessary first step toward making that pitch. So how do we get there?

Analysis methodology

There is a lot of ground to cover across 55 WorldTour and Pro Continental teams, so I was selective about which sponsors to include in the analysis. The main criteria fell into two buckets: influence and industry. The goal is to focus on sponsors with the most financial impact on a team and operate outside the cycling industry. With that in mind, the selection criteria varies between WorldTour and Pro Continental teams.

*The only cycling brands included in this analysis are those that serve as title sponsors, such as Lidl-Trek and Canyon-SRAM.

WorldTour

For all men’s and women’s WorldTour teams I selected all title sponsors and up to three non-cycling industry primary sponsors. WorldTour is the pinnacle of the sport and primary sponsors at this level can also contribute significantly to a team’s budget, so the inclusion criteria is relatively broad.

Pro Continental

Pro Continental teams have the ability to compete in select WorldTour events, meaning their sponsors can occasionally access the same benefits as WorldTour-level sponsors. These teams therefore attract more meaningful backing from outside brands, which warranted their inclusion in the dataset. That said, the drop-off in financial contribution and influence between title sponsors and primary sponsors is more pronounced at this level. For that reason, only title sponsors from Pro Continental teams are included in the analysis.

Timeframe

This analysis is a snapshot of the current professional cycling sponsor landscape, limited to 2026 sponsors. Understanding historic trends in cycling sponsorship would add value, but conducting that analysis reliably is beyond the resources of a solo author and researcher. The current snapshot is still worth examining on its own terms because it reveals the existing strengths and weaknesses of the system.

What are we trying to understand?

The primary goal is to understand where the bulk of money in professional cycling currently comes from, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the existing sponsorship model, define what makes a good sponsor, and use that knowledge to engage better sponsors that will modernize the sport and ultimately bring more capital into its development.

As we work through the sponsorship data the goal is to start with the basics, identify surface-level trends, and then go deeper into the more interesting findings before zooming out to think about what the future of professional cycling sponsorship could look like.

The raw data

Geographical composition

The most basic question we can ask is where sponsorship money comes from and who is behind it. As expected, Europe leads with 72.4% of sponsors headquartered there. Asia represents 14.9%, though the breakdown skews heavily toward Gulf states, with 14 sponsors from countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain compared to only five from East Asian countries like China and Japan. North America accounts for just 9% of sponsors, with the remaining roughly 4% split between South Africa and Australia.

Key geographical takeaways:

• Gulf states punch well above their weight, with UAE alone accounting for 10 sponsoring entities

• France leads all individual countries with 21 sponsoring entities, followed by Belgium with 13

• Latin America and Africa have virtually no representation

Industry composition

Across the 55 teams, the industries that sponsors operate in varies greatly, but some clear groupings emerge across the pelotons.

• Financial and insurance institutions: Stifel, Rabobank, Caja Rural, Groupama, AG Insurance

• Grocery and discount retail: Lidl, Intermarché, Jumbo, Rema 1000, Picnic, Decathlon

• Energy and utilities: Total Energies, Ineos, Uno-X, Bapco, XRG, Suez, Burpellet

• Technology: Visma, ServiceNow, Netcompany, Webex, Mistral AI, Protime

Financial institutions represent the largest portion of sponsors, followed by industrial companies, cycling title sponsors, and a broad range of consumer brands. Technology companies have only recently emerged as a sponsorship category within the peloton, but it is clear that teams now actively seek technology partners, particularly those that can directly impact team performance.

The surface-level findings

Concentrated funding

One of the first things you will notice when looking at professional cycling sponsors is that the number of truly unique funders is smaller than the total sponsor count suggests. The reason comes down to multiple individual sponsors belonging to three distinct clusters where money ultimately traces back to a single entity: families, sovereign states, and conglomerates.

Within the WorldTour, two multi-entity families control a significant portion of funding across two teams. The Norwegian Reitan family controls Uno-X and Rema 1000, and the Australian Ryan family owns Jayco, Mitchelton, and Let’s Go. Within Jayco Alula and Uno-X, funding is effectively controlled by one wealthy family with a passion for cycling and a clear interest in sports marketing. This is not a new concept and ties directly to a recurring theme on Built on Bikes: wealthy individuals with a genuine personal interest in the sport are exactly the kind of backers we should be actively pursuing.

Perhaps the most dominant cluster in professional cycling is the proliferation of state-backed enterprises and sovereign wealth funds. This is not a new topic and has been covered at length by major cycling publications in the context of sportwashing and financial inequality among professional teams. The most prominent examples center on the United Arab Emirates, which has direct ties to numerous sponsors including XRG, G42, First Abu Dhabi Bank, L’IMAD, NMDC Group, and Emirates. Saudi Arabia has direct links to AlUla, Bahrain influences Bapco Energies, Mumtalakat, and Beyon. Other state-backed sponsors include FDJ United, where France holds a minority stake, Kazakhstan through Astana and Samruk-Kazyna, and Belgium through its national lottery, Lotto.

Finally, conglomerates play the biggest role within French teams, with FDJ United controlling Unibet through acquisition and Groupama owning Plus Gan.

Little transparency on funding - who signs the check

Valuing the sponsors of professional cycling is nearly impossible because the vast majority of companies represented are not publicly traded. There is nothing wrong with that, but it does make it difficult to quantify what professional cycling actually delivers to these companies financially. The breakdown between public and private sponsors does tell us something meaningful about the types of businesses that sponsor cycling, particularly across the different tiers of the sport. The following are the percentages of sponsors with no publicly available revenue figures, broken down by tier.

• Men’s WorldTour: 36%

• Women’s WorldTour: 43%

• Men’s Pro Continental: 90%

• Women’s Pro Continental: 77%

The drop-off between WorldTour and Pro Continental is steep. Almost no Pro Continental sponsors publish financial information, while the majority of WorldTour sponsors do to some degree. The difference comes down to how businesses justify a sponsorship as a marketing expense. Public companies have shareholders to answer to and any major marketing decision falls on the CMO to defend. Private companies may only need sign-off from their founder, especially when the founder is the one driving the sponsorship in the first place.

This explains the breakdown fairly cleanly. WorldTour teams are established organizations with years of financial return data and dedicated resources to help justify the expense for public companies. Sponsoring a Pro Continental team is far less expensive and generates less short-term visibility, making it harder to justify through a formal approval process. When a founder is the only sign-off needed, the bar for justification is simply lower.

That is actually a problem. It means sponsorship at the Pro Continental and Continental levels is still too difficult to justify through conventional channels. Both divisions are essential to the development and growth of the sport, and finding better financial backers at this level of the pyramid needs to be part of the solution.

The WorldTour has large backers with relatively low commitment

Looking at the highest earning organizations sponsoring WorldTour teams, it is clear the sport can attract major sponsors, but the spread of earnings and distribution of capital across teams varies considerably. Below are the top sponsoring entities at the WorldTour and Pro Continental levels ranked by revenue. The distribution is heavily top-weighted, though more revenue does not automatically translate to more money for a team.

Digging deeper - the edge cases

The surface-level findings give us useful context for thinking about the future of professional cycling sponsorship, but a few data points deserve a closer look. Each focuses on individual teams and their unique sponsor dynamics. These teams may not be the most decorated in their respective pelotons, but each reveals something meaningful about the world of cycling sponsorship, whether it is a structural weakness or an original approach to financial backing.

Ma Petite Entreprise

Admittedly I did not know much about this women’s Pro Continental team before researching this article, but now that I do I am genuinely fascinated. Entrepreneurship is the defining ethos of this team and they represent it authentically. The team operates on an open sponsorship model with crowdsourced backing, meaning any business can become a tiered sponsor based on their financial commitment. The team already has 708 official partners and recently earned their place at the Tour de France Femmes. This team proves that massive corporate entities are not a requirement for success and that virtually any business can find value in sponsoring a cycling team.

Team Novo Nordisk

Team Novo Nordisk is the one Pro Continental team with a truly major enterprise title sponsor, and the relationship works on entirely different terms than a conventional sponsorship. For Novo Nordisk this is not about direct financial return, it is a proof of concept. The team’s roster is made up of riders with diabetes, making the sponsorship a demonstration of what the company’s products make possible for athletes managing the condition. Novo Nordisk receives brand trust and product validation in return. It raises a useful question: what other companies could benefit from a similarly mission-driven approach?

FDJ

FDJ fields a successful program, but it also illustrates a risk that affects teams across the professional cycling landscape. FDJ alone is the title sponsor of three teams: their men’s and women’s WorldTour squads and Unibet-Rose Rockets. With the Rockets’ recent success it seems likely they will join the WorldTour before long, meaning one entity would control title sponsorship across three premier teams. FDJ has state ties which reduce the risk of financial failure, but the risk of them exiting cycling altogether remains, and if that happened three teams would lose significant backing simultaneously. It is a clear argument for why cycling needs to diversify its sponsor base.

The takeaways

The goal of this exercise is to identify an ideal sponsor profile for every level of professional cycling that expands the field of potential sponsors and modernizes cycling’s image through the inclusion of more tech-forward title partners. Looking at the current landscape, an attractive sponsor has a brand presence in European markets, is consumer-focused, faces minimal internal hurdles to securing sponsorship approval, and has some non-financial motivation such as sportswashing, product validation, or professional association with elite athletes.

The criteria for identifying good sponsors does not need to be reinvented, but the pool of organizations we apply it to does need to expand. My hypothesis is that the same criteria can apply to a much broader set of companies than grocery outlets, industrial firms, and state-run enterprises, which tend to register as dull to the average consumer regardless of where they are watching. With that in mind, it is time for one of my favorite exercises: getting entrepreneurial and throwing ideas into the conversation that nobody asked for.

Before diving into specific ideas, two caveats are worth noting. While compiling data for this article I conducted an interview for a future piece with a marketing executive from a mid-sized startup that had sponsored a premier endurance event. They noted that a reasonable allocation for that sponsorship was roughly 10% of their total marketing budget. The second caveat is that the example sponsorships discussed here will focus exclusively on privately held technology companies, similar to the one I spoke with. If the goal is to modernize sponsorship within the professional pelotons, this feels like the most logical starting point.

A tech-forward peloton

If you follow the venture capital landscape at all, you will know we are living through a period of record fundraises, early-stage check sizes, and elevated valuations. While most of that focus is on AI companies, other consumer tech companies still benefit from the same funding environment. This means there are genuine sponsorship opportunities for teams to pursue, including a host of companies that are US-based and sell globally. The goal is to identify businesses that can reasonably afford a sponsorship, benefit from it financially, and receive meaningful indirect returns in the process. To close out the piece, we will identify an example tech sponsor for every level of competition covered in this article.

Women’s WorldTour - Maven Clinic

If I were hired as a consultant to advise a WorldTour team on sponsorship strategy, this is the partnership I would present without hesitation. It is an opportunity that feels almost too obvious once you see it, and it makes complete sense if the goal is to reach new consumers and grow the fanbase.

Maven is the largest virtual clinic for women and family health, providing holistic care across a range of services. The company has raised over $425 million in venture funding from leading firms including Sequoia, General Catalyst, 8VC, and Dragoneer. The cost of a title sponsorship slot on a Women’s WorldTour team would represent a modest line item for a company at this scale, but the value of the affiliation would be substantial for both sides.

Maven is not new to sports sponsorship, with existing ties to the NWSL, but partnering with a premier Women’s WorldTour team would be a significant step toward reaching international audiences. We know that women’s sports are exceptionally effective at engaging consumers, and we know that the Tour de France Femmes is one of the premier events in women’s sport globally. Maven’s mission is to provide better healthcare to women and families, and affiliation with elite endurance athletes would go a long way in building consumer trust, credibility, and willingness to engage with their services.

Such a sponsorship would also represent a meaningful moment for women’s cycling. A leading female-founded startup backed by investors who have funded companies like Apple, Airbnb, and NVIDIA would bring a new level of visibility to an already rapidly growing division of the sport. There is a longer version of this pitch that deserves its own piece, but the core argument is straightforward: this sponsorship makes sense for Maven, it makes sense for women’s cycling, and it is hard to understand why it has not happened yet.

Men’s WorldTour - Tourlane

Displacing the established partners of top men’s WorldTour teams is unlikely, but in the middle of the field there is a real opportunity for a new sponsor to enter the sport and modernize the image of a competitive program. This company may not land a title sponsor slot, but it could make a strong case as a co-title sponsor.

German company Tourlane connects travelers with handpicked travel experts to organize customized, authentic experiences. The company has raised over €110 million from investors including Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, HV Capital, and Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, making it a well-backed European startup with genuine growth momentum.

Given the nature of their product, Tourlane’s consumer audience skews toward wealthier individuals, a demographic that is well represented among cycling fans in both the United States and Europe. Travel companies acting as team sponsors are not without precedent in professional cycling, with newer Pro Continental sponsor Modern Adventure being a recent example. Tourlane has the opportunity to reach a broader consumer audience and collaborate with a team to create elevated training camp experiences that feed directly into team media and marketing content. It may not be as immediately striking as the Maven pitch, but the underlying logic is just as sound.

Women’s Pro Continental - Bloom & Wild

The consumer demographic angle is a factor in the marketing potential here, but it was not the sole reason for this pick. As we have already seen, the drop-off in sponsor profile and funding potential between WorldTour and Pro Continental is steep, but that creates an opening for sponsors to get more value for their investment.

Bloom and Wild uses technology, AI, supply chain innovation, and product design to make sending and receiving flowers a genuinely better experience for both parties. The company serves prominent European markets and has raised over €190 million in venture funding from firms including General Catalyst and Index Ventures. A title sponsorship on a Women’s Pro Continental team would almost certainly represent less than 10% of their marketing budget while meaningfully improving the team’s financial backing.

If Bloom and Wild took the EF approach and collaborated with a team to create a striking floral kit design, it could put a previously unknown team in front of a much larger audience almost overnight. As with Maven, this one is hard to argue against.

Men’s Pro Continental - Jump

This pitch is not quite ready for the market today, but French startup Jump presents a compelling opportunity worth flagging for the future. Jump is a freelance umbrella and payroll company that aims to make freelancing more accessible and practical. The company has raised around €15 million to date, but with Index Ventures on their cap table the trajectory looks promising.

Once Jump raises its next round, sponsoring a Men’s Pro Continental team could be a meaningful step toward reaching more French consumers. Freelance work is common within the cycling industry, so a brand that positions itself alongside a sport many freelancers already love would have a natural entry point with that audience.

For road cycling, the world is its oyster

A lot of ground has been covered in this piece, but it is clear the sport can be doing far more to identify, pitch, and convert new sponsors that will bring a new wave of legitimacy and investment to cycling. Venture-backed consumer tech startups present a real opportunity to get creative with title sponsorships and turn them into genuine partnerships rather than logo placements. The most compelling potential lies in women’s cycling. Both sponsorship pitches for women’s teams practically wrote themselves, which is itself a signal worth paying attention to. With teams like Ma Petite Entreprise already proving that creativity drives success, it is yet another reminder that cycling should be approaching business opportunities with the same inventiveness it brings to the sport itself rather than defaulting to the status quo.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

Last weekend I attended Lauf Gravel Worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska with some of my favorite people from across the US cycling scene. The primary reason for attending was to once again provide photography and media coverage for the Mach1 Devo team. Since spending time with Mach1 at Unbound Gravel, having the chance to support the team and tell the stories of its riders has quickly become one of the most rewarding things I do through Built on Bikes. With Lauf being both the title sponsor of Gravel Worlds and the bike sponsor of Mach1, this was a chance to see firsthand how a foreign brand is having a meaningful impact on cycling development in the United States.

Beyond that, Gravel Worlds gave me the opportunity to observe the production and logistics of a major race outside the Life Time Grand Prix ecosystem. Two names familiar to Built on Bikes readers were leading the charge as standout contributors to the event. Movemint was the official event organization partner and Leni Carrillo of Holy Spirit of Gravel was one of four presenters for the event’s livestream.

Being on the ground gave me perspective on every aspect of a race weekend, from organization and execution to the riders who make it all possible. We will look at what makes Lauf Gravel Worlds work and pull out the lessons from the weekend that could inform more effective approaches to growing cycling in the United States.

The livestream

While I was out on course for most of the day capturing photos of Mach1 riders, I was back at the start and finish area for a couple of hours before the conclusion of the pro men’s and women’s races. While waiting for the finishes, most of my time was spent eating the famously free Gravel Worlds hot dogs and watching the event livestream. Having watched the Leadville 100 MTB livestream the week prior, one thing was immediately apparent: the Gravel Worlds broadcast was noticeably more engaging and entertaining than the Life Time production.

The difference had nothing to do with the quality, organization, or logistics of the stream. Gravel Worlds was using the same production company that Life Time uses for Grand Prix broadcasts (BCC Live), meaning the images on screen look no different from a Life Time event. So why was this one so much more compelling to watch? Being at the event in a lively atmosphere could have contributed to my experience, but the livestream genuinely had me tuning out everything happening around me. The reason had everything to do with the people announcing the race.

The four main presenters were Lauren Hall and Pete Stetina in the broadcast booth, with Leni Carrillo and Amanda Nauman Sheek providing on-the-ground coverage and commentary. It is worth noting that Lauren Hall was also part of the broadcast team at Leadville, which makes the question even more interesting: how can two productions be so similar on the surface yet feel so different?

Unscripted

After following Life Time events virtually and on the ground for the last few years, I inevitably started hearing stories about the inner workings of the livestreams and production strategies. One thing that has come up consistently is how Life Time broadcasts follow a more rigid framework for race commentary and analysis.

Sarah Sturm offered some insight on her podcast, Talking Over You. She explained that commentators are given binders with detailed breakdowns of riders, series storylines, course information, host town context, and more. Each Life Time stream also features significant ad placement from presenting sponsors, meaning a set formula must be followed to fulfill those obligations.

This structure makes complete sense given the dynamics and branding of the Life Time Grand Prix. The series is positioned as the premier off-road race series in the US and the livestream presentation aims to mirror the broadcast feel of top-level events like the Tour de France. Because the same field of riders competes across every race, the broadcast has an obligation to track the stories and narratives that develop over the course of a season while also delivering play-by-play commentary. With sponsor commitments layered on top, the formula exists to ensure the right information reaches the viewer within the time available.

There is nothing wrong with this style of broadcast, and the strategy clearly meets the needs of Life Time, but it may not be the most effective format for engaging new fans. The Gravel Worlds broadcast still delivered professional race and rider analysis, but it also offered a more intimate view of the peloton through commentary from Pete, Leni, and Amanda. These three presenters are deeply embedded in the culture of American gravel racing and can draw on that knowledge to provide behind the scenes perspective in almost any situation.

Whether it comes from personal relationships with riders, experience as a former competitor, or a thorough understanding of what the average gravel fan actually cares about, the three worked together to create commentary that was both accessible and genuinely compelling. As Leni would say, this vibes-based commentary does a better job of conveying what it actually feels like to be at the event alongside the fans and riders. Watching from home, you feel more connected to the race and its culture than you would watching a straight play-by-play that could belong to any other sporting event. The absence of a rigid script, counterintuitively, allows for better storytelling.

Female led

Three of the four presenters were women and this dynamic had a clear impact on how the race was presented. Life Time, the Women’s WorldTour, and other cycling events do feature female commentators, but the proportion of male commentators on most cycling broadcasts remains at 50% or higher. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but with a majority female presenting team Gravel Worlds was able to bring a broader range of perspectives than most cycling broadcasts manage.

Combined with the absence of a rigid script, the topics, conversations, and insights from the Gravel Worlds stream were noticeably richer, drawing on background knowledge and contextual detail that viewers rarely hear during a sporting broadcast. Coverage of the men’s and women’s races felt genuinely equal, and the analysis of the women’s race in particular painted a much more vivid picture of the peloton’s dynamics. The stream stayed completely focused on the high-level pro competition while still keeping the spirit of gravel intact, engaging viewers in a way that felt true to what the sport actually is.

Lauf’s commitment to growing gravel racing

Another major takeaway from Gravel Worlds is how long Lauf has been invested in the development of gravel in the United States. 2026 marked the tenth year of Lauf serving as the presenting sponsor of Gravel Worlds, and the impact of that investment is yet another example of how brands that commit early to the foundation of a sport will reap the rewards.

Including Unbound Gravel, the bike I saw most at the last two races I attended was the Lauf Seigla. Lauf is an Icelandic company with a lean operating team, which makes their penetration of the American market a strong signal to other emerging bike brands. Lauf built this success by being an early mover in gravel, an early innovator with their gravel suspension fork, and now a first touchpoint for many developing riders through their sponsorship of numerous development teams across the sport.

Mach1 Devo, Distance to Empty, and Lunchbox Racing are just a few of the programs Lauf supports, and it is safe to assume that athletes from at least one of these teams will be at any major gravel event in the United States. When all these teams show up to a race, a significant portion of participating athletes are riding Lauf bikes, meaning spectators and fellow competitors alike are seeing the brand and associating it with both performance and opportunity.

Beyond achieving higher visibility through their athletes, I saw firsthand how Lauf representatives build genuine personal relationships with athletes at every level, not just the pro field. It was impressive to see multiple U23 riders walk up to the Lauf expo tent and immediately fall into easy conversation with Lauf’s Director of Marketing, Dana Rún Hákonardóttir. The conversations were not surface level and every rider seemed genuinely happy to catch up with her. This kind of investment in developing athletes builds early brand loyalty that is difficult to manufacture any other way. Even if riders move on to other brands later in their careers, they will remember the platform Lauf gave them and speak well of the brand for years to come.

Beyond direct athlete support, being an early backer of grassroots events like Gravel Worlds means Lauf now has its name attached to one of the sport’s most prestigious races, which also carries the largest single-day prize purse for the professional field. The success did not happen overnight, but Lauf’s early and sustained investment in the American gravel scene has made them synonymous with the discipline. More than any other brand in the market, Lauf is seen first and foremost as a gravel bike company. This will not be the last time I write about them, but Lauf’s approach in the United States makes a compelling case for why brands should be investing at the developmental level of the sport.

