Taylor, welcome to the Roadman Cycling Podcast. Thank you. Nice to be here.
Taylor, I'm excited about this chat. Uh, we haven't had I think you could be the first female world throw rider we've had on the podcast. Oo, that's cool.
Yeah, we've had a So, I remember I got a message about uh maybe like four months ago from someone saying like, "How come you don't have any girls on the podcast? Is it because it's called Roadman?" I was like, "No, I just don't know that many of the pro girls.
I know a lot of pro guys." So then I was chatting to your wife Olivia and she's like, "Oh, you should totally get Taylor." And I was like, "Oh, it's on.
I have to get Taylor." Yeah. No, that's great.
I'm glad uh I'm glad it worked out. And then hopefully now you can I can introduce you to more. I know plenty.
Obviously, you're my hookup now. I'm going to be melting your brain. Definitely.
H Let's I'm going to touch on all sorts of weird and wonderful areas. And if you don't fancy a topic, just give it an all pass. All right.
Uh, so you grew up in Utah. I did. Yeah.
What's that like? I only I had one teammate. I used to ride for an American Conti team, uh, Estellis, and I had one teammate from Utah, and he was a nice guy, but I remember him just like indoctrinating me to how culturally different Utah is from everywhere else.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it it's crazy because there's a million good things I could say about Utah and there's also a lot of just really odd things and, you know, you have the mountains and you have the outdoors and there's so many national parks kind of in Utah and close by and so I got to grow up, you know, with I skied with my dad and I always played soccer and was always outside and that part was really nice. But the cultural kind of division in that uh that especially kind of like the suburbs of Salt Lake City, I think the city itself has become more diverse and has become a bit more eclectic, but the suburbs are still very much super conservative.
Everybody is Mormon. And I went to a high school where I think probably 95% of the school were of the faith. And I really wasn't.
I kind of faked it sometimes so that I would have friends. But uh it was very different and I didn't realize how how different it was until I left, you know, when I got a little bit older and traveled around realized that all the weird cultural nuances of Utah was not real life. And so then you still identify as Mormon?
Oh, no, not at all. I mean, I didn't really I didn't grow up as Mormon. I mean I have some family members who are but they're very open and um that yeah they've always accept like it's mostly just my granny actually and she's like the sweetest person on earth but yeah I I never really yeah was of the faith properly.
I just kind of faked it to have friends when I was a bit younger. Um and so yeah but it's an odd it's an odd place to grow up and I mean I have to say I never got into really any trouble because they're very strict. You know, there's no drinking, no sex before marriage.
They don't even drink coffee or tea. Like, there's no caffeine. I mean, there's no fun.
No fun. Yeah. Zero fun had.
Yeah. And quite judgmental, but other than that, but yeah, I never got into any trouble. And so, how does that work?
So, I've obviously grown up in Ireland. And we're changing a lot in the last 10 years. Culturally, we're becoming, you know, a lot more liberal.
It's a much more open society. But even, you know, I'm my mid-30s. Even like if I go back to when I started college, it was a much more conservative Catholic dominated country.
What's sort of your relationship with the Mormon faith and being an openly gay girl? Do those two like colloid or did you have to did you struggle with that? Yeah, I think when I was younger, I actually didn't I didn't realize my sexuality when I was younger.
like I had some idea, but you know, when you're young, you don't often fully know what those thoughts are. Um, and then when I got older, it was more seeing the way that all my friends from high school kind of treated me once they they found out about Olivia. It was some, you know, still loved me just the same, and some I don't know will ever speak to me again.
So, there's a Isn't that just so bizarre? Like, I just I can't even conceptually get my head around it. Like, two consenting people do something that makes them happy is of no concern to them, but it's like it pulls from their happiness somehow.
It's so bizarre. Yeah, it's very bizarre. And I mean, I realize they are grown up being taught one thing.
And you know, the Mormon church has waffled back and forth with LGBTQ uh politics really. I mean, at one point it was, yeah, no gays were allowed at church. And then it was like, "Okay, gays can come to church, but you can't be baptized.
" And then they did a horrible thing a year or two ago where they said, "If you're a child of gay parents, you can come to church and you can be baptized, but only if you disavow your parents." What? Which was just awful.
