INTERVIEW: PHINNEY AND DOMBROWSKI
EF-Drapac’s Joe Dombrowski and Taylor Phinney explain why developing interests outside racing has helped them put their careers into perspective
EF-Drapac’s American duo sit down to philosophise on life outside of racing
Where and when did you first two first race together?
JOE DOMBROWSKI: The Tour of Utah. I heard about him before that, but we raced together in Utah in 2010. Taylor was on Trek Livestrong and I rode the race as a stagiaire. Then I came to the team in 2011 and Taylor was already at BMC. You had very different approaches to your respective careers. Did that give you different expectations about professional life do you think? TAYLOR PHINNEY: Probably. You came from running, right, Joe?
JD: No, well, I did run. I started out mountain bike racing.
TP: Oh yeah?
JD: Yeah. I was a little late to road cycling. TP: I thought you came from running. Were you good at mountain biking? JD: No, not really. I’m not a bad mountain biker. I just wasn’t particularly strong…
Didn’t you almost win Leadville 100? JD: A couple of years ago, yeah.
TP: It’s not really a mountain bike race… Why?
TP: It’s more of a gravel race...
JD: There are technical elements but– TP: Graaaavel, dude.
JD: It’s a lot of road and dirt road, a little bit of single track, little bit of double track. Where did your friendship develop?
JD: We’ve always been friendly. But I wouldn’t say we hung out a lot–
TP: We don’t call each other…
JD: I don’t even know if I have your phone number…
TP: Well, Joe laughs at a lot of my jokes for an extended period of time – a lot longer than a normal person would laugh at them, which is nice.
JD: I’ve always had a problem with laughing when I’m not supposed to laugh.
You know like in school, when somebody says something and you laugh and then you keep laughing because you know you’re not meant to be laughing?
TP: It’s like that for every joke I make… Is there much common ground between you two? TP: I mean we both race bicycles… JD: That’s a large commonality, but life isn’t only cycling is it? How does racing fulfil you on a personal level?
JD: I feel really lucky to do what I do, but I like to think that I have a healthy relationship with cycling, such that I could step away from it and do other things and be perfectly happy. I think that’s often not the case. It’s a balance because you have to be really focused to perform at a high level. And to get into that headspace where you can be that focused, you have to really love it and be dedicated. I don’t know that whenever I stop cycling I would want to continue working in cycling or just go in a different direction. I mean, it’s great though. It’s a beautiful sport and I’ve been lucky to live in different parts of the world. The experience I’ve gained is not something I could ever learn in university.
Is that the same for you these days, Taylor? Do you think that you could step away and be happy?
TP: I don’t know, really. I would say that on the fulfilment aspect there’s a certain level of personal growth and evolution that happens throughout a career that... I feel you’d be hard pressed to find that somewhere else, doing something else. A lot of it feels really routine – the same races every year, the same objectives and you might get a little bit better every year… but when I look back to myself eight years ago, I’m a totally different person. But I think everybody will say that at the age of 28 looking back to when they were 21. Maybe that’s the universality of existence, but I feel like that might be something to do with our understanding of pain and suffering that is good for us in the long run…
Do you think there a risk of being institutionalised by cycling?
JD: Yeah… I think obviously to be successful there has to be an element of that because for a lot of pieces to come together–
TP: To be successful at anything you have to be kind of f*cking crazy.
JD: Yeah, I mean most people at the top level of something are a little… odd.
Do you think your outside interests have helped you to place your careers in better perspective?
TP: For sure, yeah. Having a couple of different creative avenues and pursuits that go parallel with an athletic pursuit has been really healthy for me personally.
What came first for you Taylor? You had the really bad crash at the US Nationals in 2014 and then we saw you were learning to fly planes and painting and doing other extracurricular things during your rehab. Did the crash allow you to express those interests or did it drive you to find them?
TP: When I think back to the crash, I feel there was always something inside me that wanted to be really creative and expressive, but I just never thought that I could do more than one thing. I don’t know if a lot of people feel that way in their early 20s. I think I found myself on this road – pun intended – where I thought: okay, this is my ticket and I’m going to be a cyclist. And in order to be a cyclist, everything everybody has told me is that the bicycle has to be before everything else – before my wife, my life, my family, everything. But nobody tells you that success is a concept and you get to decide what it is. If you don’t take the time to sit back and think what success actually means to you and what you want, then
TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO BE KIND OF F* CKING CRAZY TAY LOR PHINNE Y
you’re just chasing a ghost, chasing an idea that you haven’t even thought about. What is your more crystallised idea of success?
TP: I like to think that the accident almost happened as a way for me to actually to fully experience life in maybe the way
I was supposed to. Something from the Fates or a message-from-the-higher-self sort of a thing. I’m really grateful for that experience having brought me in touch with all of these different creative avenues. Do you describe yourself as a spiritual person, Taylor?
TP: That’s funny, I was thinking of this, this morning. I’m definitely spiritual in that I meditate twice a day, but I don’t sit down and pray in the classical sense of the word. It’s more about kind of tuning into frequencies and taking a second to get out of my own head and close my eyes in order to see what’s actually in front of me – instead of constantly projecting my imagination onto everything.
Joe, how do you escape from the cycling bubble?
JD: It goes back to seeing the sport through a more holistic lens. Any pro sport or anything that is competitive and has that bubble, there’s inevitably a lot of pressure, and I think, in a lot of ways, that’s on the individual, whether that’s in terms of whether that pressure is there or not. If you go back to what Taylor was saying, that cycling is above everything else, your friends and family – well, your real friends don’t care how you do in the bike race. When you go back home they’re not interested in that. Taylor, you’ve been involved with the Morton brothers’ free-spirited Thereabouts travelogues and Joe has his credit card rides…is it important to you both that the bike isn’t just sport?