Seeing Movemint in action

It is no secret that I gravitate toward the people and organizations that have given me the opportunity to tell their stories on Built on Bikes, but when I return to the same subjects repeatedly it is because I have become a genuine believer in their mission. Almost from day one, Movemint has sat at the top of that list. If you are not familiar with what Movemint is, read my previous story on their product, mission, and team and then come back.

Months ago, Movemint Founder Zack Isaacs told me that Movemint would be the official event platform for Gravel Worlds. From that point on, Gravel Worlds came up in nearly every conversation I had with the team. Knowing that Zack and Movemint’s Marketing and Community Manager, Rosie Cruz, would both be at the event and collaborating with Holy Spirit of Gravel made me genuinely curious to see how it would all come together in person.

Almost a week removed from the event I have been fixated on how distinctive Movemint’s presence was. I cannot recall another event where the company responsible for registration was physically present and actively working alongside volunteers to ensure packet pickup, event updates, and other operations ran smoothly. Beyond that, Zack and Rosie were out at the expo every day engaging with participants, brands, and athletes throughout the weekend.

If that were not already going above and beyond, Rosie had collaborated with Leni to create a brand activation that quickly became one of the leading storylines of the event. The two designed hats featuring some of Holy Spirit of Gravel’s most iconic phrases, including “Gravel Normie” and “Packet pickup was dialed.” With Rosie filming a walking livestream of Leni around the venue, securing one of those hats became an immediate priority for everyone present, myself included.

Movemint not only elevated the experience for organizers and participants, they did something no other event platform has managed: they became an active member and genuine contributor to the culture of gravel cycling. Before the event was even over, the Gravel Worlds team had asked Movemint to prepare registration for 2027. It was a clear testament to what happens when storytelling and community building are treated as central to the product rather than an afterthought.

What is the correct format for U23 gravel racing?

Being at Gravel Worlds with a development team meant that much of my focus was on their races and observing how Gravel Worlds approached U23 racing compared to an event like Unbound. The biggest difference was that Gravel Worlds had elite U23 athletes starting alongside the unrestricted elite fields. Unbound has a separate start and a different course for U23 athletes, and it is the only Life Time event that follows that format. I had originally argued that separating the fields might be the better approach, but Gravel Worlds shifted my thinking and gave me a clearer sense of what format actually works best for different types of events.

Speaking with Mach1 riders, several mentioned that they prefer being mixed in with the pro field at a race like Gravel Worlds. It is genuinely a chance for them to perform on a big livestream, test their fitness and skills against the best in the sport, and learn in real time. The common argument against this format is that 150 and 200 mile races can feel too long for younger riders. For events of that length, a separate start with a shorter distance becomes a much more attractive option.

When I spoke with Hayden Christian, he noted that in XCO mountain biking, being mixed into the pro field quickly loses its value and becomes a race for survival. Given the short and punchy nature of XCO, it makes sense that younger riders simply do not yet have the accumulated training to keep up. In gravel the same logic applies to races exceeding 120 miles. Riders with nearly a decade of training in their legs carry a significant advantage in long and grueling events.

This leads me to believe there could be clear thresholds for when a gravel or off-road event should mix U23 athletes with the pro field versus separating them, assuming there is a large enough U23 field to make a separate category viable. Gravel Worlds sits at the outer limit of what works for U23 competition, but I observed something close to the best of both worlds. U23 riders were well integrated with the pro field for the first half of the race and then naturally separated to create their own race dynamics in the latter half.

Development teams play a vital role in combating burnout

I have spoken endlessly about the importance of development teams for the growth of the sport and for sponsors, but some subtle interactions over the course of the weekend made me appreciate teams like Mach1 even more. I witnessed several athletes expressing interest in joining Mach1 and speaking with Nina about positions on the team. I do not want to make assumptions about their motivations, but it was clear that one of the most appealing aspects of Mach1 was the team camaraderie and sense of community it offers.

Gravel racing can be an incredibly isolating sport for young athletes. Hours of training alone, traveling to small towns off the beaten path, and navigating stressful race weekends without peers to decompress with is genuinely taxing and carries a real risk of burnout. I can only speak to what I have witnessed with Mach1, but the team environment and community they build throughout an entire race weekend brings out the best in every athlete.

I am not even a competing athlete, but having traveled to several races alone for Built on Bikes, I am grateful every time I get to experience a race weekend in the company of the Mach1 team. As we talk about growing the next generation of gravel cyclists, this detail cannot be overlooked.

Final verdict

Gravel Worlds offered an alternative look at what live gravel coverage can be. It is entirely possible to make a 150 mile race watchable and engaging from start to finish. American gravel is its own distinct discipline and trying to present these events in formats that mirror classic European cycling broadcasts may be holding the sport back in the US. By assembling a broadcast crew that includes voices who genuinely connect with casual fans, the Gravel Worlds stream made a strong case for vibes-based livestreaming as a legitimate format.

The event was a culmination of community and storytelling that put authenticity ahead of polished professionalism. Lauf is demonstrating how brands should approach development investment and actively reaping the rewards of the brand capital that follows. It is not a perfect event, but Gravel Worlds illustrated how different production can look across the American gravel circuit. The production infrastructure is already there to deliver professional live coverage of a long off-road event. The next step is refining the presentation and making the livestream more approachable, first to a broader cycling audience and then to a wider one beyond that.

Finally, a well deserved shout out to Roston Nordell on finishing second in the 300 mile event, Lily Zakaras on finishing third in the 75 mile event, Zane Koogler for contesting the overall win in the men’s 75 mile race, and Oskar Stack-Michasiw on a strong race in the elite men’s field. On Zane’s result specifically, course routing issues resulted in two separate finishing sprints for the event, which added an unusual wrinkle to an otherwise impressive ride.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

In my last piece reflecting on one year of Built on Bikes, I explained how I envision pairing my storytelling with select brands to create knowledge partnerships that can drive real change in America’s cycling development pipelines. It is an ambitious goal and convincing brands to come on board will not be easy. Part of my pitch will be about the value I can bring to a brand directly, but also about highlighting how investing in development programs could prove to be a sustainable and genuinely effective marketing opportunity.

The idea that brands can benefit from investing in development is not a new claim and has been touched on in previous Built on Bikes articles, but it is a topic I have never fully explored. What does success actually look like? What are the tangible benefits for brands that invest? Does the same strategy work across different types of brands? These are questions that need real answers before any brand commits to a development initiative.

The short answer is that sponsoring development programs creates early brand loyalty among the young riders who benefit directly. Beyond those riders spreading the word to family and friends, it gives brands an early entry point to identify supremely talented athletes who might otherwise be overlooked. If a brand is in the corner of the next breakout athlete, an entire generation of cyclists could grow up with that brand at the forefront of the sport.

These dynamics point back to one of my favorite topics: collegiate cycling programs. Collegiate programs present a compelling opportunity for forward-thinking brands to actively support domestic development, expand their brand footprint, and scout talent that could represent them for years to come. This piece will outline the rationale, the economics, and a practical action plan for brands considering a collegiate sponsorship.

Why investing in development works in the United States

Defining the scope of this pitch matters because it will not work for every brand depending on their objectives. If a brand sponsors a collegiate program, finds a talented athlete, and sponsors their professional career, that relationship will only hold if the athlete pursues a career within the United States. If a rider has a natural talent for road racing, going pro typically means joining a team with established sponsors that will make individual brand partnerships redundant. The hard truth is that athletes pursuing road or mountain bike careers at the highest level will likely be absorbed into teams with long-standing sponsor commitments.

That reality is real, but it does not tell the whole story. Professional careers built around the individual athlete are thriving in the United States. Across all disciplines, but especially off-road, the privateer model has become the default path for a growing number of young athletes. This is where early brand loyalty pays dividends. If a rider bursts onto the scene after years on a certain bike or in a certain kit, long-term partnerships generate genuine visibility across entire audience segments of a given discipline. If a sponsorship starts with something as simple as providing a free bike, the return on that investment can be substantial.

None of this is new and I am not reinventing the wheel, but to date most brands seem to be finding one-off sponsorships with young athletes they happen to encounter at events. That is not a bad strategy, but the talent pool is limited and the competition for junior sponsorships is fierce. Collegiate programs offer a more systematic approach, allowing brands to sponsor a larger number of athletes and play an active role in their development as they take the next step toward a professional career.

One pushback to this pitch might be the rapid rise of professional and development teams in disciplines like gravel, which could recreate the same sponsor saturation problem we see in road cycling. It’s a risk, but it could actually be a significant opportunity. Sponsoring a collegiate program gives brands something close to a development team while maintaining a relatively hands-off approach to the development process itself. Athletes at well-resourced universities already have access to coaching, facilities, and support structures that other factory teams would have to fund directly.

Professional level teams in off-road disciplines are anything but rigidly defined, which means brands without a team at the professional level can sponsor collegiate athletes and remain agile in how they support those athletes as they transition from collegiate to professional careers.

What does sponsoring a collegiate program look like?

As with so many topics covered on Built on Bikes, it depends. Ultimately it comes down to the budget and scope of sponsorship a brand has in mind when entering the market to partner with collegiate programs. Scope is the key word, because what a collegiate cycling program looks like can vary considerably. Considerations include:

• Whether a school has a varsity program or a club program

• Whether a brand wants to sponsor one or both

• What disciplines are predominantly raced by the athletes in a given program

• Whether it makes more sense to sidestep pure cycling programs and sponsor a triathlon program at a major Division I university instead

• How involved a brand wants to be in athlete development and direct support

Working through each of these points makes it clear that there are almost endless approaches a brand can take when sponsoring collegiate programs, making this an investment area that can work for brands of nearly any size.

Varsity and club teams

The difference between collegiate varsity and club teams has been covered at length in previous pieces, so this section will only outline the considerations a brand needs to weigh when it comes to program type. If a brand chooses to partner with a university that has only a varsity or only a club program, the scope of their commitment and the goals they want to achieve through the partnership are relatively straightforward to define.

Sponsoring a varsity team means direct access to athletes who have already developed to a level where they compete in higher level competitions. Brands can be confident these athletes are serious cyclists with the ability to show up at high-level events with meaningful university support behind them. Team coaches serve as a direct line of communication to keep a brand informed on which athletes might pursue a professional career and would be ideal candidates for a longer-term individual sponsorship.

Sponsoring a club team comes with more variables. Skill level, commitment, university support, coaching quality, and athlete access can vary considerably depending on the school. Partnering with a club team reflects a more grassroots commitment to getting more people on bikes, while still offering the possibility of working alongside high-level athletes who may have chosen a particular university for reasons beyond cycling rather than pursuing a varsity program elsewhere. Brands need to do more research upfront and should understand this is more likely to be marketing through enablement than through athlete influence. The opportunity to find a future star is still real at the club level, particularly if a brand can gain access to varsity athletes competing in other sports who might be naturally suited for cycling.

If a brand sponsors a university with both a varsity and a club team, a choice has to be made between supporting one program or both. Fort Lewis College has demonstrated how a close relationship between club and varsity programs can breed broader success, but supporting both also means significantly more athletes to provide product access and support to. Costs can escalate quickly, though one practical solution would be to provide free product to varsity athletes and offer club athletes a meaningful discount to incentivize adoption.

Budget and involvement

Taking a program’s size and breadth into account significantly affects the decision making process for bike brands, particularly for smaller brands still in a growth phase. If a program like Fort Lewis College has varsity and club teams competing across road, gravel, and mountain bike, then sponsorship can take many forms.

If a brand has a full line of bikes covering each discipline, do they provide bikes to every team, just one, or a mix of the three? The material cost of supplying product across multiple teams can add up quickly and create meaningful short-term financial pressure for a brand. It is important that a brand defines its commitment from the outset and makes its intentions clear to the program coordinator early. Collegiate programs receive very little support to begin with, so any sponsorship will be welcomed, but establishing clear operating guidelines will strengthen the relationship between brand representatives and program coordinators over time.

Brands should also be open to signing non-exclusive partnership deals, especially if their product line does not cover every discipline. Many brands carry gravel and road lines but not mountain bikes. If brands are willing to support a program alongside other brands with complementary product lines, the rising tide lifts all ships principle applies here as much as anywhere.

The final economic consideration is the depth of involvement a brand commits to. If a brand sees collegiate competition as a pathway to developing future professional talent, it will need to play an active role in that development to create genuine brand loyalty. Give an athlete a bike and they will be grateful. Give them a bike and become a meaningful factor in their development and they will carry a real bond with your brand into their professional career.

As Hayden Christian explained in his Built on Bikes interview, money was the deciding factor in his choice to pursue a privateer career rather than join a collegiate program. Joining a collegiate program would have meant paying dues to cover travel and equipment costs, whereas a privateer brand would cover those costs directly. This is a structural weakness in the collegiate landscape that brands are uniquely positioned to address.

If brands have the financial resources to support program operations including travel, coaching, and general program costs, they could quickly attract top talent back into the collegiate system. Having spent time among junior athletes it is clear that a college education remains a priority for the majority of them, but balancing academics with a privateer career is extremely difficult. Development teams like Mach1 Devo and the ENVE Mog Squad are creating alternative pathways, but there will never be enough of these teams to support the growing number of athletes entering the sport. More professionally supported collegiate programs provide the right infrastructure, and brands should be leading the charge to build it.

Triathlon team sponsorship

Another topic covered in depth on this newsletter is how women’s collegiate triathlon has achieved NCAA classification, meaning high-level endurance athletes are now competing at large, marketable Division I institutions. I have not found a comprehensive study on the percentage of female cyclists who opt to join collegiate triathlon teams versus pure cycling programs, but my hunch is that triathlon pulls talent away from cycling because of its NCAA classification and the prevalence of teams at prominent academic institutions.

The goal should be to have cycling and triathlon programs at all NCAA institutions, but until then, triathlon cannot be ignored as a space where cycling brands can have real impact. Even at Division I universities, it is rare for triathlon teams to have an official bike sponsor. Athletes are still expected to source their own bikes and equipment for competition and training. It is hard to imagine a triathlon program turning down support from a bike brand, particularly if that brand creates room to encourage athletes to enter pure cycling events when they are not competing in triathlon.

The idea is not that every athlete would be steered toward cycling as their primary discipline, but that programs and brands could work together to identify particularly gifted athletes for whom a cycling career might be genuinely viable. By default, NCAA triathlon programs cover costs associated with operations and travel to triathlon events, so for a select few athletes, brands could easily absorb the cost of supporting travel to and entry in cycling events. An added benefit for universities is that these athletes would represent their school at cycling events, effectively creating an unofficial varsity cycling program. With women’s cycling offering more professional opportunities than ever, NCAA women’s triathlon partnerships deserve serious consideration from cycling brands.

What brands can benefit the most from collegiate sponsorships?

There is something to be gained from sponsoring collegiate programs for any cycling brand, most importantly a reputation for supporting the growth of the sport in America. While that benefit applies equally across brands, certain companies stand to generate greater impact and achieve more visibility through a collegiate partnership. Bike brands would be the greatest beneficiaries.

Bike brands have the most to gain by making the sport more accessible to athletes, upgrading the single most essential piece of equipment for competition, and bringing the deepest pockets and most experience when it comes to athlete support. Being the primary piece of equipment means bike brands will also receive the most visibility and recognition for their contributions. If a collegiate team is active in their local community or on campus, people who see athletes riding around will make an instant connection to the brand and are more likely to consider that company’s products when they enter the bike market.

Whether a bike brand is an industry giant or a relative newcomer also influences how effective a collegiate sponsorship program can be. There is a reason major brands like Trek, Specialized, and Giant are not sponsoring collegiate programs: they simply do not see the need. If these brands can afford to sponsor WorldTour and World Cup teams, marketing at a level as granular as collegiate cycling is not an obvious priority. That said, I would argue these brands have reached a maturity level where doing something genuinely mission-driven could actually help revive brand image beyond their status as industry giants.

At the other end of the spectrum, collegiate sponsorship for very small brands carries the risk of straining finances at critical moments during a growth phase. For this reason, mid-sized bike brands are uniquely positioned to benefit from sponsoring a collegiate program. Their operations have matured to the point where they can provide inventory to athletes without putting the business at risk, but they are not yet at a scale where they can afford to sponsor teams at the highest levels of the sport or recruit young talent simply by outspending the competition.

Other brands including nutrition, apparel, and component companies also benefit meaningfully from program sponsorship. All of these are products that require more frequent replacement and, in the case of nutrition, constant restocking that becomes costly for individual athletes. While these products may not earn the same recognition a bike brand would, within a collegiate program they would be seen as just as valuable given how frequently athletes interact with them. Even if athletes do not pursue a professional career after college, most will continue cycling. Brand loyalty to a bike company might result in one significant purchase every five to ten years, but loyalty to nutrition, apparel, and component brands compounds into monthly and yearly transactions over an entire athletic lifetime.

The bottom line is simple: any brand with a product relevant to endurance athletes has room to benefit from sponsoring a collegiate cycling program.

Practical examples

Since I have already been having these conversations with brands, it felt useful to go ahead and outline some of the ideas I have been developing. If a brand reads this and thinks it is worth pursuing, by all means take it and run with it. The goal is to grow collegiate cycling and if anything here can catalyze real action, that is a win. Here are some specific examples of what I believe to be effective development initiatives for both brands and collegiate programs.

Ventum x D1 triathlon program

Ventum is exactly the kind of mid-sized bike company that could benefit significantly from partnering with collegiate programs. I have already written about their unique philosophy toward athlete sponsorships, they have matured their operations into a formidable mid-sized bike manufacturer, and their reasonably priced bikes built for genuine performance make them a natural enabler of development.

Ventum now has the brand reputation and athlete roster to be an attractive partner to a top Division I triathlon program whose athletes are known to be elite endurance competitors. One of Ventum’s most successful athletes, Cecily Decker, came from ski mountaineering before finding cycling, which shows that Ventum already understands there are unconventional paths to a professional cycling career. Sponsoring a women’s triathlon program could serve as another scouting ground while building the brand’s reputation among female cyclists.

Ventum’s roots are also in triathlon. Their triathlon bikes are ridden by some of the best professional triathletes in the world and any Division I program would be glad to have access to them. If the trade is a fleet of top-tier bikes in exchange for Ventum having the opportunity to help certain athletes explore other cycling disciplines alongside their triathlon competition schedule, I think any program would take that deal.

Enervit x collegiate programs

This one is not even a suggestion, it is already happening. As I covered in my story on Enervit, the brand currently sponsors Humboldt State’s cycling program and the University of California Berkeley’s triathlon team. These partnerships give Enervit a meaningful connection to local communities and athletes as they expand their US footprint. You can read more about their collegiate efforts here.

The long-term effects of collegiate sponsorship

We have covered the benefits for brands in detail, but how would collegiate cycling be affected in the long run if brands start sponsoring programs? It is difficult to say with certainty and depends heavily on the scope of investment, but broadly speaking these sponsorships would bring more legitimacy and professionalism to collegiate cycling, which would in turn attract more talent directly into collegiate programs.

Beyond NCAA classification, one of the things that makes certain collegiate sports feel genuinely professional is high-level brand sponsorship. When top high school football recruits see a Division I program outfitted with full Nike endorsements and world-class facilities, it has a real impact on their decision making. Cycling should be no different. If an athlete is weighing a privateer career against joining a collegiate team, knowing they would have a dedicated bike sponsor at college could be a meaningful factor in that decision.

If sponsorship extends to discounts for club athletes, more talent will inevitably enter the pipeline and the strongest will rise to the top. In the broader mission to grow cycling in the United States, collegiate programs can and will have significant influence if they are given the resources to fulfill that potential. If you are a brand or collegiate program director who resonates with this pitch, reach out. I would love to connect, make introductions, and help in any way I can.

In other news

We finally have gravel stats

I am not sure who started this so I cannot give proper credit, but yesterday I came across Off Road Index. They describe themselves as a complete index of gravel and mountain bike race results, all in one place. While the site is still in its early stages, it is a meaningful step toward off-road racing having a comprehensive results resource comparable to what Pro Cycling Stats is for road cycling.

Lauf Gravel Worlds

Next weekend I will be in Lincoln, Nebraska for Lauf Gravel Worlds. If you will be there and want to connect, shoot me a message. I will be hanging with the Movemint team, Mach1 Devo, and Holy Spirit of Gravel, I can’t wait for some great times!

Ride and Rip,

Kyle Dawes

For three years leading up to starting this publication I was an avid, no, obsessed cyclist. The sport had become a cornerstone of my life and identity. I was spending over five hundred hours a year on two wheels training for races, religiously following the professional side of the sport, and consuming every form of cycling media I could find. I would not trade those years for anything. They gave me a deep understanding of the sport, the culture, the vernacular, and of myself, but I still felt like something was missing.

Every time I watched a race, read an article, or listened to a podcast I felt like I had something to add to the conversation. Up until last year cycling had been a form of self-discovery, but the desire for a deeper community in the sport had become too big to ignore. Local group rides and clubs were a great way to build that locally, but I was always dreaming of being involved with the sport in a way that was not limited to a few hours a week.

I had no idea how I would get there, but I knew that was the goal. I spent the summer of 2024 scheming ways to get more involved when I came across someone in my professional network who had paved his own way into professional cycling conversations. Craig Dalton was a venture capitalist in the San Francisco area and while researching his firm for my day job I discovered he was also the host of The Gravel Ride podcast.

I immediately reached out to set up a conversation and he gave me the nudge I needed. He told me to start putting my ideas out in the open through a newsletter or podcast. He said my knowledge had gone well beyond casual fandom and that if I talked about subjects the way I was talking to him, people would probably listen. I was skeptical, but through my professional experience up to that point I knew the best thing to do was stop planning and just start.

So that is what I did. I announced I would be writing a weekly newsletter and began reaching out to people in the cycling industry hoping they would give me the time of day. To my surprise they did, and 52 weeks later there have been 49 editions of Built on Bikes. Falling a few short of a perfect weekly cadence, but for a side project I do entirely for free, I would call that a pretty good batting average.

It has not been easy. Whether it was a rough week personally or an incredibly busy stretch at work, I spent countless hours writing on weeknights after full days at my day job. That part of the process could feel isolating, but the harder part was putting myself out there, sharing my own opinions, and opening myself up to criticism. I am so glad I did. Built on Bikes has changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. I am now firmly involved in the sport I love and have met some of the most remarkable people along the way.

As you have probably guessed, this piece looks back on the first year of Built on Bikes. I will be shouting out some people who helped me along the way, sharing my biggest takeaways, and outlining what I am working toward in year two.

First, some thank yous

I have put in the hard hours required to consistently release a weekly newsletter that dives deep into topics I care about, and I do not want to minimize that accomplishment, but it is truly only half of the equation. Without the willing cooperation and support of others, Built on Bikes would not exist. So many people have contributed to the success of this newsletter, but I wanted to call out a few individuals who have helped me enormously over the last year.

Seth Lareau — Seth is the author of Trail Waves, a wildly successful newsletter that covers similar topics to what I write about but for the world of trail running. Along with Craig Dalton, Seth was one of the people who inspired me to get Built on Bikes off the ground. He launched Trail Waves a month before I started Built on Bikes and was a proof of concept I looked up to from the start. To date he has sent more subscribers my way than any other publication and continues to be a great collaborator and friend on this journey. I cannot recommend following him and Trail Waves enough. His insights and perspectives are always on point.

Sam Huntington — Sam is the Founder of Hill Climbers and someone who reached out to me almost immediately when I launched Built on Bikes. Sam has not only brought me into the Hill Climbers network but given me meaningful opportunities to share my insights on developmental pipelines with individuals who can make a direct impact in the United States. The scope of our collaboration is only beginning and I cannot wait to see what we build together.

Leni Carrillo — You might know her better as Holy Spirit of Gravel, but I have come to know her as a great friend and fellow gravel nerd. While our content mediums are quite different, we constantly learn from one another and support each other’s goals. Leni has introduced me to countless people and made so many things possible for Built on Bikes. Leni, thank you for making the networking journey feel fun and for hours of unhinged, gravel-coded conversations.

Movemint — I have learned that the two biggest keys to succeeding within the world of endurance sports are authenticity and, most importantly, being a good person. The team behind Movemint embodies those values more than just about anyone I have met. I specifically want to thank Zack Isaacs, Rosie Cruz, and Rebecca Moll for their endless support, friendship, and dedication to making endurance events accessible to people of all backgrounds. I cannot wait to keep collaborating and repping your incredible work.

Andrew Vontz — Getting to know Andrew has been a full circle experience for me. Long before Built on Bikes, Andrew’s Substack and podcast were pieces of media I consumed regularly. Now I consider him a key collaborator and friend on this journey. From niche WorldTour jokes to San Francisco networking walks to fighting cancer with the same tenacity he brings to everything else, Andrew and I have been riding the waves of life and media together.

Nina Machnowski — I met Nina by sheer coincidence at Sea Otter earlier this year and knowing her and her development team at Mach1 has been a game changer for Built on Bikes. From providing a place to stay at races to letting me document her work in the developmental landscape, she has genuinely accelerated the impact and reach of this newsletter. I cannot wait to be back with the Mach1 team later this month at Lauf Gravel Worlds.

There are truly too many people to thank individually, but if you have been involved with a Built on Bikes story, provided a connection, or simply took the time to reach out, thank you.

Looking back on some cool moments

Before I dive into some of my biggest lessons and goals for the year ahead, I want to take a moment to highlight a few of the moments that had me pinching myself over the last twelve months.

Interviewing Sarah Sturm about collegiate development

Sarah was one of the first cyclists I started following when I got into the sport. I have always identified with her as a rider and looked up to her as someone who genuinely has a positive impact on cycling as a whole. At Big Sugar last year, Leni introduced us and I was later able to sit down with Sarah to talk about the importance of collegiate cycling programs. To this day that remains the story I feel most fortunate to have been able to tell.

Attending Big Sugar and Unbound Gravel as media

Being at premier events never gets less exciting. The energy, the community, the on-course coverage, and the networking all combine to feel like a family reunion. They are places where I can completely forget about the stresses of everyday life and just live and breathe cycling.

Partnering with Enervit

This is a recent development but it still feels unreal. If you had told me a year ago that the nutrition partner of Tadej Pogacar would be partnering with Built on Bikes I would have told you to seek help because you must be hallucinating. But here we are. The best part is not even the products, as good as they are. It is the fact that this is a genuine knowledge partnership and I am excited to share some of what we are working on together in the near future.

Photography

I have always loved photography, but having access to media credentials at Life Time events has allowed me to go well beyond hobbyist shooting. From being hired by Marin Bikes for product photography to capturing action shots of elite athletes, combining my two favorite pursuits has been incredibly rewarding.

What I’ve learned

Built on Bikes has changed my life in ways I could not have imagined, and that kind of impact does not come without some lessons along the way. Here are some of the most valuable things I have learned and what success can look like for a publication like Built on Bikes.

Nothing will beat boots on the ground presence

I am extremely fortunate to have enough financial flexibility to fly myself out to events, but it has certainly been a learning exercise in grit and investing in myself. When I went to Big Sugar last year I bought the cheapest flights I could find, packed everything into a single backpack, and rented the most affordable Airbnb available. Even then it was not a financially comfortable decision, but investing in that trip and every trip since has paid off with returns that far exceeded the cost.

For my goals there is really no such thing as competition. A rising tide lifts all boats when it comes to growing the sport of cycling. But when you are quite literally a random person with a Substack and a dream, it can be hard to get in front of the right people digitally, and even harder to connect with people you do not even know exist yet. Physically showing up has allowed me to stand out from the many other inquiries industry professionals receive and meet people I would never have come across online.

I hope to not always have to fund my own way to every race or event, but I have learned that the investment will always be worth it when there is no other option. Cycling is all about community and nothing matters more than face to face interaction.

Help others to help yourself

Surprisingly, my favorite part of running Built on Bikes has been playing the role of connector. I am lucky to have the freedom to explore any topic I want in a given week, which means I have had the pleasure of meeting people from almost every corner of the industry. When I am speaking with someone about a topic or challenge they are working through, it is genuinely rewarding to be able to connect them with someone who can actually help. That simple act has opened more doors for me than almost anything else.

My goal is to grow the sport in the United States and to do that I will need help from many different people and organizations. Nothing makes collaboration easier than showing you already know how to provide value. That will be a significant factor in achieving what I am working toward in the year ahead.

Lack of experience does not have to be a hurdle, it can be a strength

Cycling as a sport and industry is rooted in history and tradition, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can lead to groupthink and limit perspectives. I am relatively new to the sport and have no industry experience to speak of. Early on I had real insecurities about saying exactly what was on my mind, and I was frankly too cautious to publish an outright opinion piece. With time I started taking more risks until eventually I was publishing full essays on specific topics and business situations. To my surprise those became some of my most successful stories.

I still put significant thought and research into everything I publish, but I am more empowered now to throw bold ideas into the conversation and spark curiosity, and hopefully action. While I welcome criticism, the reception of Built on Bikes among industry professionals has been genuinely reaffirming. Lack of experience used to intimidate me. Now it empowers me to offer a viewpoint that a sport desperately in need of fresh thinking does not always get from within.

Consistency and quality over quantity

I believe the same would apply to other creative mediums, but releasing stories consistently has driven consistent subscriber growth since Built on Bikes launched. Sometimes that growth accelerates and sometimes it slows, but with consistency the subscriber count normalizes over time.

As I approach 600 subscribers, all I can say is that I am genuinely grateful that this many people have found enough value in my writing to subscribe. My stories are not doing viral numbers, but for written media I am pleasantly surprised by how many people have chosen to follow along. It has also taught me that attracting the right audience matters far more than chasing a large view count. My subscribers are engaged, loyal, and knowledgeable, which leads to better conversation and collaboration over time. We will see if the trend continues, but if you have subscribed, thank you.

Moving forward

As I look ahead to the next year of Built on Bikes, my content goals are not changing much. I will continue committing to weekly editions that explore the same topics I already cover, but beyond the stories themselves I hope to significantly expand my impact. I have learned that my perspective and accumulated expertise can create real value for others, specifically for brands dedicated to authentic storytelling.

Over the next year I want to officially partner with more brands and organizations within cycling. Not to deliver press releases, but to help them engage with cyclists in the United States in a way that feels genuine. I also want these relationships to function as true knowledge partnerships, where I can help improve developmental pipelines in the United States by connecting brands with athletes, teams, and programs that need the support.

The last year has been a rollercoaster and an absolute pleasure. Cycling changed my life four years ago and this newsletter has breathed new life into my own growth as a person. Next week it will be back to regularly scheduled programming, and I cannot wait to continue this journey.

In other news

An epic Everesting attempt

A few weeks ago I wrote about Everesting, and this week I learned about someone attempting something truly remarkable. Victor Asenov is a blind ultramarathon runner and cyclist who completed an Everesting on foot in 2025 and later attempted one on a bike. While an injury prevented him from finishing, he will be back this year to attempt a cycling Everest at the Everesting World Championships. Thank you to Bozhidar Kartunov for bringing Victor’s story to my attention.

Runners and cyclists unite!

Having brief conversations with people I have connected with online has become one of my favorite things. Yesterday I connected with Shai Goodman, who runs Physically Educated and puts on a great event called the Marin Mile. The conversation highlighted how intertwined endurance sports are and how much cycling and running have to learn from each other. Shai is an entrepreneur through and through and I wanted to give her a shout out. Her new Substack is absolutely worth a follow!

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

Hot off the heels of the Tour de France, the Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift kicks off in less than 24 hours. The race packs all the excitement of the men’s event into nine stages and features just as many star athletes across sprint, mountain, and breakaway stages. Despite receiving less overall airtime than the men’s race, a strong case can be made that the Femmes is the most important race on the entire WorldTour calendar, men’s or women’s.

Yes, the men’s Tour still outperforms the women’s in total viewership. But how does it compare when you factor in economic and social opportunity? Whether you are a sponsor looking for airtime or someone like me who wants to grow cycling in the United States, measuring a race’s potential impact through total viewership alone is short-sighted and misses the fuller picture.

Since 2020 there has been a seismic shift in the US sports market. Women’s sports are seeing rapid growth in fandom, brand investment, and professional athlete development at a rapid pace. The best part is that this growth is widely considered to be just the beginning of a sustained period of hypergrowth for women’s sports in the United States and globally. The question worth asking is whether this momentum extends beyond mainstream sports.

As we will uncover, the characteristics driving the US women’s sports market create conditions where a more niche sport like cycling could actually thrive over the coming years. The Femmes provides a platform that could finally allow cycling to resonate with mainstream American sports audiences. The market conditions we will explore create an environment where women’s cycling could generate a flywheel effect, drawing more US capital into the sport and building a more robust domestic talent pipeline.

Drawing on comprehensive market research from McKinsey and Bank of America alongside Zwift’s direct polling of Femmes viewers, this piece breaks down the current state of the US women’s sports market, the real impact of the Femmes, and why women’s racing could be the key to unlocking cycling’s next phase of growth in the United States.

Methodology

There is a lot to unpack before diving into how we use the Femmes to grow cycling in the United States. This piece is broken into four sections:

• Establishing the current market dynamics for women’s sports in the United States

• Looking at the current impact of the Femmes

• Understanding what the two mean in tandem

• Discussing how this understanding can inform real action and drive cycling’s growth in the United States

Built on Bikes has always taken a bullish stance on what women’s cycling could mean for this country. Previous pieces laid out why the United States is capable of becoming the dominant nation in the Women’s WorldTour. Today the goal is to make sure that when that success arrives, people will actually be there to see it.

The current state of women’s sports

The following insights come from two separate market reports, one from McKinsey & Company and one from Bank of America. The McKinsey report focuses specifically on the US market while the Bank of America report captures a global perspective. Their scope varies, but both arrive at the same conclusion: women’s sports are growing rapidly and becoming an increasingly significant force in the US and around the world.

McKinsey (2025) - Closing the monetization gap in women’s sports

McKinsey’s findings come from a study of 3,003 US sports fans and dozens of large companies that actively invest in sports marketing. The report establishes the growth potential of the women’s sports market by noting that professional women’s sports generated $1 billion in revenue in 2024, representing less than 2% of the $75 billion US sports market. By 2030, revenue from women’s sports is projected to reach $2.5 billion, growing at 4.5 times the rate of men’s sports over the same period. The four revenue streams driving that growth are:

• Brand sponsorships

• Ticketing

• Broadcast media rights

• Merchandise

The figures make a confident case that growth is accelerating and we are still in the early stages. Cycling’s contribution to these numbers is almost certainly negligible, but that is where the opportunity lives. With such a large and expanding pie, smaller sports have real room to capture outsized returns from investment.

The demographics of women’s sports fans are where things get particularly interesting.

Women’s sports fans are almost exclusively existing fans of men’s professional sports, with 99% of respondents saying they were already sports fans before adding women’s sport to their watchlist. They are not new to sports, but they are genuinely engaged. 39% already identify as avid followers of women’s sports. While there is a 30 percentage point gap between the number of avid fans of men’s sports and women’s sport, the amount of avid fans of women’s sport will grow over time and translate into meaningful consumer behavior. Avid fans are 27% more likely to purchase from brands that endorse female athletes, and the word athlete matters here: 45% of avid fans say their loyalty is to individual athletes rather than teams.

A recurring argument across Built on Bikes is that compelling storytelling is essential to cycling breaking into the mainstream. These market dynamics suggest that women’s cycling could become a genuine value add for sponsors, provided the storytelling infrastructure is there to support it. In one of its closing findings, McKinsey identifies major international events as the largest single driver of new fandom growth in the US, which bodes well for an event like the Femmes.

Finally, McKinsey outlines four barriers to effective monetization in women’s sports:

• Fragmented fan attention

• Fewer avid fans

• Lack of viewing access

• Lack of market maturity

All are real barriers to the growth of women’s sport, but given the promising numbers already presented, these barriers could represent an opportunity for a smaller and more niche sport to outmaneuver larger players in addressing them.

Bank of America (2026) - The business of women’s sport’s

Released in March 2026, this Bank of America report takes a closer look at the economic trends driving the growth of women’s sports around the world. It combines Bank of America’s proprietary consumer spending and account data with broader market research. On a macro level, the economic power of women is growing considerably. By 2028, women are projected to control $32 trillion in discretionary spending globally.

The report also surfaces more granular demographic detail on women’s sports fans. On average, fans of women’s sports are younger, more educated, and more affluent than those who follow only men’s sports. They are also more digitally engaged, which presents greater opportunity for sponsors and athletes to connect with them across multiple channels.

From a commercial perspective, women’s sports have a compelling ability to attract capital. For every $1 spent on sports marketing, $7 in customer value is generated. At the institutional level, investors are allocating more toward female-focused investment mandates. Bank of America estimates that over $4 billion in equity assets under management is now directed toward women’s initiatives. Only a fraction of that will flow to women’s sports specifically, but it signals that women’s sports will have an added angle when making the case to investors.

The current impact of the Tour de France Femmes

The market for women’s sports is favorable and growing, but where does an event like the Femmes fit into that environment today, and is it positioned to ride the market tailwinds? Understanding the race’s current influence is essential, and fortunately both Escape Collective and Zwift have published figures that give us a clear picture of where things stand.

Escape Collective (2026) - How many people really watch the race?

We already covered the viewership findings from this article for the men’s Tour, but the women’s Tour stats are incredibly impressive when viewed in the context of the wider WorldTour calendar. During the entire Women’s WorldTour season, 61% of all viewership happens during the Femmes. On a per-stage basis, a single stage of the women’s Tour draws more viewers than a stage of either the men’s Vuelta a España or the Giro d’Italia. If we are looking for the silver bullet event to build on for viewership, the Femmes is the best option by far.

As has already been stated, viewership is just one piece of the puzzle — if an event can’t influence viewer behavior, opportunities fade fast.

Zwift (2025) - Where are we now? Four years into the Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift

Following the 2025 edition of the Femmes, title sponsor Zwift conducted an analysis of 5,030 viewers across the US, UK, France, and Germany. The goal was to understand how the race has influenced viewers and shifted their perspective on women’s cycling. The findings were striking.

52% of female respondents described the Femmes as inspiring. At 69%, an even larger group said they felt inspired to ride a bike in the future, and 80% said they are more likely to watch women’s racing again. The network effects were also apparent, with 41% saying they have encouraged others to watch women’s racing.

The most significant data point may be that 17% of respondents said they bought a bike as a direct result of watching the race. That is a meaningful impact on consumer behavior and, depending on the aspirations of these new riders, a potentially significant contribution to the development of the sport.

Consistent with McKinsey’s findings, Zwift identified viewing access as the biggest barrier in the US, with the majority of American viewers relying on social media and streaming rather than traditional broadcasting. This reflects the broader shift toward streaming across sports generally, and it is also where cycling has a real opportunity to outmaneuver other women’s sports.

Putting it all together

The McKinsey and Bank of America reports combined with the viewing and impact data from the Femmes have set the backdrop for understanding how the race fits within the broader women’s sports market. The viewing data makes one thing clear: the Femmes is the standout event for women’s cycling and arguably the only race with enough reach to make a genuine push into the mainstream of women’s sports in the near term. To be clear, every women’s race deserves an audience, but when it comes to marketability and immediate impact, the Femmes stands head and shoulders above the rest.

So how do we start connecting the positive signals from the market to the Femmes in a way that produces meaningful growth for the sport? The most useful way to frame this is across two areas: economic and sporting. Without capital flowing into and through the sport in the US, there will be no growth. And without the race inspiring and developing more athletes domestically, the commercial opportunity will have nothing to build on.

Playing off the market - economics

There are strong positive signals in the women’s sports market that the Femmes can build on, but addressing some of the structural challenges facing the market could give women’s cycling an immediate advantage over more mainstream sports like basketball and soccer. McKinsey’s four barriers to monetization are worth examining closely, because working through them reveals the outline of a compelling business strategy for the race.

Fragmented attention

When McKinsey talks about fragmented audience attention, it primarily means women’s leagues competing with their men’s equivalents for the same viewers. The WNBA has only minor overlap with the NBA season, but the NWSL competes directly with MLS for much of the year. Fragmentation is a genuine challenge for most women’s sports, where established men’s leagues continue to set the default viewing agenda.

For the Femmes, this problem largely does not exist. There is no overlap with the men’s Tour, and the race has the added advantage of beginning immediately after it ends. Viewers do not have to choose between one or the other. If new fans discover the men’s race and love the experience, that momentum has a strong chance of carrying directly into the Femmes.

The other dimension of fragmented attention is the effect of social media on shortening viewing windows across all sports. Match-based sports are best experienced live, and most leagues have responded by leaning into social media as a highlight distribution channel, reposting clips from live broadcasts and not much else. Cycling feels genuinely different in how it has embraced the platform. Yes, broadcast clips get reposted, but for every official clip that goes out, a wave of fan-generated media follows, covering angles the broadcast never touched, from a pro watching off the bike to a spectator on the side of a mountain pass watching the race arrive right in front of them.

It is intimate, unfiltered, and remarkably effective at surfacing the stories buried inside a race. If cycling continues to embrace social media the way it already has, capturing and holding audience attention becomes a much more realistic proposition.

Fewer avid fans

As any cyclist knows, once you get into the sport, whether through watching races or riding yourself, you become hooked quickly. For better or worse it becomes a core part of your identity. It may take longer to convert someone into a cycling fan than into a fan of a more mainstream sport, but once you do, that fan tends to be deeply invested. Zwift’s data supports this, and if women’s cycling can convert more people into genuine fans, the sport could realistically outperform the industry average of 39% avid fandom. As with the women’s sports market broadly, avid fandom translates directly into purchasing behavior, which means more mainstream brands will follow the sport that produces the most committed fans.

Lack of access

Without a doubt, this is the most significant barrier for women’s cycling in the United States. The Femmes is streamed via Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform, but for anyone without a subscription the race remains difficult to find. Counterintuitively, access may be more of a lagging indicator than an immediate problem to solve. NBC holds the US licensing rights and has historically been the broadcaster of the Tour de France in this market. Until viewership numbers create enough commercial pressure for other platforms to compete for those rights, meaningful access expansion through traditional broadcasting is unlikely in the near term.

This is where social media becomes the most critical tool for establishing women’s cycling in the US. How it ultimately counteracts the access gap comes down to storytelling: getting social media users to connect with an athlete on an emotional level and nurturing that investment until they are motivated to seek out the race themselves.

Lack of maturity

For cycling, the Femmes has already proven that maturity is less of a barrier than it is in other women’s leagues. After only four editions, the race already outperforms the men’s Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana on a per-stage basis. If maturity is the reason investors and sponsors are holding back from other women’s sports, the Femmes should be a clear exception to that logic. Four years in, the race draws more than a third of the per-stage viewership of the men’s Tour. The trajectory from that starting point is genuinely exciting.

The four barriers to monetization present real challenges for the Femmes and women’s cycling, and none of them will be easy to overcome. But there are clear ways to address each one. Ultimately, the biggest economic lever is attracting sponsors who can inject capital into the sport and broaden access. How the Femmes attracts those sponsors comes down to fan influence, and that ties directly into developing the next wave of female cyclists in the United States.

Influence is power

The United States can become the dominant nation in women’s cycling, but getting there requires growing the wave of women entering the sport, and the Femmes provides the most powerful storytelling platform available to do that. There are two complementary interests at play. First, the Femmes needs to drive enough fan influence to attract sponsor capital into the sport. Second, that influence needs to translate into more women racing bikes domestically. We’ve seen women like Kristen Faulkner come to the WorldTour later than others and produce incredible results, increased reach for the Femmes could inspire more women like her in the future. The more elite athletes the US produces, the more fans tune in, and the more brands want to invest in athletes and teams.

We know that women’s sports drives higher fan engagement with individual athletes and moves nearly a third of fans to engage more meaningfully with brands that endorse female athletes. We also know that the Femmes alone encouraged 17% of women watching to go out and buy a bike. For both economic and developmental impact, individualism is the single most important lever available. If the Femmes wants to significantly expand its influence and reach, an aggressive focus on the stories of individual athletes is not just a nice to have. It is the strategy.

That logic applies to men’s cycling as well, but with proven consumer behaviors tied specifically to women’s sports, the Femmes is where cycling should focus first. Building that individual athlete narrative can happen in several ways: promoting athlete social media accounts during broadcasts, producing short-form content on riders to fill lulls in racing, and showing how athletes interact with sponsor products in authentic settings. Each of these is a meaningful lever for growing the Femmes’ influence among business entities and with prospective athletes.