JD: I really enjoy riding my bike to somewhere rather than the 95, 99 per cent of the time when you go out training and you do a loop and you come home. But sometimes – and I haven’t done so much
NOBODY TELLS YOU THAT SUCCESS IS A CONCEPT AND YOU GET TO DECIDE WHAT IT IS TAY LOR PHINNE Y
recently – just riding somewhere cool and staying the night and riding back. And doing it really basically, like with maybe just a pair of gym shorts, t-shirt, flip flops and credit card.
Haven’t you built it into training in the past?
JD: For sure. One time me and a couple of friends did three days and did a triangle. We didn’t have much of a plan and both nights we ended up just staying at little B&Bs in the middle of nowhere. We were kind of lucky because we weren’t close to any large metropolitan area, I mean, we also could have had nowhere to stay.
Do you miss riding your bike for fun?
JD: Yeah. I kind of get into little niche things sometimes. This winter I really got into seeing how much gravel I could put into a 150km loop on my cross bike. Sometimes I was cutting through private property and climbing over fences and stuff, but it was just fun.
TP: I ride my gravel bike a lot too.
It’s been a few months since you were eighth in Roubaix, Taylor. Have you processed it fully now?
TP: It was awesome, it was totally a trip. It felt like it was a dream. It’s cool when you can have experiences like that as an athlete and be present with those experiences. I wasn’t spending any time feeling like I needed to be better. I was just like, ‘Holy sh*t. I’m in the front of the race of Paris-Roubaix. I have so many friends that are probably watching me right now that are probably losing their minds.’
JD: You do spend a lot of time thinking you should be better and not much time thinking, ‘Wow this is awesome, look where I am’.
TP: Yeah. I was just stoked with that experience because I went into it and I wasn’t stressed before the race. I felt like I came over this little hump this year where I was just like, ‘f*ck it, just have fun.’ You know what you have to do and it doesn’t really matter as long as you have a good time and as long as you can inspire people and your friends back home, who are getting super-excited watching you. That’s really what I think about when I think back to that race, just imagining the people in the Rapha store in Boulder. I also thought: I’m going to get dropped soon and then I was like, ‘Don’t do it, don’t get dropped,’ for an hour and a half. I did get dropped at one point. The funny thing about cycling is that unless you win, at some point you give up. We give up every day, unless you win and that’s the one day you don’t give up. That’s difficult to process 80 days a year. Even if you got second or third, you still gave up.
That’s a harsh way of looking at it, isn’t it? People go their entire careers and maybe second or third is as good as it gets and it can still make a career…
TP: I’m not saying that I was disappointed, I’m just saying that I recognise there was a point where I gave up. As long as you can recognise that that point exists, and when you get to that point the next time you make a conscious effort to not give up, then you’re making forward progress.
It sounded like you reached a tipping point before Roubaix. Was that specific to the race or to racing in general?
TP: Well it’s Roubaix, so it’s – it’s a lot to do with cycling in general – but also with this race. It’s the most nervous race you’re going to do all year. It’s one of the more frightening races because of the amount of crashes and everything. It’s also one of the more difficult… just things you can do in one day, just racing this section of the earth in one day. A lot of people go into it and they’re just nervous; it’s just going to be a day that’s really difficult mentally because of the stress and physically because of the roads. I felt like I just went in, knowing it was going to suck and hurt and that I’m probably going to cramp at
some point – but I also know afterwards I’m going to feel like I just conquered the world, like I just climbed up some giant mountain and when you get to the top of the mountain you always feel good. It was just getting rid of all that expectational bullshit about how it was going to suck, and when it gets nervous just know you’re going to be where you need to be. And if you’re not there, say I’m going to do my best to be there the next time. There are like 60 points in that race where you need to be in the right place and everybody knows them.
When you’re a stage racer does pressure build up and settle in a different way, Joe?
JD: Yeah, I guess. The last few years I’ve gone to some of the grand tours more as an opportunist, a guy who is hopping in breaks in the second half, targeting mountain stages. And there’s a lot left to chance in that. It’s a lot different to if you just sit in and try do it from the GC group. A lot of things are kind of out of your control so I wouldn’t say I’m anxious about it. I think compartmentalising things is beneficial. If you really do have to focus on key days, then making sure you try to take a bit of stress out of the days that are not, that is good. You can’t be on all the time. What’s the best thing and the worst that the other brings to the team? TP: [laughs] Joe’s laugh.
JD: Is that best or worst?
TP: Best…I guess Joe likes to bring a lot of counter arguments to situations…
JD: I don’t know if I’m a contrarian but sometimes I like to offer a… 360-degree perspective. I could probably be a good politician... or – sorry this is a diversion – but I watch a lot of Netflix because of the nature of being a cyclist mean you’re nonproductive a lot of the time and recently I’ve been watching MyNextGuestNeeds NoIntroduction with David Letterman and
he has some great guests–
TP: You feel like you could be a talk show host?
JD: Maybe… I feel like I’m a good conversationalist and I think it would be fun to be a professional conversationalist. A professional conversationalist?
JD: Yeah. That’s essentially David Letterman. I don’t know how I’m going to launch that career… Start with a podcast?
JD: Well, I’ve thought about doing a podcast as well.
TP: What’s the best and worst thing about me, Joe?
JD: The best thing about Taylor and what he brings to the team…you know, sometimes we just need a bit of comedic relief and I do appreciate Taylor’s sense of humour. Um. Yeah. The worst thing…
TP: It’s not easy… I’m also a contrarian? Two contrarians then?
JD: No. The biggest contrarian on the team is Hugh Carthy. I think he would totally advocate for something he doesn’t agree with, just to be the contrarian.