Watch the Femmes!

The stage is set and the case has been made. The action, rivalries, and stories within the women’s peloton create a genuinely different sporting experience from the men’s equivalent. The market for women’s sports is growing and evolving in ways that men’s sports is not. The Tour de France Femmes should embrace those differences, zoom in on individual competitors, and invest seriously in branding over the next five years.

Whether there will be enough people in positions of power with a genuine interest in growing cycling in the US is an open question. But the roadmap to growth is less complicated than it might first appear. And if you have read this far, one of the most direct things you can do to move the needle is simple: watch the Femmes!

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

Cycling media has always been one of the central themes of my weekly pieces and an area I have explored on multiple levels. From arguing that cycling needs the right kind of storytelling to gain mainstream popularity to examining how the media ecosystem surrounding events like the Tour de France could be better utilized, my focus has largely centered on WorldTour cycling and making the pinnacle of the sport more popular in the United States.

While those forms of media ultimately reach the largest audiences, they do not directly impact the domestic events at the center of American cycling’s growth, like gravel races, road events, and national championships. These are the events engaging communities on the ground and driving real participation gains for the sport.

The way these events reach new and existing cyclists has changed significantly over the last decade. In a simplified breakdown, 2016 to 2020 saw events grow primarily through community engagement and word of mouth. Over the last five or six years that has shifted heavily toward social media. While the largest domestic series like the Life Time Grand Prix now have fully built out live broadcasts, many events are still driving meaningful participation growth with relatively limited resources.

Smart social media strategy has become a proven growth driver for grassroots events that lack the financial and production resources of the major series. How a race presents itself on social media, especially during race weekend, can significantly affect how it is perceived, discovered, and shared. Those factors have a direct impact on pro and amateur attendance the following year.

In this piece we will look at how social media can be leveraged at different levels of domestic racing to drive reach and participation. To do that I spoke with previous Built on Bikes guest Leni Carrillo, creator of Holy Spirit of Gravel. From meme page admin to a genuine culture driver within American cycling, Leni has collaborated with and helped grow the social reach of events including Traka 360, FoCo Fondo, Core 4, and Valley of Tears. My hope is that this conversation provides insights and strategies that can help grassroots races of all sizes get more out of their social media presence.

The three tiers of domestic events

Before discussing specific strategies, it is worth acknowledging that every event is different. A strategy that works for a truly grassroots race will look very different from one designed for a race with existing brand capital and an established social media presence. After speaking with Leni, we landed on three broad categories that most grassroots events fall into:

• Full Production Events: races with dedicated media teams, extensive social media presence, and live broadcasting capabilities.

• Established Social Media Events: races with multiple years of consistent social media presence during race weekend, reliable live race coverage, and a recognizable portrayal of the event atmosphere across platforms like Instagram.

• Developing Social Media Events: races with smaller or less defined social media strategies that are not yet maximizing their reach on race weekend.

Moving from a Full Production Event to an Established Social Media Event takes years of consistency and resource accumulation. But moving from Developing to Established is achievable with more modest investment and the right strategy. That is where this piece is most useful. Leni has worked with events across all three tiers and has become a valuable resource for races making that transition. Here is what she has learned.

Leni’s experience with helping races

Leni’s involvement with race media has taken several forms over the last year, including live race commentary, running event social media accounts, and promoting events through her own Instagram page. The reason I consider her perspective on media strategy so valuable is that she is the one directly shaping what the viewing experience looks and feels like across each medium. I asked her what level of instruction she typically receives from race organizers.

“As far as what I was instructed to do, honestly, all the instructions have been the same. They’ve been, do your thing, talk about the race, we trust you. I’ve been very lucky. The actual task has looked different, but the instructions have all been the same.”

That consistency is not a coincidence. It reflects organizers recognizing Leni’s intuitive understanding of culture and fan experience within off-road cycling. It is the same reason I interviewed her almost a year ago, but this time I wanted to understand how that cultural instinct translates into tangible growth for the events she works with. There were five key factors that Leni outlined:

• Visibility

• Emphasis on storytelling

• Cohesive event presentation

• The power of simplicity

• Commercial value

Visibility makes or breaks social perception

I want to be clear that none of this is meant as criticism of race organizers. Running an event is an incredibly complex undertaking and one of the most admirable things someone can do within the endurance community. Whether gaps in social media coverage come down to limited staffing, resource constraints, or simply competing priorities on race weekend, no organizer is doing anything wrong. The hope is that more conversation around an event’s media presentation might encourage organizers to experiment with new approaches to social media that ultimately help their events grow.

The impact of inconsistent social media coverage is real. There have been events where a year ago I felt completely dialed in on everything happening in real time, and this year I did not even realize the race had taken place until it was over. That is an anecdotal observation, but Leni shared the same sentiment, both that no organizer is to blame and on the importance of consistent visibility.

“I was like, why did I know so much more about some races last year than I did this year? I think it was because last year some of these events had their own people out there filming clips in an edited way, tagging pros, putting context and literal text into the Instagram stories, and putting it all out there. That went a long way in building a visual storytelling element for some events that felt like it was kind of missing this year.”

The reality in the United States is that most cycling events do not have the brand recognition or audience size to guarantee that fans will actively seek out race content, even if they already know when and where the event is happening. The burden falls on organizers to make their event’s presence and happenings known.

Storytelling beats play-by-play commentary

If we are being honest about off-road events, especially gravel races, the racing itself is not as dynamic or immediately thrilling as road racing. Events are longer, fields are more strung out, team tactics play a smaller role, and courses tend to be flatter and less visually varied. None of those traits lend themselves to traditional race coverage, and even dedicated fans of the discipline can find it hard to stay locked in for hours at a time.

Leni has provided official race commentary for some of gravel’s biggest events including Traka 360 and FoCo Fondo, and she is clear that most people tuning into a race live stream or following updates on social media are not looking for the kind of play-by-play commentary you would hear at a WorldTour race.

“I’m always sort of coming into it with the mindset of, I’m not gonna call it like a road race, because I don’t think that serves the sport to do that. Giving the vibes-driven type commentary is what I call it. I want to describe the vibes to people that aren’t there, and I want to highlight the athletes. I’ll look at a registration and learn who’s there and learn about people that I don’t know. I want to highlight the racers and tell little anecdotes, little stories that people can attach to, and then they can build out a narrative.”

As someone who has sat through seven hour gravel livestreams, I am not tuning in for commentary on why one rider has been solo for the past two hours. I am there for deeper context and narrative. Whether it is Sarah Sturm offering insider knowledge during Life Time Grand Prix streams or Leni building storylines around riders at Traka 360, that is the content that actually holds a viewing audience.

Providing cohesive content

For races that want to present well on social media, especially those using it to provide live race updates, the way posts and stories are structured and ordered matters more than most organizers realize. If a race is happening and the event’s Instagram story is forty slides long, alternating between festival activities, on-course race updates, and announcements, the people most likely to follow the race storylines will lose the thread quickly.

This is an area where Leni has seen relatively small changes make a significant difference in how an event is perceived. She was direct about the impact of cohesive social media posting.

“You have to have a cohesive vision. If you’re just reposting other people’s stories, after a certain point race coverage and identity can get lost. It doesn’t have to come from an influencer and you don’t have to have a bunch of pros racing, but if you just have someone on your team capturing the vibes and putting text that explains what’s going on, people will get the idea much faster. Structured storytelling goes a long way toward standing out on social media.”

That sentiment reflects the broader shift toward professionalism and genuine fandom in American cycling.

“The game is getting stepped up so much that people’s expectations are rising for everything. It’s not good enough now to just repost a bunch of other people’s stories. There’s so much going on, there’s so much to watch. There are big races out there with a bunch of pros, but they don’t have a live stream, and more than that, they don’t have a cohesive Instagram strategy. I think that ultimately hurts the event.”

Not every race can bring in someone like Leni to overhaul their social media presence, so I asked her what she focuses on when an organizer hands her control of an event account during race weekend. She came back to scalability and ease of consumption.

“I think Instagram stories are a scalable way to post, because if I’m out on course I can get a live report, and then later I can upload the unedited version as a reel. That works in a way that the live stream doesn’t.”

The value of that approach became clear at a race where Leni was not even officially hired to provide coverage.

“I was posting Instagram stories of pros going by, naming them, and putting up footage tagging people, and I had people messaging me saying this race hadn’t posted anything yet. Other people were like, we hadn’t seen anything from the women’s field all day, thank you.”

Grassroots organizers should embrace simplicity

As we just saw, the balance between social media coverage’s impact and the cost and effort required to produce it weighs heavily in favor of the resource-constrained organizer. That is why Leni believes some of gravel’s most beloved events can remain in the spotlight without live stream coverage. For the average gravel fan, easily consumable social media is often a better fit than hours of live coverage anyway.

“There’s a very specific type of person that watches the live stream. Those are the people like us that are absolutely obsessed. The large majority of people that pay attention to gravel mainly get their race insights from just viewing Instagram stories and that’s the best way for them to consume it.”

While commentating at FoCo Fondo, Leni saw firsthand how simplicity at any production level can translate into a genuinely good viewing experience. FoCo Fondo wanted to provide live stream coverage but did not have the resources to scale production to the size and complexity of a Life Time Grand Prix event. Rather than overreaching, they executed at a level they knew they could do well. Leni thought it offers a useful model for smaller events to consider.

“Unless you know a live production can be done well, it doesn’t have to be super complicated. At FoCo Fondo we just had three cameras and I think it felt pretty sufficient. Production doesn’t have to be complicated, and if it looks janky at all, just do the Instagram coverage. You can just have someone driving on the course that knows it really well, and then have the phone operator that knows the racers and knows what a gravel race dynamic is.”

Provide commercial value wherever possible

The last practical social media strategy is a simple one and centers on sponsor relationships and opportunities. Race organizers will always acknowledge their sponsors, but they may not be maximizing the value they deliver to those partners during race coverage. The good news is that the most effective approach is subtle and does not come across as advertising at all. While commentating at Traka 360, Leni took questions from the livestream chat as an opportunity to highlight smaller brands that benefit most from organic media exposure.

“Someone asked, what bike does that athlete ride? So I just rattled off everything she rides, and I pointed out that she uses a Wove saddle, which I also use. Guava Bikes, this small brand out of Girona, one of their guys was there, and I was like, shout out Guava Bikes out of Girona, they’re really cool. Both brands were super happy. They texted me and were like, thank you for mentioning it. It goes to show how impactful small things can be.”

American events, embrace the KISS method!

This piece was intentionally straightforward, and I think that is a good metaphor for how we should approach the pursuit of growth for cycling in the United States. The KISS method, Keep It Simple, Stupid, rings true in most of my endeavors. Whenever I reach a state of analysis paralysis it is time to take a step back and find the most direct path from A to B.

If I were an event organizer I would take the same approach. If the goal is full live stream coverage, diverting resources away from core operations in the early years is probably not the most effective path to get there. Investing in social media first and building an engaged audience costs far less and could pay dividends when the time comes to make the jump to live production. Get people engaged early, perfect your operations, let the algorithm do its thing, and the transition to live streaming becomes a lot smoother. That is essentially what Leni described happening organically.

“I found a gravel live stream I didn’t know about before. It was on my front page and I just started watching it. I think as gravel and its content ecosystem grows, the stream will show up on someone’s front page and people will start watching it that way. But I still think it starts on Instagram.”

I have written a lot about the scrappiness required to grow cycling in the United States, and events are another area where creativity and resourcefulness can pave the way forward.

Organizers, this is another easy way to level-up your event

My hope is that this piece finds its way to event organizers who could benefit from Leni’s experience. I would also be remiss not to highlight a product that genuinely simplifies the organization of an endurance event from start to finish. Movemint is a community-forward event platform that is reshaping how organizers put on events. Since writing about their product last year, the Movemint team has consistently shown up as true knowledge partners for both Leni and myself.

Whether you are an organizer looking to simplify your operations, an athlete searching for your next event, or a brand looking to partner with races, Movemint should be the first resource you think of.

In other news

The hype is real!

I swear I follow a wide range of athletes in cycling, but I have to continue what have become seemingly biweekly updates on Kate Courtney. People like Andrew Vontz and myself have been on the speculative hype train from day one, saying Kate has her eyes on Olympic gold on the road, and her recent announcement that she is joining the WorldTour all but confirms it, and her ability to actually do it.

Kate did not just sign with a WorldTour team. She signed with the WorldTour team, FDJ-Suez. Kate will be racing and developing alongside some of the best women in cycling including Demi Vollering, Elise Chabbey, and Franziska Koch. WorldTour teams like FDJ do not sign an athlete just for the initial marketing splash. They clearly see the world class talent Kate possesses, and that is a testament to both Kate and USA Cycling for their efforts in helping get her there.

Garmin acquires Training Peaks

Speaking of blockbuster deals, Garmin just acquired TrainingPeaks and appears to be making a serious statement in doing so. Strava recently sued Garmin over heatmap features, a lawsuit widely seen as a loose end Strava needed to tie up before their inevitable IPO. TrainingPeaks has been innovating rapidly since the rise of AI in training, and Garmin could be embarking on a significant new venture to integrate high performance training with activity tracking.

My thoughts? It is far too early to speculate on how this plays out, but I would not underestimate Garmin and TrainingPeaks’ ability to build a world class platform. I also would not underestimate the brand recognition, social awareness, and product adoption that Strava has built over the years. If Garmin does make that leap, will Strava’s moat be enough to hold off a serious new competitor? My hunch is that it will, and that Strava maintains its supremacy, but time will tell.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

If you are a cyclist, or even a casual rider or follower of the sport, you have probably heard of Everesting. In its simplest form, Everesting is a challenge to gain the full elevation of Mount Everest, 8,848 meters or 29,029 feet, in a single continuous activity. There is no time limit, no course requirements, just climb that elevation in one go.

I only started riding a handful of years ago, but even in the very early stages of my cycling journey I had heard about the concept of Everesting. Before I was a fan of the WorldTour, knew what a gravel bike was, or consumed cycling content regularly, the challenge had already reached me. For a new rider it sounded completely absurd that someone could climb that elevation in one ride. Even now, as a self-proclaimed climber, it sounds crazy. That is the point. The challenge is almost unreasonably simple in concept and hard in execution.

The prevalence of Everesting meant I never really questioned its origins. I assumed it was just an iconic challenge that had always existed, nothing more. That changed recently when I connected with one of the first people to complete one and put Everesting on the map. It was during a routine networking call with someone from another cycling publication. As we talked, I learned that Everesting is not just a challenge people do. It is a real business with revenue, a product suite, and one of the strongest grassroots communities in endurance sport.

After nearly five years of knowing the concept, I was suddenly learning about a brand I had never noticed, and I was talking to the founder. The more I thought about it, the more remarkable it became. How does a challenge get monetized and build genuine brand presence without most people even realizing there is a brand behind it? It was time to find out.

From the origins of Everesting to why a former senior executive at FC Barcelona decided to join the team, this piece is a deep dive into how a simple concept has quietly built one of endurance sport’s most compelling emerging businesses and is staking a claim to an entirely new vertical, literally.

Meet Andy and Guillem

We will dive into Everesting the brand and business shortly, but it felt right to first explain how this story came together, because the people behind it are a big part of what makes it worth telling.

It started with my favorite tool, the LinkedIn connection. I came across Andy van Bergen, saw he was Head of Membership at Escape Collective, and thought he was probably a good person to know. Andy accepted my request and immediately messaged back inviting me to reach out if I ever wanted to connect. We coordinated a time between our timezones in Melbourne and San Francisco, no agenda, just a chat. By the end of that call I had learned that Andy founded Everesting and I was already set on writing a piece about it. Andy then put me in touch with his colleague Guillem Graell to talk through Everesting’s marketing and business strategy.

Andy and Guillem bring different backgrounds to the table, and that contrast goes a long way toward explaining the balance of passion and strategy behind the company. Andy is based in Australia and brings over a decade of cycling media experience, including roles at CyclingTips and Escape Collective. Guillem is based in Barcelona and brings a wide-ranging marketing background spanning major CPG brands and nearly five years as CMO at FC Barcelona.

Andy’s deep knowledge of cycling culture combined with Guillem’s experience building revenue streams across major sports properties creates a foundation that is hard to replicate. Along with the rest of the Everesting team, the two are working to turn a grassroots challenge into the next iconic format in endurance sport, with community at the center of everything they build.

The origins of Everesting

Well it all started about 50 to 55 million years ago when the Indian tectonic plate collided… just kidding. Mount Everest plays a part in Everesting, but not like that.

About 14 years ago, Andy was progressing through his career while also continuing to be an avid cyclist. Like any true cyclist he is a bit of a masochist and loved dreaming up the hardest rides he could think of and train for. One of his original challenges was a 300 km ride with 5,000 meters of climbing. Andy recalled it as one of the most grueling things he had ever done, but his coworkers had a different reaction.

“I went into the office the next Monday and people were asking, well, what’d you get up to over the weekend? I said, oh look, I did this ride, it was 5,000 vertical meters, 300 kilometers. In my mind I’m thinking this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And they’re like, oh that’s nice. And what else did you get up to? Because 5,000 meters of elevation means nothing to someone who doesn’t know about cycling.” — Andy

It is a common experience among cyclists to push themselves to the absolute limit and have that effort get completely lost in translation with non-cyclists. Andy knew how transformative cycling had been in his own life and how much he loved challenging himself alongside fellow riders. But he also knew that any challenge worth spreading had to be immediately relatable to someone who had never clipped in. Tell someone you climbed 5,000 meters and you get blank stares. Tell someone you climbed the equivalent of the cruising altitude of a commercial jet and suddenly everyone understands how insane that is.

“If I wanted to create something that was recognizable, that would inspire people, and that would give anyone who completed it the kudos they deserve, I knew there had to be a reference there that was immediately understandable.” — Andy

Mount Everest was that reference. Andy quietly assembled a group of cycling friends to make the first mass attempt at Everesting, knowing that if enough people did it at once, it would be impossible to ignore.

“I told them about it and I was like, this is completely secret. We picked a weekend in February 2014 and if you want to participate, you can’t tell anyone about it. You train in secret. Because at the time I knew that if one person did an Everesting, everyone would be talking about it. So I also knew if a whole bunch of us did it, it would just explode really quickly.

In the end I think there were about 65 people who agreed to have a crack at doing an Everesting under the veil of secrecy. We had locations all around the world and of the 64, I think there were about 30 or so that actually completed it, myself included. And it truly did explode into the scene, just like that. There was newspaper coverage and radio interviews, and obviously all the cycling media was covering this crazy thing.” — Andy

Over the next ten years Andy hustled to transform Everesting from a fun idea into a side project, from a side project into a cycling phenomenon, and from a cycling phenomenon into a business. We will get into how that happened, but following the COVID pandemic cycling boom, Andy knew it was time to build out a proper team.

Enter Guillem

If you are like me, one of your first questions was probably how the former CMO of FC Barcelona even found out about Everesting, and what made him want to join the team. For those unfamiliar, large football clubs like FC Barcelona are run by their members, which brings a political dimension to the business. After nearly five years at the club, a shift in leadership changed the strategic direction, and Guillem along with several colleagues decided to leave. Together they launched a sports focused consulting firm called D2F. In addition to Guillem, D2F also brought the skills and expertise of Paco Latorre (PR & Comms at FC Barcelona, America’s cup, and MotoGP) and Enric Llopart (Digital experience at Disney and FC Barcelona) to Everesting. It was at D2F that the group came across Andy’s project.

“In a random way, we discovered Everesting as a concept. We searched who the owner was and got in contact with Andy. Eventually we were like, oh my gosh, this is something. I was in love with it for two things, one because Andy is a great guy, and second with the concept. I was amazed at how interesting and relevant Everesting was to the people that had known about it.” — Guillem

Guillem and his team made their case to Andy, making clear what they could bring to the business while committing to preserve the soul and ethos of what he had built.

“We said, look, we’re not endurance riders, we don’t have your vision, but we know how to build businesses and brands, and we can help you. So we partnered. At some point Andy was telling us, look, you could even do it yourself, and I said, no way, you are the father. You need to be central to the project.” — Guillem

From there, Everesting became a fully resourced organization with brand expertise and deep cycling knowledge at the helm. The most remarkable thing was that they were already working with a concept that had enormous brand recognition among people who did not even know Everesting was a company.

In a league of their own

There is a key dynamic surrounding Everesting that makes it such an interesting story to tell. That dynamic is the knowledge gap between knowing of Everesting the challenge and knowing about Everesting the brand and organization. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people know about the physical challenge, but a smaller number associate it with a company.

On top of that, who are Everesting’s competitors? As we will find out, Everesting can generate revenue without relying solely on dedicated events for brand exposure. And with trademark registration covering any challenge related to vertical ascent, it becomes very difficult for other brands like IRONMAN or Hyrox to encroach on their space.

The following factors make this story worth telling in two parts:

1. The simple but brilliant branding that made Everesting a cultural staple, and how the team is working to close the gap between people who complete a challenge and people who become active members of the Everesting community.

2. How Andy and Guillem are leveraging that brand recognition to build a revenue generating business in a market landscape that has no real precedent.

Building identity and recognition

As Andy mentioned, there was no shortage of media buzz following the first organized Everesting, but media coverage was only one part of the equation during its rise. I was curious to learn more about how Everesting became part of the cultural vernacular of cycling. What events, branding, and strategies made it happen? After speaking with Andy and Guillem, my conclusion was that there were several key drivers that helped establish Everesting as a brand before it was really a business.

Early athlete legitimization

Nothing legitimizes a new race format or challenge quite like professional athletes choosing to participate in it. Everesting caught the attention of top level pro cyclists remarkably quickly.

“Jens Voigt was probably the first pro athlete to do one. He’d just retired. He did one in the snow… then Richie Porte and Cameron Wurf had been talking about it during the Tour de France. I knew it had entered the popular cycling vernacular when Thomas De Gendt was writing about Richie and Cameron… He didn’t even explain it. To me, that really cemented in my mind that, okay, the fact that he doesn’t have to explain what the concept is means that enough people know about what this concept is.” – Andy

Accessibility

This point will come up again later, but from a financial and logistical standpoint, Everesting is uniquely accessible. There is no race entry fee, no travel, no lodging required. Athletes train as they would for any other goal and simply decide when and where they want their attempt to be. For the average Everester, competition is almost beside the point. This is not a race that happens to be hard. It is a physical feat that eclipses almost any amateur race on the calendar.

The psychological challenge

Actually climbing Mount Everest is a globally recognized feat of human strength and resilience. The vast majority of people will never go and learn mountaineering to climb it, no matter how much they love a physical challenge. But the sense of perseverance, strength, and accomplishment associated with the summit does not have to be exclusive to mountaineering. While Everesting is an entirely different physical challenge, the association with something universally understood means that anyone who attempts it has their own version of that mental journey to aspire toward.

“When we talked with the community the theme was, this is not a physical challenge, this is a mental challenge, this is transformational for me.” – Guillem

“It sounds a bit cliche, but Everesting has changed people’s lives. It either helps people to become more resilient or it gives them a big training goal, and it teaches them something about themselves. It really strips you raw and gives you something kind of unique. I just want as many people as possible to experience that.” – Andy

Timing

With any great business, there is a certain amount of luck involved. This particular piece of luck was a dark one, but the COVID pandemic drove rapid growth in the Everesting community. At a time when events were canceled and amateur and professional cyclists alike were stuck inside, Everesting gave them a lifeline. It offered a challenge and a sense of friendly competition during a period when community was hard to come by.

“The reason why it took off in the pandemic was because it was already a known brand, it was a known concept. We had pro riders talking about it and doing it prior. The spark was already there. When the pandemic hit, there were a whole bunch of riders that had previously been told by their coaches and training staff, there’s no way in hell we’re going to allow you to do an Everesting in season. All of a sudden there was this competition that existed where pro athletes were racing to try and do something that was kind of unusual.” – Andy

Closing the knowledge gap

It was interesting to get Guillem’s strategic take on converting people who know Everesting the challenge into people who know Everesting the brand and community. FC Barcelona is one of the most recognized organizations in the world, so brand awareness was never really a problem in his previous role. How would he approach it with Everesting? He identified two main areas of focus.

• Expanding accessibility

• Consolidating IP ownership

Revisiting accessibility

While the original Everesting format is financially and logistically accessible, it is not universally accessible across skill levels or personal motivation. This created a real problem for community growth, and honestly it is a big part of why I was not more aware of the brand myself. I like to think I could complete an Everesting if I put my mind to it, but as things stand today I have other goals driving my riding, so I have never given it serious thought. Multiply that mindset across the broader cycling community and you begin to see how many brand recognition opportunities are being lost.

Guillem and Andy recognized that Everesting needed to mean something different to everyone who engaged with it. Their response was to introduce quarter and half Everesting as official challenges. Breaking the concept into more manageable formats invited more people to seriously consider making an attempt, which means more people researching, more people discovering the brand, and more people entering the community.

“We have a little catchphrase internally that we use, which is, what is your Everesting? Because really, the concept of Everesting is about pushing yourself and finding your own limits. Whether that’s a quarter Everesting for me and a full Everesting for you, or if it’s completing an Everesting over the space of 30 days and that makes you feel amazing, that’s what we want.” – Andy

Increasing the number of entry points for athletes suddenly opened the door to a whole world of Everesting possibilities.

“We did a test with Strava, and we said, what if we give a full month to do an Everesting? Instead of doing it in one push, you accumulate over as many days as you want, and you have a month to do the Everesting. We tried it a year ago, and we suddenly got 30,000 people in more than 80 countries to participate.” – Guillem

While Everesting is rooted in cycling, the final push toward accessibility is making the challenge sport agnostic. You can do a running Everesting, a skiing Everesting, or apparently even one while pushing a wheelbarrow. Yes, that is a real thing and it has been done.

Securing brand assets

Andy knew from the beginning that Everesting could become a widely known community challenge and carve out a new vertical in endurance sport. As an early mover in this space, the potential for any business built around it would live and die with owning the name.

“When I came up with the concept, the first thing I did, as you would, is Google it. Does it exist? Has no one ever thought of this before? I was kind of blown away. So of course I registered it all straight away.” – Andy

That early move was crucial, but Guillem outlined how much work remained to fully secure those rights. During his first year at Everesting, Guillem described trademarking as a major obsession. From spending significant capital to secure a US trademark to navigating varying processes across Europe and Australia, protecting the name was a top priority.

The revenue implications are straightforward. Licensing, merchandising, and events all represent major revenue streams, and only Everesting should be able to profit from the specific challenge format and branding. Beyond revenue, trademarks matter enormously when it comes to advertising and search engine optimization. If people researching the challenge cannot easily find and connect with the brand, the knowledge gap never closes.

“We fully branded the company early. We worked with really nice designers to ensure that what we are communicating is attractive, is engaging, and is something that you want to have printed on a t-shirt. So we did this fundamental work: trademark, branding, plus the first layer of tech.” – Guillem

With the foundation built, it was time to turn to key revenue streams.

Building a business with diversified revenue streams

The brand strategy and philosophy behind Everesting’s rise to this point is genuinely impressive. Andy and Guillem are modest about it, but they both recognize that all of this work could be undone if they stray from their core community when building out revenue generating products and initiatives.

“Everesting will always be community led. There’s no doubt about that. It’s a challenge that was built from the community and always responded to by the community. When we’re talking about revenue streams for that community, they will be based on what our community wants to see, wants to buy, wants to participate in.” – Andy

“We don’t want to become just another business. We want to keep the community centered approach. When we develop revenue streams they all need to be seen as being central to what the community is asking for or what the community will accept, not just for the sake of making a nice business.” — Guillem

With the goal of keeping the soul of Everesting intact, Guillem laid out four revenue pillars.

• Merchandise

• Events

• Mobile app and digital revenue

• Sponsorship

All four are relatively straightforward on paper, but if executed poorly, any one of them could turn Everesting from a revered physical challenge into something that feels like a gimmick.

Merchandise

Everesting has partnered with cycling clothing manufacturer Cuore to produce a line of kits and merchandise carrying the Everesting brand. The idea is simple: complete a challenge or engage with the community and you can rep the brand and show the world you are part of something. The obvious parallel is the IRONMAN merchandise model. It is a proven and reliable revenue stream that scales naturally as the community grows.

Events

With enough professional athletes interested in Everesting, organized events have become possible, bringing the best in the world together to compete. Beyond direct revenue from entry fees, the events serve as a significant brand building opportunity.

“Last year we did the first World Championship in Sicily. This year we have done an event in Austria, and will do a second edition of the World Championship in Sicily. Next year we’ll do six or seven different events. A calendar of events is important for us, especially for content production, gathering PR noise.” – Guillem

App and digital revenue

This is Everesting’s newest revenue stream, unveiled earlier this month. Everesting is not reinventing the wheel here. The app will follow a freemium model, generating revenue from the most engaged users. But Guillem was clear that the commercial side is only part of the reason for building it.

“It’s the central tool to make two things happen: enable the community to gather in one place and to be able to know what you’re doing, your elevation, your medium, etc. This is how we can surface insights for customers, what we can offer them, whether it’s training, whether it’s nutrition, whether it’s sponsorship, and so on.” – Guillem

I asked Guillem whether there was any concern about athletes being reluctant to download yet another fitness app on top of Strava and everything else. He said Strava is actually an essential part of their ecosystem, serving as the tool athletes use to track their training and log their activities. The Everesting trademark is the moat that draws users into the Everesting universe to track their progress and connect with the community, rather than having that experience live on Strava.

Sponsorship

As the brand grows, sponsors will pay to be official partners of Everesting events and to reach the users of the Everesting app directly.

What is Everesting’s summit?

After covering Everesting’s origins, brand journey, and business model, one question remained: what is the ultimate goal? The answer, as I have alluded to throughout, is to own the elevation vertical in endurance sport and do it through community.

“If I say ultra running, you’ll tell me Hardrock or Barkley. If I say triathlon, you’d say IRONMAN. But if I say elevation, you’re like, hmm, there is no one owning this space. So our objective is, if a challenge involves elevation, it should be part of Everesting.” – Guillem

When Andy and I first talked about doing a piece on Everesting, I was not sure what the angle was going to be. I came in with skeptical questions and left with a genuine respect for the brand they have built and the business they are building. There is a significant white space around elevation within endurance sport and Everesting is positioned to take the lion’s share of it.

In other news

Enervit and UAE Team Emirates XRG unveil new fueling at the Tour de France

If you have been following the Tour de France over the last two weeks, you will know that Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates XRG are flying, with Tadej holding a commanding lead in the general classification. You will have also noticed that the conditions have been brutal, with temperatures exceeding 100°F on multiple stages.

In collaboration with Professor George A. Brooks of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dr. Iñigo San Millan, Enervit and UAE have unveiled what could prove to be the next frontier in endurance nutrition. Combining sodium lactate, vitamin B1, and their existing carbohydrate formula, Enervit has released their newest product, the C2:1PRO Lactate Gel Mix. The addition of sodium lactate is designed to give athletes a fast-acting energy source specifically for the final stretch of an event, when efforts become the most grueling. If you are curious about Enervit’s history and brand strategy, you can read about it here.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

In past editions of Built on Bikes I have covered various topics related to the United States’ national cycling programs and initiatives. These included a look into how USA Cycling thinks about funding collegiate cycling programs at the developmental level, a breakdown of their unique tech and innovation council that engages the private sector for performance gains, and why I believe the United States has a genuine opportunity to become the dominant nation in women’s cycling.

A throughline across all of these stories is how tight a budget USA Cycling operates on, roughly $16 million a year according to their Form 990 in 2024. Even more remarkable is that none of this funding comes from the government. It consists of individual grants and contributions, funding from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), and revenue generated from USA Cycling member licenses.

Over the last year I have attended various events at the intersection of venture capital and cycling, and USA Cycling has consistently had representatives present, including Chief of Staff, Karl Pelletier. In a competitive environment where other national cycling federations receive direct government funding, this engagement with the private sector reflects a scrappy and entrepreneurial mindset for funding initiatives and growing the sport domestically.

Establishing a network of private donors, technology partners for competitive advancement, and a strategy to deploy those assets is a massive undertaking on its own. Add to that a sprint toward the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the seminal event that many donors and partners use to assess the value of their relationship with USA Cycling, and the scope of the challenge becomes clear.

One of the people leading the charge at USA Cycling is former World Champion and Olympic Silver medalist, Mari Holden, the senior philanthropy officer at USA Cycling. For the last six years she has been executing fundraising efforts by engaging with the broader cycling community across the country. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mari and focusing on two unique relationships that are powering progress in women’s cycling in the lead up to the Los Angeles Olympics.

Who is Mari Holden?

Holden is one of the most accomplished cyclists the United States has ever produced. In 2000, she had a standout year, becoming world champion in the time trial and securing a silver medal in the same discipline at the Olympics. Since then, she has held various positions within USA Cycling including a seat on the board of directors, head coach of the women’s national road team, and her current role as senior philanthropy officer at the USA Cycling Foundation.

In that role, she actively engages funders and partners with the goal of increasing USA Cycling’s capital resources to drive competitive progress. Her efforts and those of her team have enhanced USA Cycling’s funding structure, with particular focus on better supporting and preparing female athletes for international competition.

During our conversation, we dove into two relationships that are directly shaping the future of women’s cycling in the United States. One is a transformational investment that lays the financial groundwork for women’s cycling development initiatives leading into the Olympics and beyond. The other is USA Cycling’s female athlete science committee that includes a strategic partnership with one of the world’s most prestigious research institutions. We also unpack USA Cycling’s funding structure and discuss what it reveals about the American cycling community as we head towards the Los Angeles games.

$2.5 million for women’s cycling

Since moving to San Francisco five years ago, I have spent most of my career indirectly serving venture capital and private equity firms. Time in these industries inevitably teaches one the importance of venture capital for scaling a business and how difficult it is to obtain early stage capital. This reality applies to tech companies with proven business models, which makes any major investment into a not-for-profit cycling federation like USA Cycling even more eye-catching.

One of the major drivers of women’s cycling development in the United States is a $2.5 million total commitment from the Hellman Foundation, with $1 million allocated for female Olympic athlete development and the remaining $1.5 million structured as a challenge match to grow and develop women’s cycling for the twenty years following the Games.

Even though this gift was reported on in 2024, many of the specifics were not discussed at the time. When you examine the relationship that led to the investment, how the funds will actually be deployed, and the structure of the commitment itself, it becomes an interesting case study for how the United States engage more high-net-worth individuals to fund development initiatives for male and female athletes.

Passion can inspire an investment, a relationship will sustain it

Founded in 2011, the Hellman Foundation is a philanthropic organization built to honor the legacy of Warren and Chris Hellman. Before the foundation was even established, USA Cycling had a long running relationship with Hellman heir Mick Hellman, Founder and Managing Partner at HMI Capital. To understand that relationship, you have to go back to before USA Cycling’s dedicated fundraising arm even existed.

“Mick Hellman has been involved with USA Cycling from before we were even a foundation. He was actually a part of helping get our foundation going. He started in 1997 and has been involved for a very long time.” — Mari Holden

The relationship between Mick and USA Cycling was born out of a shared love for cycling, and over nearly thirty years has directly led to a transformational investment in women’s cycling. Over that period USA Cycling has welcomed Mick and other private equity investors into the professional cycling community, allowing them to see the direct impact of their contributions and making clear that they are part of the team.

As Mick Hellman’s story shows, investing in national cycling initiatives means being treated as a collaborator, someone who can see their contributions translate directly into athlete performance. Mari recounted something she heard Dr. Allen Lim, Founder of Skratch Labs, say at a USA Cycling event with Christian Vande Velde: “The government doesn’t support athletes. Americans support the athletes.”

Mari added: “It’s Americans supporting Americans.” Over time, fostering genuine relationships strengthens that dynamic to the point where investors proactively think about what their money can do for American athletes. On how the $2.5 million investment in women’s cycling came to be, Mari pointed to Mick Hellman as the one who recognized the opportunity.

“After the Paris Olympics, when all of our medals were won by women, he saw this opportunity and understood the need to support these women in their efforts. Because things are still not equal in terms of what women can make and survive. It’s getting much, much better, but we still need help to grow. We have the athletes, we just need to be able to fund them and make it happen.” — Mari Holden

To illustrate how influential a single investor can be in furthering a nation’s competitiveness in cycling, Mari reflected on Mick’s three decades with USA Cycling.

“He’s really forward thinking. He helped start our foundation. Now he’s created this fund for our women. I can’t stress enough how incredible it is what he’s doing for women’s cycling.” — Mari Holden

Because of Mick and countless other donors and supporters, USA Cycling is entering the 2028 Olympics with its most ambitious medal goals to date, with women playing a central role. So how is the $2.5 million being deployed to help achieve them?

Development for LA and beyond

The challenge match

To understand how the Hellman Foundation funds are being put to use, it helps to understand the structure of the investment. The $2.5 million is separated into two parts: a $1 million gift that will go directly toward initiatives helping female athletes prepare and perform at the 2028 Olympics, and a $1.5 million challenge match intended to spur additional funding that will fuel women’s cycling development through 2049.

We will cover what the $1 million actually funds, but the $1.5 million challenge match is worth understanding on its own as a glimpse into how USA Cycling and their donors think about funding the future.

In philanthropic investing, a challenge match is a practice where a donor commits a set amount of capital toward a cause, in this case $1.5 million, that is only paid out if the recipient raises an equivalent amount toward the same cause within a given timeframe.

It may sound like the donor is hedging their commitment, and in a sense they are, but the structure also serves to rally broader community engagement and create new fundraising lines for the organization. If the challenge is matched, the total going toward the cause doubles, new donors are brought into the fold, and a sustainable funding network is created that is not dependent on any single contributor. Mari described this as the seed money to make development happen.

Combined with USA Cycling’s ability to foster a genuine sense of teamwork and camaraderie among their donors, the challenge match can quickly become a flywheel that builds on its own momentum. In the four year span between the Paris and Los Angeles Games, USA Cycling may be in the process of building one of the most powerful investment networks for a national cycling program the sport has seen. Time will tell, but how are the funds being put to work right now in the lead up to LA 2028?

You can’t build a house without a foundation

Before explaining some of the specifics, Mari made a claim that I actually addressed in my first ever edition of Built on Bikes. When we think about generating performance at the highest level of the sport, not enough attention is paid to the lowest levels of development.

“The world tour is growing fast, there’s a lot of attention at the top, but not as much attention at the base where we need to be developing our athletes. It’s not the super sexy side of sponsorships, but without it, we’re not going to be successful.” — Mari Holden

It is the same sentiment that Natascha Knaven-den Ouden, Founder of Team AG Insurance Soudal and NXTG Racing, shared with me in my first article. All the money flows to the pinnacle of the sport and none of the success that it generates trickles down to the developmental level, making sustainable talent pipelines elusive. Professional cycling is trying to build a house starting with the roof and no foundation. To reverse this trend, Mari said the funding goes toward straightforward development initiatives.

“It basically is going to help fund everything in the development pipeline for us, which are things like training camps, racing opportunities over in Europe…We tend to find athletes who have great engines, but no experience, so we want to be able to get them the experience that they need in order to develop and become winners.” — Mari Holden

The $2.5 million from the Hellman Foundation represents a meaningful step forward for women’s cycling in the United States. Using the money to fund development opportunities is one part of the equation. Advancing performance is the other, and that is where USA Cycling’s tech and innovation initiatives come into play.

A committee dedicated to female performance initiatives

The private sector has also helped USA Cycling form a committee dedicated to addressing knowledge gaps that affect the performance of female athletes. When it comes to coaching, training, and general physiological understanding, research tends to skew toward male physiology and does not account for factors like menstrual cycles, the effects of contraceptives on hormones, and pregnancy.

Some may remember that I previously spoke with Veronica Ewers about Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or REDs, and how it sidelined her cycling career. While several factors contributed to her diagnosis, a major theme was that she rarely had access to the resources and training knowledge needed to address the problem early. USA Cycling’s committee for female performance science was created to close these gaps and establish a framework that better equips American athletes with health and training resources tailored to female physiology.

The committee is composed of volunteer advisors representing some of endurance sports’ leading researchers and thought leaders at institutions with dedicated female athlete performance programs. Before diving into the committee’s goals and outcomes, I wanted to understand how it was formed and who is involved.

The partners

After attending a Hill Climbers investor lunch earlier this year and hearing Karl Pelletier share stories about USA Cycling’s expansive tech and innovation council, I was eager to learn how this sub-committee was formed. As it turns out, the idea grew out of a breakout session held during USA Cycling’s annual fundraising event, Bicycles & Bluegrass, which is made possible by the Hellman Foundation.

“We had a breakout session on women’s sports science and we realized there was a real need and a lot of interest in helping support the female athlete. So that became a committee which started in January. It’s very new, but we’ve been moving quickly with it.” — Mari Holden

The committee is composed of leading researchers, physicians, and tech professionals operating at the highest level of their respective fields:

Dr. Kelsey Erickson — Senior Director of Athlete Health, Engagement, and Experience at USA Cycling

Dr. Michael Roshon — Chief Medical Officer at USA Cycling and USA Triathlon

Dr. Emily Kraus — Program Director of FASTR, Stanford University’s Female Athlete Science and Translational Research program, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery

Michelle Chang — Senior Director of Product Management at Strava

FASTR is Stanford University’s Female Athlete Science and Translational Research Program. In its own words, Faster is:

“Committed to closing the gender gap in sports science research, our program conducts original research on female athletes while translating these findings into practical insights for female athletes and their advocates. By delving into the unique needs of women in sports, we’re helping to reshape the sports science landscape and address the unique challenges female athletes face through rigorous research.”

Having direct access to one of the world’s leading research institutions and one of the most recognized brands in endurance sport is a meaningful competitive advantage for USA Cycling. In practice, that relationship takes the form of a three year initiative in which this group will openly collaborate on programs designed to better equip American female athletes ahead of the 2028 Olympics.

The committee’s four pillars

As Mari mentioned, this is a three year initiative built around four pillars that guide the group’s work. The following definitions of each were provided directly by Mari.

Specific education for female athletes

Deliver female specific education to athletes, coaches, and support staff, covering topics that have historically received limited attention and elite sport environments. This includes menstrual cycles, their influence on training and racing, nutritional strategies to minimize performance disruption across hormonal phases, the role of contraception in female athletic performance and REDs.

Monitoring for athletes

A standardized medical monitoring program, including quarterly blood testing and longitudinal health tracking to provide proactive, consistent, oversight of athletes’ health and readiness.

Wearables

Wearable technologies and performance monitoring tools will be integrated into these systems to deepen understanding of recovery, adaptation, and readiness trends at the individual athlete level.

Scale the findings to all athletes

Following an initial pilot program, the initiative will scale this framework across USA cycling’s entire national team.

The action plan

Defining these initiatives has given the committee an action plan for providing tangible outcomes over the next three years. The following areas of tangible action were also provided directly from Mari.

Form a direct wearable partnership

Establish baseline assessments that support female athletes and help advance a comprehensive, wearable partnership that’ll enable USA Cycling enhance performance support.

Education sessions

Prepare a series of education sessions for coaches and staff that will ensure all USA cycling coaches, female athletes, and their programs have shared knowledge, language and understanding of female specific sports science matters. Education sessions will be delivered in a combination of virtual and in person sessions to maximize reach and impact.

Expert network for athletes

In addition to critical education sessions, build a network of expert providers who can support females on an individual basis when they are ready to transition the education, they are receiving into action.

These initiatives are paving a path for Team USA

Over the last decade, USA Cycling has become remarkably resourceful and forward thinking when it comes to maximizing athlete performance. British Cycling became famous for their marginal gains philosophy, which focused on the smallest details that affect performance. What USA Cycling is doing for women’s cycling has the potential to produce something far greater. Mari noted that the work being done is already getting noticed.

“The USOPC is really interested in what we’re doing because it’s not the norm across the USOPC…If our model proves successful, it could eventually become a broader USOPC-led initiative across all sports.” – Mari Holden

The Hellman Foundation gift and the female athlete performance committee are two stories that reflect the scrappy approach the United States takes to growing cycling. I wanted to highlight these two initiatives given my previous coverage of women’s cycling in the United States, but I was equally interested in hearing Mari’s breakdown of USA Cycling’s total funding structure heading into the Olympics.

These two initiatives deserved their own spotlight, but Mari was clear that USA Cycling puts serious effort into the success of both male and female athletes. The overall fundraising picture for USA Cycling speaks to that.

Funding 10 Olympic and 12 Paralympic medals at LA 2028

USA Cycling has set an $18 million fundraising goal heading into the 2028 Olympics, with the target of earning 10 Olympic and 12 Paralympic medals. Mari generously broke down the five funds that comprise that total, including the target for each and how much has been raised to date.

Athlete Development Fund - invested directly into high performance disciplines.

• Need: $3.9 million

• Raised: $565,000

Direct Athlete Grants - Stipends to support training and competition costs.

• Need: $2.25 million

• Raised: $1.25 million

Integrated Performance Fund - Cross-discipline resources for LA preparation including data analysis, sports performance, home field advantage initiatives, and tech innovation.

• Need: $4.2 million

• Raised: $1.1 million

Women’s Cycling Fund - Funding USA Cycling’s competitive advantage in women’s cycling.

• Need: $5 million

• Raised: $3 million

Para Excellence Fund - Supports the rethinking and elevation of para athlete programs including access to sports science, aerodynamics, and performance technology.

• Need: $2.6 million

• Raised: $460,000

Creativity and community is USA Cycling’s biggest asset

As we enter the final sprint toward the Los Angeles Games, Mari, USA Cycling, and their partners have formed an unlikely coalition. One that historically has not been necessary in other countries to fund national cycling programs, but as the United States continues to crack the code, this unorthodox model of investment and partnership may prove to be its biggest asset.

Cycling is a sport rooted in tradition and, in some respects, notoriously resistant to change. The United States continues to make incremental progress, and in the case of women’s cycling, something closer to a breakthrough. If USA Cycling hits their medal goals at the LA Games, we may be standing at the beginning of an era of accelerated growth for the sport in America.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

The biggest cycling event in the world, the Tour de France, kicks off tomorrow in Barcelona, Spain. According to Nielsen and Escape Collective, in 2025 the three week grand tour accumulated 1.173 billion total viewers, averaging 55.9 million viewers per stage. The Tour de France Femmes, which runs a week and a half, drew 184 million total viewers with an average of 20.4 million per stage.

Those numbers dwarf every other WorldTour race on the calendar and speak to the brand power of the Tour. Outside of Europe, when a non-cycling fan is asked about the sport, the Tour de France is almost always the reference point. A.S.O, the organization that owns the race, has done a strong job maintaining the Tour’s brand and relevance throughout its history and into the digital age.

Several factors contribute to that success: international broadcasting, annual consistency, advertising value, and more. But while the Tour stands firmly as the most important cycling event in the world, that does not mean its ability to influence and grow the sport is being fully maximized. Success at this scale is built on many factors, and a lot of them extend beyond what any race organizer directly controls.

As someone running an independent publication, media is one of those factors I think about constantly, especially on the eve of an event this large. Whether it is the live broadcast, content from race sponsors, social media, or independent media, every form of media shapes who sees the race and how they perceive the sport. This applies across all of cycling, but the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes offer an ideal case study to build from.

The goal today is to identify what media is working well to grow the sport and where there is room to do more. The media landscape surrounding the Tour is massive, and this feels like the right moment to think through what an ideal media mix for WorldTour cycling could look like.

Familiar territory

You might remember a piece I wrote related to this subject, specifically about how cycling tells its stories and where it falls short. The central argument was that cycling had its Netflix moment with Tour de France: Unchained and failed to capitalize, largely due to the series’ single-race format. It was an intimate look at the sport and its riders, but limiting it to the Tour de France was a missed opportunity. Media focused on one race is not inherently bad, but for a Drive to Survive-style series, that narrow focus undermined the potential.

That series is still a useful reference point for just how expansive the media ecosystem around a race like the Tour can be. The goal was to meaningfully grow cycling’s global viewership and reach. It fell short of that, but it raises the right questions: what media around a race is actually impactful, why is it impactful, and when does it land?

Breaking down the problem

I like to tackle macro problems on Built on Bikes, but that often makes it hard to organize my thoughts in a way that addresses the topic cleanly. Sometimes the structure comes naturally, but in this case the breakdown feels like it needs some framing upfront to avoid confusion.

Untangling the full media ecosystem around the Tour de France sounds like a problem that starts with the 30,000 foot view and works down into the details. But for what we are actually trying to do, identify the most effective media mix for growing the race and the sport, it makes more sense to start at a granular level and work our way up.

We will go through every media format I can think of, talk through each one’s current effect, what it does well, and where it falls short. As we move through them, the full picture will come into focus, and from there we can identify the ideal mix.

That final step will use my favorite simple and slightly nerdy business framework: the SWOT analysis, covering Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Classifying media formats

Given how many media formats surround professional cycling, it helps to organize them into distinct groups. These groups will make it easier to recognize patterns of success and failure that matter when we get to the SWOT analysis. As I was mapping out every format I could think of, three categories emerged:

Race organized media: Media directly paid for by a race organizer or licensed by them, considered a core part of live race production.

Partner media: Media not directly paid for by the race or tied to live production, but still requiring licensing or produced in collaboration with the race organizer.

Independent media: Media produced entirely by a third party with no direct connection to the race. Licensing is possible but rare.

I will not be able to identify every piece of media that falls under each category, but I will highlight the most important and most obvious examples in each. I will also do my best to surface formats that are easy to overlook, because those edge cases are often where the most interesting growth opportunities live, and they will get particular attention during the SWOT analysis.

Race organized media

Live production

Live production covers any media crucial to presenting the race to fans in real time. This includes live broadcasts across television and official streaming platforms, pre and post race programming with commentary and highlights, official race photography, and any feeds presenting live race data and statistics.

Some of this is carried out directly by the race organizer, some by broadcast networks holding the licensing rights, and some by both working in tandem. I will also include in-person media under this umbrella, meaning signage, print materials, and press conferences. These have limited reach by nature. With the exception of press conferences, they are only encountered by those physically attending the race.

Digital and social

Digital and social covers any media directly owned and operated by the race, including the official website, mobile apps, social media channels, and written content. By and large this is the most accessible touchpoint for fans who want to engage with media produced directly by the race organizers.

Partner media

Sponsor and brand content

Title sponsorship is perhaps one of the most influential forms of partner media in professional cycling. Zwift is a good example of this, bringing significant brand recognition to the Tour de France Femmes when the race was renewed. The level of influence varies by sponsor and medium. Some brands run commercials during live broadcasts while others produce activations at the event itself. Beyond title sponsors, this category also captures content from travel partners, merchandise sponsors, and other brand collaborators tied to the race.

Team and rider content

Any content created by teams attending the race serves as an important touchpoint for fans, offering an inside look at the experience. This includes team and rider social media channels, press releases, and content produced by a team’s individual sponsors. Collectively this category represents a large and largely untapped volume of organic storytelling around the race.

Long form content

This covers the type of media we have discussed in previous editions of Built on Bikes, documentary series being the most prominent example. More broadly it includes any coordinated production effort created in direct collaboration with race organizers or requiring significant sign off from them.

Independent media

Cycling specific media

This is the most expansive and wide-ranging segment. Content comes from third parties with no direct association to the race but with clear ties to the cycling ecosystem. Professionalism varies widely, from large media corporations to independent creators like myself.

• Publications and websites (VeloNews, CyclingNews, Escape Collective)

• Podcasts (THEMOVE, GCN Show, Lanterne Rouge, Beyond the Peloton)

• YouTube creators (GCN, Lanterne Rouge, independent creators)

• Substack and independent newsletter writers

• Independent documentary filmmakers and photographers

• Influencers, who may be at the race on behalf of a brand but whose content still lives on their personal channels

General and mainstream media

Media that has no direct association with the race but exists within the broader professional sports ecosystem alongside race broadcasters. General sports outlets like ESPN and Sports Illustrated are the most prominent examples, while national and local news stations and lifestyle publications extend the race’s reach to a genuinely general audience.

Fan and community media

Any fan-organized content centered around community engagement and discussion. Whether it is fan social media accounts, forums, subreddits, fantasy leagues, or commentary streams, this is content made by die-hard fans for other die-hard fans.

The issue with the current mix

If we look at the Tour de France starting tomorrow, most of the media formats we covered do exist around it in some form. However, the most prominent will be the live race broadcast, news media, and independent cycling specific outlets. That presents a real problem if our goal is to meaningfully grow the total addressable market for WorldTour racing and bring genuinely new fans into the sport.

I was listening to Beyond the Peloton recently when my good friend and resident badass who is fighting cancer, Andrew Vontz, made the point that we may need to accept the Tour de France for what it is in the US: a race for hardcore fans. In its current form, I agree with him. But I also think that can change over time. Andrew was not being pessimistic or giving up on growth. He was pointing out that the race is simply too complicated, requires too much prior rider knowledge, and demands too much time per stage for the average American viewer to get invested.

The current media mix does not do enough to close that knowledge gap or earn quick investment from casual fans. Keep that theme in mind as we get into the SWOT analysis. As we head into our SWOT analysis, we’ll only focus on factors that are directly related to the media. This means factors like the race route, calendar position, etc. won’t be considered.

Strengths

Broadcast production - Following a peloton across France over 21 stages, countless mountain passes, and thousands of miles is no small logistical feat. The Tour de France has the filming of the race down to a science. There are minor areas worth revisiting, like the influence of motos on the race itself and the use of split screen angles to cover multiple rider groups simultaneously, but broadly speaking this is one area that does not need significant change.

Strong cycling media ecosystem - Over the next month there will be no shortage of content for cycling fans to consume from their favorite independent creators. The depth and quality of cycling specific media surrounding the Tour is genuinely one of the sport’s greatest assets.

Sponsor and brand content - Sponsors get strong value from the Tour de France. While the viewing audience in the United States is not as large as it is in Europe, the race still provides a direct line to American viewers. Association with the Tour also gives brands significant runway to build their own content and campaigns around the event independently of the race organizer.

Branding - The Tour de France is the most iconic bike race in the world. Even if you have never watched a stage, you know the name. That kind of brand recognition is rare and nearly impossible to manufacture, and it is one of the race’s most under-leveraged assets when it comes to reaching new audiences.

Weaknesses

The knowledge gap - The race format contains so many competing storylines that it is genuinely difficult to follow without prior knowledge. Individual stage winners, the general classification, the classification jerseys, and the context required to understand each rider’s role in the race all demand a level of familiarity that new viewers simply do not have.

Timing - Most American viewers, particularly those on the West Coast, have to wake up early to watch stages live. The Tour de France does not get a primetime slot in the United States, and that is unlikely to change given the race’s European schedule.

Politics - In 2021, Bas Tietema, founder of Unibet-Rose Rockets, attended the Tour with a camera and built content around the race. One of his most popular videos involved handing pizza to riders after stages. His team is now one of the most recognizable and well-branded in the sport. I bring this up because after those videos gained traction, A.S.O filed a copyright complaint claiming they violated the use of race images. A.S.O eventually rescinded the claim, but the instinct to suppress that kind of organic storytelling was a direct act against growing the sport.

Independent media - The cycling specific independent media ecosystem is strong, but content from non-cycling outlets is still lacking. The race is not forcing itself into spaces where cycling is rarely discussed, and that limits its ability to reach genuinely new audiences.

The ability to tell stories - Tour de France: Unchained demonstrated that storytelling remains one of the biggest gaps in WorldTour racing. The Netflix series was not the right format to tell the story of the race, even for French audiences. An effective storytelling format built for a mass audience has yet to be found.

Threats

Short form content - Shrinking attention spans driven by social media present one of the most immediate threats to the Tour’s ability to grow its audience. Semi-viral Instagram reels surface every year from the race, but they are not converting casual viewers into invested fans. Multi-hour stages are an increasingly tough sell for younger audiences who are accustomed to content that delivers a payoff in seconds, not hours.

There are certainly more threats worth identifying, but in the media landscape this feels like the most pressing one. Lack of competition is frequently cited as a threat to the sport, but I think that contributes to a different problem, which is maintaining engagement with people who are already cycling fans. For new viewers, Tadej’s dominance actually works in the race’s favor. A clear protagonist is one of the easiest entry points a sport can offer a casual audience.

Opportunities

Presentation to American audiences - I will preface this opportunity by saying there is a significant upfront financial investment required, but it is worth exploring if A.S.O and other WorldTour races genuinely want to engage American audiences with the racing itself.

We know the two major issues with the current broadcast format: stages are too long and they air too early in the morning. For people like me that combination is the dream, but for the average American who does not follow cycling, you might as well not air the race live at all. The Olympics are a useful example of a sporting event that has found a way around this problem. When the Games take place in Europe or Asia, American audiences are not watching live. Instead, broadcasters re-air events in primetime slots across cable and streaming. Even though the content is pre-recorded, those streams still show up under the live TV section on Peacock, which happens to be the same carrier as the Tour de France.

That is part one of this opportunity. With the growth of streaming, there should at minimum be a push to stream stages in the evening as if they were live. But that alone does not solve the length problem. So why not condense the stage into an hour long viewing experience?

My proposal is this: in the window between the live race and primetime, produce a program that recaps the race storylines so far, offers a more cinematic look at the previous stage, and then moves into live studio commentary that gets viewers up to speed on the current day without revealing the outcome. For sprint stages, spend time in the studio building toward the finale before cutting to the final ten kilometers. For mountain stages, show the final climb closer to full length. Use time trials to go deep on individual riders and tell their stories.

It is loose and unproven, but I genuinely think a format like this could work. I would watch it. And it does not end there. The presenters leading into the live coverage need to be recognizable faces, not just cycling insiders. I know this will frustrate some of you, but put Lance Armstrong in the studio. I would not call myself a fan, but for a younger audience his complicated history does not diminish his brand recognition or the kind of brash, watchable personality that makes good television. His podcast already airs directly after stages. We might as well embrace the reach he clearly has with viewing audiences.

To close out this opportunity, it is worth noting that this is not entirely in A.S.O’s control. They do not own NBC or Peacock and cannot force a programming decision. But they can influence one financially. It would be an investment and a real risk, but if it works the upside for the race would be significant. More viewers means more leverage with sponsors, and sponsorship revenue would follow.

The femmes - By now it is clear that I am bullish on women’s cycling and its potential to grow the sport meaningfully in the United States. Every industry source I speak to suggests the Tour de France Femmes is a runaway train in terms of growth and momentum. The race is still new enough that it presents a genuine opportunity to experiment with new formats, prioritize storytelling, and attract sponsor money from well outside the cycling world.

Non-cycling pop culture - I have already written about why we should be putting cycling in places it does not traditionally belong, and that applies even more for the sport’s premiere event. Social media formats present interesting opportunities for a race like the Tour, and reach can quite literally be bought. Whether it is a podcast where celebrities appear to promote their latest project or a content creator with a personality that can make any event compelling, cycling should be infiltrating those spaces.

I am not a fan personally, but watching the World Cup and seeing how FIFA has utilized streaming personality IShowSpeed made me wonder if cycling could benefit from something similar. For those unfamiliar, IShowSpeed is a streaming personality with tens of millions of followers. If FIFA can generate value from him sitting in a press box at World Cup matches, the Tour de France could produce something far more compelling by putting him in a rowdy crowd on a mountaintop or on the back of a moto during a stage.

The Tour de France and beyond

For a race as big as the Tour de France, there is far too much media related context to cover in a single weekly newsletter. From convincing a major American broadcast network to air cycling in primetime to building a media strategy that reaches pop culture audiences, A.S.O would not be able to achieve any of this overnight. It would require incremental change, significant financial investment, and most importantly, a genuine desire to grow cycling in non-European markets.

Just the other day I had a conversation with the former CMO of one of the world’s largest soccer clubs. The organization he worked for has a broader media reach than the Tour de France, and he made the point that sport is built on pure passion. That passion is an incredible strength, but also a liability when it is not paired with strategic business thinking.

The Tour de France and many other WorldTour events carry a rich heritage, but that history can breed comfort and keep the passion for the sport confined to its existing fanbase. The result is slow growth. Success is success, but if we are truly passionate about cycling, why not find out where the ceiling actually is? The Tour de France Femmes has shown what can happen when you take a chance on a new format. If we change the media mix surrounding WorldTour racing, there is real reason to believe we can see meaningful growth in new markets.

In other news

Help a fellow cyclist

Yesterday, Alyssa Secreto was within 60 miles of finishing the Tour Divide, a famous bikepacking race from Canada to Mexico, when she was hit by a car traveling at nearly 60 miles per hour. Her injuries were extensive, and because this happened in the United States, her medical bills will be significant. Please consider donating to her GoFundMe. If you want to take action to protect cyclists on the road, please follow and donate to The White Line.

More fires

Right on the heels of Crusher in the Tushar being canceled, a wildfire that originated on Mount Massive near Leadville, Colorado has the potential to affect the Life Time Grand Prix and the Leadville MTB 100 in August. At the moment it seems hopeful that the fire will have passed by then, but it is another reminder of how climate change is threatening not just cycling but every outdoor sport. And while it is not fire, France just recorded its hottest day on record, days before the Tour de France kicks off.

If climate action is something you care about, Protect Our Winters is an organization that understands firsthand how climate change affects the sports we love.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

Much to my surprise, my takes were noticed by both brands, as well as some other names in the industry. While I do not anticipate nutrition becoming a major theme for Built on Bikes, if there is a good story to tell or an interesting business strategy to dissect, I will jump at the opportunity. My college self five years ago could only dream of having high-level conversations about brand strategy with names like these, and that has not gotten any less exciting.

This week is another brand deep dive. This time on an Italian sports nutrition company with over seventy years of history, a roster that includes the best cyclist in the peloton, and an ambitious push into the North American market currently underway. Self-described as a cycling brand at its core, Enervit is looking to make a serious impression in the US, and they are doing it with a more holistic approach than most.

Did Tadej Pogačar’s nutrition sponsor just email me?

While I was in Kansas covering Unbound, I received an email from a nutrition brand I knew only vaguely. The brand was Enervit, which I knew as Tadej Pogačar’s and UAE Team Emirates’ nutrition sponsor. I had never seen Enervit’s products in stores or received much advertising from them, so it was a bit out of the blue for the nutrition brand used by the greatest cyclist of all time, yes I said it, to be reaching out to me.

I recognized the sender as someone who had been subscribed to my newsletter for a while. It was Mirek Boruta, SVP and General Manager of North America at Enervit. A quick look at his LinkedIn revealed deep experience in CPG, including senior positions at Clif Bar and Feastables, which made his outreach even more intriguing. Mirek was interested in collaborating on a piece, but why reach out to a niche publication instead of focusing on larger outlets? When I read his pitch it became clear.

Mirek and Enervit both understand that cycling is a sport rooted in culture and community, and that storytelling is what wins with cycling consumers. A few things in his pitch stood out and instantly earned my trust. He made the point that cycling is not just a category for Enervit, but the sport the brand was built on and where they are most deeply invested.

He also emphasized that Enervit understands how important trust is with cyclists. Admittedly, we are some of the pickiest, most product-obsessed consumers out there, which is why Mirek said his focus is connecting with authentic voices in the community who are genuinely passionate about the sport and trusted by riders. He also left the scope of collaboration entirely up to me, genuinely looking to add value to my audience rather than asking for ad placement.

I worked in sales for four years before Built on Bikes. I know good cold outreach when I see it. Even as a slightly calloused sales professional, I was sold, because what Mirek was displaying was Enervit’s genuine love for cycling. My kind of brand.

Not a review. OK, a quick one.

I responded and told Mirek I would love to collaborate and tell the story of Enervit’s strategy for penetrating the US market. I was upfront that I am not really a reviewer, so if he sent me product I probably would not be diving deep into my experience with it. He was completely fine with that and still sent some my way.

With all that said, you might still be curious what I thought. I tried everything and loved it. The products probably lean slightly toward the experienced cyclist, but they are certainly approachable, especially if a newer rider sees the brand’s association with Tadej. I tell everyone my gut is indestructible, and without any major gut training beforehand, I did a 3.5 hour ride pushing 100 grams of carbs per hour using Enervit products. No issues. Transparently, I have never had any nutrition product upset my stomach, so take that for what it is worth.

I also appreciated how comprehensive the lineup is, covering pre, during, and post-ride nutrition. I have praised Maurten for their product simplicity in the past, and still do, so it is worth noting that the breadth of Enervit’s offering could feel overwhelming to a newer cyclist. For an experienced rider it was a different story. There is something genuinely satisfying about chugging the same cherry recovery drink you see Tadej Pogacar and Isaac Del Toro reaching for after a race.

More on my relationship with this brand in a bit, but for now, the interesting stuff.

A brief introduction to Enervit

Founded in 1954, Enervit has been in operation for over seventy years. That is a lifetime for a person, and for a nutrition brand, it might as well be centuries. Nutrition is a field that innovates incredibly fast, so covering the entire brand history would take far too long. Luckily I got my hands on their brand book, and I am learning about this brand right alongside you.

Before Enervit, there was Also, a pharmaceutical company founded in Milan, Italy in 1954 by pharmacists Paolo Sorbini and Franca Garavaglia. Also would operate for nearly twenty years before shifting its research focus toward dietary needs, where the founders found sport to be the ideal playing field for studying the reactions of the human body in motion. Ironically, their first products focused on developing sweeteners while avoiding sugar.

In 1973, Enervit was born, debuting as a product that balanced fructose, vitamins, and mineral salts to provide energy during exercise. A relationship with the Giro d’Italia formed quickly, and innovation continued from there. By the 1980s, Enervit was partnering with pro cyclist Francesco Moser to break Eddy Merckx’s hour record. They helped break it, and in the process were part of a program that brought landmark innovations to the sport including disc wheels, hill repeat training, and heart rate monitoring.

In the 1990s, Enervit partnered with another legendary cyclist, Miguel Indurain, who went on to win five consecutive Tours de France, two Giro-Tour doubles, an Olympic gold medal. Through the 2000s and 2010s the brand continued to grow, supporting male and female athletes to iconic victories across IRONMAN, ski racing, soccer, and cycling. Today Enervit supports the best men’s WorldTour team, UAE Team Emirates, along with all Italian national cycling teams, and continues to use cycling as its primary testing ground.

That is a rushed version of a long story, but the point is clear. This brand has been around the block and been part of far more cycling history than I realized. They were early supporters of women’s sport and are now building what could be the defining chapter of that legacy alongside Tadej Pogacar.

Enervit is also very Italian, which comes through clearly in the romantic storytelling style of their brand book. All jokes aside, this is a massive brand with a remarkable history that most American consumers have never heard of. Yet.

Why now?

The stage is set. Enervit is making their largest push into the American market, but why now? That was the first question I asked Mirek, and the answer requires some context, because this is not the first time the brand has tried to engage US consumers.

“Some people may know Enervit tried to enter the US 25 years ago in a distributor model, where they basically outsourced the distribution to a third party. Unfortunately that didn’t work out because the distributor we used went bankrupt. Enervit learned a lot of lessons from that.”

Logistics played a major role in making that first attempt unsuccessful, but outsourcing inevitably led to brand erosion and a loss of storytelling. It was some random Italian nutrition brand showing up on shelves. Now it is the brand fueling Tadej Pogacar showing up in your local store with consistent inventory.

“Now we’re going at it in a completely different way. Enervit is establishing a North America division, hiring a North America team, and have established a warehouse here in the US. It’s a whole different approach to how to bring a product from Europe to the United States.”

Mirek was also clear that Enervit has been operating in the US in this new capacity for the last two years, using that time to build the operational foundation. Now it is time to come out swinging, and the reason why is one we have heard before in other brand stories on this newsletter.

The United States is one of the largest consumer markets in the world. Cycling and endurance sports may not be as big here as they are in Europe, but our total addressable market scales far beyond what Europe offers. Every major European nutrition brand has been vying for American market share for some time now. Enervit is finally making their move.

“The bar category, not just in sports nutrition, is over 8 billion in revenue. Any bar manufacturer or sports nutrition manufacturer is really keen on getting a percentage of that total category. The US is the grand prize.”

They may be arriving a little late to the party, but they are arriving with more brand capital than most brands had when they made the same trip. Maurten did not have athlete partners of the caliber of Demi Vollering or Eliud Kipchoge when they entered the US market. Enervit enters with seventy years of brand heritage to draw from. That history is valuable, but Enervit is not building their US entrance strategy on brand capital alone. They are aiming to capture market share with a holistic philosophy that applies to everything they do.

A 360 degree approach

Throughout my conversation with Mirek, one theme kept coming up: Enervit is a brand built around covering all bases. Whether it is their product range or their marketing strategy, the brand is working to reach consumers at every level of the market funnel. Four pieces of their strategy stood out to me:

• Addressing market saturation

• Athlete marketing

• Product differentiation

• Distribution

As with most things in marketing, all three are intertwined and work in tandem toward the same goal of comprehensive market engagement, but each has a distinct approach worth unpacking.

Addressing market saturation

Even for an experienced cyclist, choosing performance nutrition can be an ordeal. Off the top of my head I can name fifteen brands without thinking, and if you go on a site like The Feed that number quickly grows to hundreds. I already admitted it, but even to me, Enervit was a fairly inconspicuous brand until recently. So how are they thinking about market capture when consumers have this many options?

Enervit understands that the number of brands available to consumers is not going to shrink, so they are embracing it. More brands mean more category visibility, and that aligns directly with their philosophy of making sure every athlete need is met.

“Frankly, I’m really happy that there’s a number of brands because it’s helping elevate the conversation about the need for nutrition before, during, and after sport. People are spending thousands of dollars on a bike but nutrition is put on the back burner.”

“We’re big believers in not just stealing market share from each other but growing the total category. There’s so many people out there training, whether it’s cycling, running, there’s a thousand different sports. They all need nutrition and there’s plenty of space for multiple products in this category.”

On its face the mindset may seem counterintuitive, but it helps explain Enervit’s decision to wait before making a serious US push. The brand has deeply established roots in Europe and had the luxury of patience, waiting for indicators in the American market that signaled the right moment to expand. Rather than spending resources chasing small slivers of an underdeveloped market, they are entering as the category grows, which makes capturing meaningful share significantly easier.

Athlete marketing

From the start of Built on Bikes, athlete marketing has been one of my favorite topics to dig into. Getting to hear how Enervit utilizes athletes like Tadej was genuinely exciting, and more importantly, eye opening. Eye opening because Mirek led with sponsorships that meant a lot more to me than having the greatest of all time on the roster. You guessed it, collegiate cycling programs were among Enervit’s first athlete sponsorships in the United States.

Mirek told me that Enervit sponsors Humboldt State University’s cycling program and Cal Berkeley’s triathlon team. The reasoning is similar to why brands sponsor local elite teams like SpeedBlock-Terun. Most people are going to know who Tadej is, but sponsoring smaller teams and athletes creates local touchpoints that build brand trust and make an Italian brand feel a little more familiar.

“If there’s a cycling fan that follows Tadej, they get awareness of Enervit and the products he’s using throughout his training and racing, and then they go to their local bike shop or are on a local ride and there are riders from Humboldt State or the Cal Berkeley triathlon team that have the bottle, have the product. It brings it home.”

It is a comprehensive approach to consumer engagement and exactly the type of marketing I talk about all the time. It takes more creativity and investment upfront, but sponsoring at both the professional and developmental level builds brand stories that resonate with consumers at every level.

Product differentiation

This point is worth revisiting: Enervit’s comprehensive product portfolio is their primary claim to differentiation. Their before, during, and after platform means they can fuel athletes at every stage of the performance cycle.

I praised Maurten for reducing production costs by simplifying their product lineup, but Maurten is not even half as old as Enervit. Even Science in Sport, another historic nutrition brand, was not founded until 1992. Enervit’s seventy years in operation has allowed them to solidify their production model, meaning they can reliably produce the full range of products needed before, during, and after exercise without it being a strain on the business.

Athlete partnerships play into this as well. Throughout the brand’s history, athlete feedback has directly shaped product development, creating the lineup available today. Fair point, most nutrition brands say the same thing. But when UAE Team Emirates is your flagship partnership, the claim carries a different weight.

“Magic Cherry was developed by Enervit and Equipe Enervit and tested by Tadej and UAE Team Emirates. Years were spent testing and providing feedback before we brought it out to market. It’s not just because Enervit’s been around a long time. Just as important is that we work with athletes like Tadej to really refine the offering to make it the best it can be.”

In the WorldTour, UAE Team Emirates is the most dominant team in the peloton. They have the deepest pockets, the best riders, and the most extensive performance research infrastructure of any squad in the world. Their trust in Enervit is a seal of approval that is hard to ignore

Distribution

The final piece of Enervit’s 360 strategy plays out in their distribution. This was an area where they stumbled on their first attempt at the US market, and they are approaching it very differently this time. Rather than outsourcing, Enervit is meeting consumers where they already are: local brick and mortar shops where captive athletes already spend their money.

“We’re really focusing on expanding our brick and mortar sales through independent bike shops and running shops and tennis shops, leveraging the global athletes that we have.”

From there, the goal is to work back up the sales funnel toward mass retail distribution.

“We’re looking beyond sports retail. We’re very motivated to take some of our bars and protein powders to customers beyond, whether it’s natural style grocery and eventually mass market, which is the Walmarts and Targets of the world.”

The Enervit pincer movement

A military encirclement strategy might be an aggressive analogy, but it is exactly how Enervit is approaching market penetration. Through athletes and distribution alike, Enervit is attacking both the top and bottom of the funnel simultaneously.

They are uniquely positioned to do this. Their approach to market saturation and product breadth is what makes it possible. Take Maurten. Their products skew heavily toward the serious endurance athlete, so they need to attack the bottom of the funnel because that is where their consumer lives. Put Maurten in Walmart and they are out of place. Enervit’s bars and powders, on the other hand, could sit comfortably in Walmart’s fitness aisle. At the same time, their gels, drink mixes, and recovery products hold their own alongside Maurten and Science in Sport at the specialty level.

In many ways, Enervit let the new wave of endurance nutrition brands do the heavy lifting in the US, and now they are riding that wave while actively encouraging more brands to enter and expand the category. In the world’s largest consumer market, there is plenty of room for all of them.

Cycling will always be the core pillar

To close out the conversation we brought things back to cycling and the vital role it plays in Enervit’s identity as a brand and how it creates a gateway to other sports markets. More than any other sport, cycling is consistently on the cutting edge of nutrition. Even five years ago, 100 grams of carbs per hour would have sounded like madness. Now it is widely accepted.

Enervit is looking to connect cycling’s innovation to mainstream sports nutrition in the United States and beyond. Cycling acts as the testing ground and Enervit aims to be the intermediary that brings those discoveries to other levels of professional sport.

“I will always say, and it will always be a cycling product for cyclists. Cyclists are always going to need carbs and nutrition and electrolytes to continue the efforts they’re putting out. Cycling is the core definition of that.

Sports like soccer, basketball, football, I think one of the core things that’s really missing is a conversation about nutrition. When you’re playing a 90-minute soccer game, you need those carbs. People are not aware that that part is important. Our goal is to really expand the conversation about nutrition for any sport you’re doing.”

It is a bold vision, and exactly the type of lofty strategic thinking I find most exciting to write about. I am genuinely looking forward to seeing what the next few years have in store for this brand. To close with an Italian word that many cyclists have adopted to describe pure, elegant, and classy riding: it is pure ciclismo!

Built on Bikes x Enervit

I am excited to announce that Built on Bikes will be partnering with Enervit as a newsletter sponsor. Before you write this off as a paid advertisement, I want to be upfront: this was my idea. I pitched it to Mirek after our interview, well after I had already decided I wanted to write about Enervit.

Why did I propose it? After talking with Mirek, it became clear there would be opportunities for continued collaboration beyond this story. Mirek was clear that meaningfully engaging with the cycling community is central to Enervit’s success, and that they want to support cycling as much as cycling supports them. I am an avid cyclist who spends a lot of money on nutrition, so representing Enervit’s products was a straightforward decision on that front.

Sponsorships were never the intention when I started Built on Bikes. It was simply a way to connect with the sport I love, get more involved in it, and build community. I think my actions speak to that. I have sacrificed social plans to get stories out on time and spent my own money flying across the country to races and covering lodging without any guarantee of something coming from it.

At the same time, my desire to have a real impact on developing the sport in the United States has grown, and brand partnerships open doors to do more of that. One of the most rewarding parts of this newsletter has been connecting people to make things happen, whether that is introducing athletes to potential sponsors, linking organizations with investors, or simply making the right introduction at the right time.

The idea of partnerships has grown on me, but I made a promise to myself, and now to you that I will only work with brands that have shown a genuine commitment to growing the sport domestically. That is the only standard that feels right.

If I bring on other partners down the road, my hope is to pool that support into my own initiatives to grow the sport. Enervit has shown they are a brand that cares, which is why I am glad to have them as a partner. They have already reached out to support programs I am close to, and I am looking forward to helping in any way I can.

This is still a work in progress, but I also want to pass the benefits on to Built on Bikes subscribers, so keep an eye out for that in future editions.

In other news

Kate Courtney

It feels like I write about Kate every other week at this point, but what can I say, she keeps making news. Last weekend Kate took the win at the US Road National Championships. Ever since she left the World Cup mountain biking circuit she has been on a tear, and it is looking increasingly like a calculated bid for a spot on Team USA at the LA 2028 Olympics.

There are doubters, but I am not one of them. From everything I have seen and heard, USA Cycling is enthusiastic about her bid, and they would not be if the data was telling a different story. The USA Cycling tech and innovation council goes far deeper than most of us realize, especially on the women’s side of the sport. A lot can happen in two years, and I think we will see Kate competing for gold on the road at the Olympics.

Crusher in the Tushar

Life Time’s Crusher in the Tushar has officially been canceled due to the Cottonwood fire in Utah. Crusher is the race that inspired me to become a serious cyclist. It quite literally changed my life, and I did not even get to race it that year because it was canceled due to a different fire.

All indications are that this fire was caused by an individual, but the size, speed, and spread cannot be ignored. In two of the last three years, this race has been canceled due to wildfires. Climate change has played an undeniable role in that, and the reality is we will see more iconic off-road races lost to wildfires and natural disasters before things get better.

Follow Crusher in the Tushar for updates on how you can support the race and the Beaver and Eagle Point communities. I also encourage you to follow and donate to Protect Our Winters, a climate action organization that works directly with athletes to protect the spaces we love so that future generations can continue to enjoy them.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

I have long avoided this topic because so many people have such strong opinions on it. In the early days of Built on Bikes it would have been easy to spew ideas on the subject. I am glad I held off. Nearly a year of writing about cycling development in the US has given me far more perspective, and I feel like I can now justify some of the wilder pitches in this story. Maybe I am naive, but a prevailing narrative has never stopped me from pitching entrepreneurial ideas and solutions.

I have written about race series like Formula Fixed that are trying to reinvigorate bike racing in the US through creative new formats, but I think we would all like to see WorldTour road racing back in this country. If we want that, we will need to pitch something that strikes the right balance between tradition and excitement.

European road racing is steeped in tradition and, for better or worse, has kept the sport rigid and resistant to change over the last decade. Not that long ago the US had WorldTour races like the Tour of California and Tour of Utah. Now we are limited to a handful of one-day events like the Maryland and Philadelphia cycling classics. Both are great events, but neither consistently attracts the full roster of WorldTour teams and athletes.

So how do we pitch something enticing enough to attract WorldTour teams that is also financially viable and built for a modern audience? While in Emporia at Unbound Gravel, a few ideas came to mind for how we bridge that gap. The answer is not gravel racing, but there is something worth borrowing from it. This week is my pitch for bringing WorldTour road racing back to the US. There will be flaws and contradictions, and that is fine. Any good entrepreneurial venture starts with discovery and refinement.

What does it take to become a WorldTour race?

Before we can pitch unique event ideas, we need to understand what it actually takes to be classified as a WorldTour road race. The governing body for all WorldTour races is the UCI, and they have a well-earned reputation for creating frameworks that are hard to keep up with. The rules and regulations for organizing a WorldTour race are relatively straightforward, but how a race earns a spot on the WorldTour calendar versus remaining a Continental-level event is less clear, at least from what I could find.

From what I can gather from the UCI’s website and resources, a race needs to meet the following criteria to earn a WorldTour calendar spot:

• Financial stability

• Multiple operational years attracting top Continental, Pro Continental, and select WorldTour teams

• A fitting place within the existing WorldTour race calendar

• Proof of high-quality television broadcasting

Broad criteria, but the through-line is money. For better or worse, money talks in sports, and cycling is no exception. Take the Giro d’Italia. In recent years the race has leaned on foreign nations to host grand departs, which are typically the opening three stages of a grand tour and can take place outside the country the race is named after.

Recent Giro grand departs have kicked off in some surprising locations, including Albania, Bulgaria, and Israel. The reason is almost always financial. Every stage of a grand tour starts and finishes in a town or city, and those cities pay the race organizer, RCS, for the privilege. The further afield these grand departs travel, the more money is typically changing hands.

Why bring this up? If the UCI is comfortable sending riders to the Middle East for a race that is otherwise strictly European, I think they can find room on the calendar for an American race if the money is there. So, how do we address these areas?

Producing financial viability

To double down on that point: money will be the determining factor in bringing road racing back to the United States. Solving the financial question comes down to executing on two fronts, financial stability and financial opportunity. Stability focuses on the organizer and the event. Opportunity focuses on the teams and the race sponsors. We will explore both areas and then look at the domestic money sources that can provide each.

Financial stability

In Europe, pro road races generate revenue through broadcasting rights, sponsorships, and city start fees. In the United States, races are largely built on mass participant entry fees. Broadcasting revenue will be a non-factor in the early years of any new American road race, so we need to follow the model we know works: build a professional road race that is also enticing to the mass participant.

Sponsors are another pillar of financial stability, but a race has to deliver value to earn them. In Europe, broadcasting does that work. In the United States, mass participation will be what brings eyes to race sponsors. We have already seen this model play out with Unbound Gravel. The scale of participation at that event attracted sponsors, and free broadcasting has since created additional value for those partners. It is proof that we do not need to replicate the broadcasting model that props up European road racing.

Sponsors deserve their own section, but the short version is this: for financial stability in the American market, we need a road race that serves both professional teams and the mass participant.

Financial opportunity

Besides being on the WorldTour calendar, what makes a race attractive to a WorldTour team? It is easy to forget, but not all WorldTour races are created equal. A team would much rather win a single stage at the Tour de France than take the overall at the Tour of Switzerland. For riders the appeal is competing at the highest level, but for teams it is about sponsor visibility.

WorldTour teams are businesses that live and die by capital. Bigger sponsors mean more money, better riders, more wins, and the cycle continues. Unlike most other sports, where ticket sales and merchandise contribute to team revenue, cycling teams rely almost entirely on sponsors, and sponsors want their brand on the biggest stage possible.

To bring professional road racing back to the United States, we need to make races attractive to teams by either giving their existing sponsors a bigger platform or opening the door to better sponsors than what they currently have. I think the latter is where the United States can steal a march on some of Europe’s biggest races.

The United States is home to some of the largest corporations in the world and the most powerful consumer market on the planet, making it one of the most capital-rich environments in professional sports. If we can tap into that ecosystem, we will be well on our way to attracting every WorldTour team to our roads.

Sponsors and the mass participant

If we want to provide both financial stability and opportunity in the United States, we need to cater to both sponsors and the mass participant. This will all come down to race design, marketing, and operations. Those characteristics will lead to good sponsors, but the type of sponsors we attract matter, so before we dive into all the juicy race details, what type of sponsors and professional audiences do we want to attract?

Money and status sells

It can be hard to identify clear themes in WorldTour team sponsorships, but the rise of super-teams has made one thing obvious: obscure business sponsorships can no longer fund success at the top level. Team UAE is backed by one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe has one of the most recognizable beverage brands in the world fueling their budget, and even Visma Lease-a-Bike is attracting tech-forward AI sponsors like Mistral AI.

These are the types of sponsors a US race would need to attract to catch the interest of WorldTour squads. Two sectors stand out to me:

• AI

• High-end consumer technology

These two are worth focusing on because they overlap most naturally with the average road cycling enthusiast in the US and have the deepest pockets when it comes to sponsorship. It is anecdotal, but living in San Francisco makes it hard to ignore: wealthier individuals follow and participate in cycling, and more importantly, have the purchasing power for high-end products and work in the industries that sign massive AI contracts.

We have laid out the fundamentals required to catalyze a revival of American road racing, but what race brings all of these interests together?

Designing the ideal race experience

Engaging the mass participant, WorldTour teams, and sponsors requires careful thought across several variables. Everything from location to race format will influence how attractive an event is to each of those three parties. Some variables will speak more directly to one group than another, but together they should blend into a single compelling narrative that works for all three.

When I think about crafting the ideal American road event, a few themes stand out:

• Location

• Race format and design

• Branding

These themes are deeply intertwined, but for the sake of being thorough, we will break each one down and look at how it impacts our three stakeholder groups and the sub-considerations within it. After that, I will follow my tradition of pitching something probably crazy but hopefully provocative.

Location

Location is the single most important variable in this equation because it has to work for every party involved. Mass participants need to see it as somewhere worth building a trip around, whether that is a dedicated cycling vacation or a trip with a race attached to it. American gravel racing has shown us that mass participants are fairly flexible when it comes to destination variety, so finding somewhere that functions as both a strong cycling destination and a broader vacation destination will only improve the odds of success on that front.

Location will also play heavily into branding opportunities, which we will get to later. For now, the key point is that our race location needs to be attractive to and frequented by high net worth individuals with ties to corporate sponsors.

Infrastructure is another consideration. The host city needs to be able to absorb a significant influx of tourists and media without requiring extraordinary logistical coordination to make the event function. Climate and landscape tie directly into course design and calendar placement, reducing the risk of adverse weather. And a strong location has to deliver visually for viewing audiences. Course design can drive excitement, but the landscape itself determines whether a viewer sees the race as visually stunning or forgettable.

Race format and design

The race course itself will determine how desirable the event is for WorldTour riders and mass participants alike. Gravel has shown us again that riders are drawn to American courses that are a genuine test of fitness while weaving in an element of adventure. Course length also directly affects how the race fits into the WorldTour calendar and how worthwhile the trip is for athletes traveling from around the world.

WorldTour riders and teams will be hard to convince if an American race is either a one-day event or built around sprint finishes that Europe already offers in abundance. At the same time, a three-week tour makes no sense, and even a one-week race strains the WorldTour calendar, makes it difficult to sustain mass participation across every stage, and drives up operating costs.

An American road race needs to be an outright spectacle. It has to position its winner as someone who has conquered one of the hardest and most competitive events of the season, with action at every turn to hold viewing audiences and give mass participants a race worth traveling for.

Branding

Every component we have covered contributes to branding, which is ultimately what creates value for everyone involved, and especially for event sponsors. This is not a European road race, and it should not follow the traditional branding of European cycling events. This event’s branding should ruffle feathers in the industry and become one of the most talked about races on the calendar. In my mind, the race should be a spectacle in the vein of the Monaco Grand Prix of cycling.

Part of breaking with European norms means making women’s cycling a major storyline. An American road race should have the women’s peloton race the exact same course as the men. In European road racing, the women’s field typically competes in shorter events, both in distance and overall duration. American gravel has pioneered a different standard by normalizing men and women racing the same event, and the United States could make a real statement in the WorldTour by carrying that philosophy into road racing.

Putting the logistical pieces together

Over the last year there have been rumblings of an effort to bring road racing back to America with the Tour of Colorado. USA Cycling even put out an official press release announcing the race in March 2025, with the event slated for September 2026. If you look it up today, there is almost nothing to find beyond that original announcement.

If you have information I do not, please share it in the comments, but I am skeptical this race is happening in a matter of months. The original announcement described a five-day stage race featuring high-alpine course profiles designed to test the world’s strongest riders. Without any follow-up coverage and with the race nowhere on the WorldTour calendar, I think it is safe to say this one is not bringing road racing back to the United States.

Why bring it up? The race I am pitching will share some DNA with the Tour of Colorado, but with key deviations that I think make it more viable. I am writing this sentence at the Denver airport, which feels fitting, because I do believe Colorado offers the most compelling race possibilities in the United States. It has the views, the climbs, and the brutal altitude. The building blocks are there.

If we take my key considerations for success and apply them, a traditional one-week stage race through the state runs into immediate problems. It follows a formula that already works in Europe and adds significant logistical complexity moving the peloton across a mountainous state over five days. My suggestion is a shorter stage race where every stage departs from the same location. That single change cuts down on race duration and eliminates the need for daily transport. No team buses moving across the state, one centralized command center for race operations and broadcasting. For mass participants, the simplicity becomes even more valuable. One accommodation, one travel route, one base for the week.

With that in mind, my proposal is a three-day stage race based out of a ski resort town like Aspen. Arguably the most recognized ski destination in the world, Aspen is no stranger to heavy tourism or high-level sporting events, with the X-Games taking place there annually. Surrounded by dozens of high-altitude peaks, each stage could be designed with genuine brutality and the race could legitimately become one of the hardest events on the WorldTour calendar.

To reduce logistical complexity further, one of the three stages could be an individual time trial consisting solely of an above-category climb. The trickier logistical question is mass participation. It is feasible and fairly standard for the men’s and women’s pelotons to race on the same day, but mass participants would need to be staggered to the following day. Road closures held over multiple days is a real constraint, and this admittedly introduces some safety considerations, though most amateur road races in the US currently take place on open courses.

On timing, the original Tour of Colorado timeline actually makes sense. It slots into the WorldTour calendar reasonably well, with the main conflict being the Vuelta a Espana. A mid-September race gives riders who competed at the Tour de France enough recovery time to show up competitive, and leaves room for athletes to still target the World Championships at the end of the month.

Back to branding

All roads lead back to money, so how does picking a resort town like Aspen contribute to a race rich with financial opportunity that catches the attention of sponsors, teams, and spectators? I said the United States should be breaking traditions, ruffling feathers, and creating a spectacle, and some of what I am about to pitch will reflect that. Parts of it might even be uncomfortable, but they are grounded in the harsh realities I see for cycling in this country.

Aspen is home to one of the wealthiest populations in America year-round. From media personalities to tech moguls, the town draws people who are recognizable to the public, to riders, and to sponsors. The executives who lead the organizations most likely to sponsor an event like this probably have residences there. That concentration of wealth could create exactly the kind of spectacle we are after, something closer to the Monaco Grand Prix than a traditional road race, and that visibility translates directly into capital for the event and for the teams that perform well there.

A potential risk is pricing out mass participants, though it seems unlikely that a WorldTour race would overwhelm the tourism infrastructure of a town built to handle Aspen-level demand.

Getting liftoff

Since starting Built on Bikes I have written extensively about getting more investment into the sport, whether that is development teams or races, so I will not dedicate a full section to it here. With that said, once there is enough financial investment to get the race off the ground and mass participation is creating stability, there is a path to WorldTour status by incentivizing participation from pro teams with strong social media followings.

Teams like Unibet-Rose Rockets, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling, and EF Education-EasyPost are known for high viewership across their social media channels. Of those three, only EF holds WorldTour status, which means there is an opportunity to drive strong engagement from the start by targeting Pro-Continental teams of this profile. Combined with mass participation, the conditions exist for viral moments that make the event impossible to ignore for sponsors, teams, and fans alike.

My idea for bringing WorldTour racing back to the United States probably will not be the one that does it, but I hope this piece shows how we could be thinking about the problem. Mainly, that bringing calculated risks to branding and race design might be what it takes to offer something truly unique to WorldTour teams. Disciplines like gravel have shown us that something different can take off, so maybe it is time to embrace that philosophy on the biggest stage we have.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes

In that same piece I touched on what brought me to Unbound in the first place: media responsibilities for the Mach1 Devo team. I have now mentioned the team across multiple articles, and it is time to truly dive in. What does it take to manage a U23 squad? What makes this team special? And what can they teach us about developmental pipelines in the United States?

I have covered developmental teams before with stories on SpeedBlock-Terún, Fort Lewis College, and with Natascha den Ouden, but this will be my first article written after witnessing a team’s inner workings firsthand. The goal is to give readers the deepest look inside a domestic off-road development team that I have been able to put together, covering everything from the riders and management to sponsorships and the less tangible factors that have allowed Mach1 to prosper.

To get that level of insight I sat down with Nina Machnowski, Founder and Manager of Mach1 Devo. We covered a wide range of topics including the challenges of managing a seven-rider team, her learnings from the experience, and the logistics that go into running an operation like this.

I hope that shining a light on this team not only brings more opportunities to its riders, but also helps more brands and organizations recognize the importance of supporting development programs in the United States. The truth is that with a little creativity, sponsoring a U23 program carries more storytelling potential than almost any professional team could offer.

Mach1 Founder, Nina Machnowski

While some may know her better as Nina Machina, Nina is an endurance mountain bike athlete turned coach and now development team manager. It feels like I have known Nina for a long time, but the truth is we have only known each other for a few months. I had not yet heard her full story, so I was excited to learn how she got into cycling and eventually arrived at the idea of starting a development team.

Hailing from New Jersey, Nina grew up in a family with a deep affinity for the outdoors, which eventually made mountain biking a family sport. Her father began racing a local XC series called Hudson to Highlands, or H2H, which served as the direct catalyst for her own entry into the sport.

“My dad started mountain bike racing in the local XC series called H2H. I was like, I want to do that too. So I started racing on his old Specialized Stumpjumper hardtail that was way too big for me.”

While she started on hand-me-down gear, Nina quickly entered the development pipeline by joining her local NICA team during her sophomore year of high school. It was there that she discovered a love for ultra-endurance mountain biking, competing at events like the Shenandoah 100. The more she raced, the more she found herself helping out and getting involved in the NICA organization beyond just competing.

The NICA team in her county grew rapidly, from five riders her first season to over 100 by the time she graduated. That early exposure to explosive grassroots growth gave her a formative understanding of what development can look like at scale. After graduating, Nina chose to attend Brevard College, home to one of the top varsity cycling programs in the country. The combination of a cycling program, a partial scholarship, and an exercise science degree made the decision, as she put it, easy.

While at Brevard, Nina continued pursuing her own racing outside of the team, gravitating toward gravel as the discipline began to explode during her college years in 2021 and 2022. It was during her senior year that she discovered something she had not anticipated: a genuine love for coaching.

“I was doing my internship with a local coaching company because it was a really easy way to do my internship credits for college. My senior year I didn’t anticipate falling in love with coaching per se, but then I was just like, wait, I really love this. It just kind of clicked. I feel like I’m constantly learning every day, which is super cool.”

While at Brevard College, Nina began working at Flow Formulas, an endurance nutrition brand that still sponsors her and her team to this day. It was there that she started connecting the dots and saw how simple, well-placed support could have a meaningful impact on a rider’s trajectory.

“I was doing a bunch of backend work like managing their ambassador program and running their social media. I really enjoyed the personal aspect of interacting with the ambassadors and learning everybody’s stories. It wasn’t my product or my money to be giving out, but it was really cool to feel like I could provide support to riders. I saw how a little could go such a long way.”

With those pieces in place, the idea of starting a development team began to take shape. While also working on a master’s degree, Nina launched her coaching company, Mach1 Performance in 2024 and officially launched Mach1 Devo in 2025 with two riders.

The realities of running a U23 program

As we continue, I want to split my focus between two dimensions: the realities and logistics of managing a U23 program, and the team dynamics, riders, and attributes that make Mach1 a best-in-class program. After wrestling with how best to present the team, I feel this balance captures what makes them special and gives other development programs something to learn from.

Starting with what makes the team possible, I want to look at the realities Nina faces as the solo manager of an independent development team. The best thing a team manager can do is ensure riders only need to worry about racing. With the help of sponsors, Nina has been able to meaningfully reduce the burden of travel expenses, equipment, and race week logistics.

With Mach1 entering its second year with an impressive rider roster, and a list of notable brand partners supporting operations, how did it all come together? Starting with the most important piece, the riders, I was eager to learn more about Nina’s process for recruiting athletes to Mach1.

Attracting talent

Up until last year, when Life Time introduced a U23 version of the Grand Prix, there was practically no coverage of U23 fields, and even today, not enough to make talent scouting straightforward.

For Nina, scouting doesn’t always come down to race analysis or results. Given the races her team specializes in, she keeps an eye out for young riders willing to compete in the more grueling events on the American calendar. Choosing those races signals a determined mindset, motivation, and early specialization in off-road ultra endurance. Nina summed up her approach:

“I was looking at results pages, and not necessarily for people that have won races per se. I was looking at crazy races, like 24 Hours of the Old Pueblo and the Belgian Waffle Ride series. There are very few younger riders that compete in those races… That’s not something typically that 17, 18, 19 year olds do.”

It may seem trivial, but Nina scouting riders with very similar performance goals to her own likely allows her to connect with them on a much deeper level than a typical athlete-coach relationship.

After the inaugural 2025 season, riders began approaching her directly.

“I also had a few riders that reached out to me towards the end of the summer or around Big Sugar. It was kind of a mix of me scouting riders and riders coming to me. I’m so grateful that they reached out. I can now call them not just athletes of mine but people I consider really good friends.”

Nina’s comment about athlete friendships is worth revisiting later, but to close out recruitment: given the team’s early success in 2026, this trend feels like it will only grow.

Sponsorships are the lifeblood for U23 teams

Everyone reading this already knows cycling is an expensive sport. Bikes and gear alone can amount to over $10,000, and race entry fees, travel, lodging, and race day nutrition can balloon that number even further. Nina has assembled a strong list of brand partners that takes some of that financial stress off her athletes. The team’s sponsors include:

• Lauf Cycles for bikes and financial support

• Giordana for kits

• Kask for helmets

• KOO Eyewear for optics

• Flow Formulas for nutrition

• USWE for race hydration storage

• Bike Tires Direct for accessories

• Dawn to Dusk for bottle cages, top tube bags, and financial support

Beyond equipment, two sponsors also support the team financially, helping offset travel, race entry fees, and race week logistics. The harsh reality of U23 sponsorships is that they are often seen as a weaker return on investment compared to a pro team. Or at least, that is the stale perception that persists in the industry.

Nina has worked to dispel that concern through trust built over years of personal relationships. She is willing to start small and grow a partnership over time, and clearly understands the balance between asking for adequate support and asking for too much.

“I’ve been working with some brands for six, seven years. Brands saw my ability to work really hard and kind of make big dreams come true. I never want to ask for too much. That’s something you have to balance, asking for enough but then not asking for too much. So I was always coming from a place of, do you want to be involved in growing this thing with me?”

This approach is one I have written about before, and it is exactly how the industry should be thinking about convincing brands to invest more at the developmental level. Sponsoring U23 teams will still cost less than supporting a full pro team, and as Nina shows, that investment can produce an outsized impact while giving brands plenty of material for storytelling. Nina is already seeing the returns.

“Now that we have more talent on the team and looking to grow even more and support the team even more, that’s going to come with bigger asks. I think because the platform has been growing and we’ve been proving ourselves race to race, I see the sponsors recognizing that. Even just after Unbound, going to the expo and seeing our team all together in matching kits and the actual impact that we are having. It’s just giving us more credibility to bump up support in the coming years.”

Nina’s approach has clearly created genuine emotional investment from sponsors, resulting in stable relationships that deliver real outcomes for riders.

Solo management is a labor of love

I alluded to it while discussing sponsorships, but something that makes Mach1’s success even more impressive is that Nina manages every aspect of the team on her own. Coaching, sponsorships, logistics — it all falls on her, and Mach1 is not even her full-time job. Nina runs the team alongside her own racing career and training, purely out of love for the sport.

“Honestly, I don’t really find it hard because if you have such a drive, it’s almost like an impulse that you have to do it. From the outside I know it is a lot of work, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of work because it’s just something that I really enjoy doing.”

Most U23 team managers are not in it for the money. There are far more lucrative opportunities in the industry. What makes Nina’s situation stand out is not just that she is doing it solo on the side, but that she is doing it at 24. Most U23 teams I come across are managed by someone further along in their career, with more time and financial flexibility to take on the responsibility.

“It takes up like 99% of my mental capacity every day, but it’s all on the side. Hopefully opportunities keep coming out of that so I could keep pivoting for it to be a bit more of a sustainable thing for me career-wise. But it’s definitely not where I make my living or anything like that.”

Much like me, Nina is pursuing something she is passionate about without compensation and figuring things out as she goes. It is a theme I keep coming across in American cycling, and I think it is an X-factor for the sport’s development in this country and for Mach1 specifically.

Sure, there might not be decades of experience behind every decision, but that is probably a good thing. Young people intuitively understand what makes cycling appealing and what it takes to stay motivated competing in the US. A young manager who easily identifies with young riders is a marginal gain in itself. There is less communication overhead around the minutia of being a competitive cyclist. Everyone is largely on the same page, and things get done faster.

The following quote captures what Mach1 has meant to Nina and why she will continue to dedicate herself to the team.

“I didn’t realize how much love I could put into something. It’s almost like I’m way more passionate about it than even my own racing. It’s given me such a perspective on my own journey with racing, fitness, and sports and I enjoy it in a whole new light now. I care about my own racing and training, but it’s more like doing it to be a good role model. Ultimately it’s like I take all this positive energy that I have from my work with the team and put it towards my own racing. I feel like I’m a better athlete because of it.”

What has managing Mach1 Devo taught Nina?

Before taking a closer look at Mach1’s team dynamics, I was interested to hear what running the team over the last two years has taught Nina. Sharing knowledge at the U23 level is critical if we hope to expand this model and grow the sport. Mach1 is finding success quickly, and there are real lessons to be taken from that.

Community is everything in the U23 landscape

“I think that there’s such a need for a community for U23 riders. Obviously there are off-road development teams across the US already, but I think specifically for gravel, endurance, and ultra cycling, there hasn’t been as much of a focus on that. Leaning into that and creating that space for riders has been huge. Everyone on the team has told me that they perform their best when there’s just a good vibe around them. Seeing everybody learn from each other, empower each other, it’s an uplifting environment where everybody’s stoked and feeds off each other’s energy.”

Looking the part is more important than we think

“Being on a team makes riders feel more legit when they go and approach sponsors or show up to events. They’re in kits that match their teammates and we’re all geared up with the same equipment and it just feels very professional. I think looking the part, feeling the part helps you actually play the part.”

These two learnings may seem unrelated at first glance, but both connect Mach1’s riders to one another. When off-road racing has historically been an individual pursuit, community and confidence go a long way in rider performance, morale, and self-esteem.

What makes Mach1 special?

Nina brings a lot to the team, but what are the intangibles that contribute to Mach1’s success? We have already touched on community and coaching, but there is more beneath the surface. Some of it is obvious, some of it subtle. After spending the better part of five days with the team, I came away with a few observations worth sharing.

The Riders

This is the most obvious X-factor, and it starts with Nina’s scouting. While I have yet to meet two of Mach1’s athletes, the ones I met and lived with in Emporia were a fantastic group. They did make me feel geriatric at the ripe old age of 27, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each of them. By the end of five days in Emporia, I felt like I could call all of them friends, and I am genuinely stoked to know them.

I want to highlight the Mach1 riders, their backgrounds, and a few anecdotes from the athletes I met in Kansas. I encourage you to follow their journeys — they will most definitely be racing in the pro fields in the years to come.

Oskar Stack-Michasiw

Age: 21

Home Base: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Socials: @oskarstack.mtb

Bio: Oskar is a gravel focused on developing into a top-level competitor while being a positive ambassador for bike riding. He brings a driven, results-oriented mindset to his racing, balanced with positivity and a genuine love for the process—no matter what race day brings. At Unbound, Oskar secured a second place finish and he is a serious contender to win the U23 Life Time Grand Prix.

My favorite moment from my time with Oskar was seeing him obsess about the quality of a Kansas diner’s syrup.

Lily Zakaras

Age: 18

Home Base: Bentonville, Arkansas

Socials: @lily_zakaras

Bio: Lily’s current focus is fully on gravel and mountain biking, where she’s earned top finishes at Unbound Gravel, Lauf Gravel Worlds, and Big Sugar Gravel. Lily is passionate about cooking and performance nutrition. She hopes to support Mach1 Devo by helping fuel the team—creating nourishing pre- and post-ride meals and ride fuel that help athletes perform at their best.

My favorite moment with Lily was watching her perform her “Walmart version” of Trek Driftless Unbound bike check.

Zane Koogler

Age: 19

Home Base: Phoenix, Arizona

Socials: @zanekoogler

Bio: Zane calls Arizona home, and where he grew up racing bikes before discovering his passion for long-distance endurance racing two years ago. Since then, he’s leaned fully into the longer efforts, lining up at events like Unbound 200 and continuing to chase the kind of races that demand grit, patience, and smart strategy. Zane also brings years of technical experience from working at his local bike shop and acts as the team’s de facto mechanic.

Zane has a knack for telling stories. Whether it’s selling bikes or talking about the TSA confiscating his nutrition, you’ll be left laughing.

Brooke Darby

Age: 21

Home Base: Durango, Colorado

Socials: @brookeleannd

Bio: Brooke is an Asheville, North Carolina native who is now based in Durango, Colorado. After completing her prerequisites and lab coursework at Fort Lewis College, she is pursuing a degree in Nutrition. Brooke secured an outstanding top ten at Unbound and punched her ticket to the U23 Life Time Grand Prix.

Brooke has a contagious energy, even when she is scooping mud off her bike on a minimum maintenance road. She is a relative newcomer to cycling, only starting a few years ago once she started attending Fort Lewis College! Does that awesome story sound familiar?

Roston Nordell

Age: 20

Home Base: Manti, Utah

Socials: @rostonnordell

Bio: Roston discovered his passion for cycling in 8th grade through NICA and has been fully committed ever since. Over the years, he’s transitioned into longer, more competitive events, steadily pushing his limits and chasing bigger challenges like the U23 Lifetime Grand Prix. Roston is a talented ultra endurance athlete and has his sights set on winning 24 Hours of the Old Pueblo solo and attempting seven Everests in seven days.

Roston is a true teammate. The entire time I was with Mach1, Roston was always discussing strategies, equipment, nutrition, etc. with his teammates. He’s a smart racer and will be a rider to watch.

Julia Allred

Age: 20

Home Base: Salt Lake City, Utah

Socials: @juliaallredbikes

Bio: Julia Allred has been mountain biking since age eight, inspired by her mom and older sister and a lifelong love for the outdoors. After discovering a passion for long-distance racing, Julia podiumed at her first 50-mile MTB race in 2022 and placed 10th at the NICA Utah State Varsity Girls race in 2023. She has since continued racing marathon MTB events and fallen in love with gravel racing.

I haven’t had a chance to meet Julia yet, but I can’t wait to catch her the next time I’m with the Mach1 crew.

Miles Baker

Age: 19

Home Base: Salt Lake City, Utah

Socials: @miles_baker_bikes

Bio: Miles began riding at age six thanks to his dad and found his passion for racing after joining his high school team at thirteen. Coming from a mountain bike background, Miles is drawn to long, technical gravel and MTB races with plenty of climbing, but he’s also grown to love the strategy and group dynamics of faster gravel events.

I also have not had the opportunity to meet Miles yet, but have heard so many great things!

Revisiting the team vibes

I have already made a point of this, but it is truly my biggest takeaway from time spent with the team. While in Emporia, I observed various living setups across teams, pro and U23 alike. A lot of teams do not lodge together, and even among the pro teams that do, it can feel like riders are more acquaintances than teammates.

Mach1 was different. While riders had time to themselves, everyone legitimately enjoyed each other’s company, so there was always a good hang somewhere in the house. From cooking dinner and breakfast together to pre-riding the course as a group, Nina has fostered real friendships among her athletes. Even with a mudpocalypse looming on race day, there was no sense of nerves in the house. The athletes are undeniably professional, but I think the constant camaraderie leading into the race helped keep things loose.

This is the culture American cycling needs at the developmental level. You hear stories about how European teams operate like family, but you also hear plenty about those same teams harboring an unhealthy internal competition. Every Mach1 athlete is fiercely competitive, but not at the expense of their relationships with teammates. If this becomes the norm in American cycling, I think we will eventually have a strong developmental pipeline feeding the pro peloton. Who knows, maybe in twenty or thirty years Europeans will be coming to the US to develop.

Scrappy is how we win

Those of you who have followed my writing for a while know that I repeatedly come back to one idea: furthering cycling in America by embracing a scrappy, entrepreneurial spirit. We do not have to be restricted by tradition the way European programs are. We can pave our own way by bringing people together from inside and outside the sport.

Nina and Mach1 are a living example of what that spirit produces. Someone with no formal team management experience built a U23 program from scratch, and two years in, has multiple riders competing for wins in America’s premier off-road series. The scrappiness makes for great sponsorship storytelling and genuine fan investment. It is anything but easy, but as my friend Andrew Vontz says, “hard things build stronger people who have more fun.”

Mach1 is taking the hard, scrappy road and having a hell of a lot of fun doing it. Let’s learn from them and build something together.

In other news

Zwift unveils new talent identification program

Yesterday, Zwift announced a youth talent identification program aimed at scouting the next generation of American riders. Their goal is to identify the next American winner of the Tour de France, male or female. I wrote an entire article about Zwift’s opportunity to change collegiate cycling, and while this is not that, I am beyond excited to see a company invest real effort into American development. I am also glad to know I am not just talking out of the side of my neck when I pitch these ideas.

Sarah Sturm’s Reroute project is valuable

Previous guest Sarah Sturm is releasing Reroute, a video series documenting her pregnancy journey as a professional athlete. Pregnancy among pro riders is a subject that deserves more attention, and Sarah has led the charge this year. She helped Life Time implement a maternity policy for the Grand Prix, and now she is creating a space for riders to either see what pregnancy could look like for them or find solidarity while navigating their own. Long story short, Sarah is a rockstar.

Ride and rip,

Kyle Dawes