And then they reversed that because it got so much backlash. So they kind of change with the culture, but not enough really. And they're still they backpedal sometimes to stay conservative.
And yeah, it's a bit of a struggle. I mean, I have plenty of Mormon friends who are wonderful and who never treated me different at all, but then there's also the opposite. So, it's a bit of both.
And when I look at the female propelon and I compare the amount of, you know, this is a very broad overview. It's not like I've analyzed the entire female propelon, but there does seem to be a lot of girls open about their sexual preference in the female pelaton. You contrast that with the male Pelaton who I think had zero zero gay riders which yeah it doesn't seem like it's legit.
No, I mean statistically it's just it couldn't be. And it's just it's something that I I feel really bad about because yeah, it was such an easy place for me to come out because I came out when I was a cyclist and literally had no backlash from the female pelaton. It was it it wasn't it was treated like it was nothing, you know, there was no big deal.
And that that is really how it should be in all of society. Like it should not be a big deal like that that is the thing. it should just be an oh okay that's fine but isn't this an amazing part about female sport at the moment which no one speaks about it's whether it's soccer athletics cycling there the girls are so open and it's so culturally acceptable to be a open gay female in sport whereas if you look across soccer athletics our own you know domestic sports in Ireland Harland and Gaelic cycling like I don't know one athlete who's openly gay yeah and I just think It's bad because it's the it's the stereotype that is around gay men and that they're all put in one box and you know I've even had conversations with male pro cyclists where I've asked why don't you think there's any gay men in the prop pelaton and they say I don't think they would survive and I was like what do you mean by that like how could you say that you don't think they would survive and they literally think there's no gay men in the pelon because they wouldn't be able to hack it.
They couldn't be a professional athlete. And it's just so wrong that they would even think that. And because they're there already like Yeah.
You know, I'm sure like off air like you know, me and you, I'm sure if we're having a few beers, we could go through the male pelon and go gay gay gay gay. Yeah, probably. For sure.
And you know, it's the I think this is changing. The culture is is slowly changing and and and masculinity is, you know, being taught in different ways. And I think there's more yeah men being taught at a younger age that like vulnerability was okay and like feelings are okay.
But I do think it's just been smashed into men when they were young that like you cannot feel and you cannot cry and you have to be a man. And I think that is all the reason homophobia is so bad more on the male side than the female side and all of that. And I just think it's taking a really long time to to undo that damage.
Yeah. And I think some countries are faster and better at uh building platforms to help encourage facilitate people to express their gayness than other countries. My little cousin uh it's I don't know how the cousin relationship works.
So it's my cousin's son. So it's first cousin once removed or something. But he's openly gay.
I think he's 19 or 20 years old and he's in Canada and it's totally cool to be gay in Canada. It's amazing. and he's off in university and he's having a whale of a time, but he went to visit my cousin in the Ukraine and it was gay pride day and he's saying like, "I want to go out and celebrate on gay pride day.
" And my cousin is trying to say to him, "Look, bro, it's not as cool to be gay over here as it is in Canada." And they went anyway under much protest from my cousin. And he said it was just horrific day.
like horrific police escorts like really feared for their safety all day, trains having to like whisk them away to secret locations with buses picking them up. And he said it was horrendous. Yeah.
I mean, it's incredible the amount of countries where you can still be arrested for being for being gay and being open about it. It's it's it's insane. Like I I think sometimes they take for granted coming from the US where it's slightly more PC depends on what part of the country you're in.
But yeah, it's there's still some places that are very backwards. And I think over here, I mean, just being in around Europeans, there's still a lot of like negative gay slaying and and just like derogatory rhetoric that is swung around. And until people say, "Hey, you can't say that anymore.
" are like you can't unless people start standing up and and saying that that's not okay, it's just going to continue to happen. And and say you're a a gay male cyclist and you're on a men's team and they're constantly like saying, you know, negative things like about Yeah. just like a derogatory thing about a a gay man.
How are they ever going to come out when nobody is stepping up and saying, "Hey, dude, that's not okay. Like you can't you can't say that stuff anymore." Yeah.
I think words really matter. I was actually talking to a friend the other day in a completely different uh context, but he was talking about financial crimes and he labeled them as like white collar crimes and I was like, "Dude, words matter." Like when you put the word white collar on the crime, it somehow takes away from the second half of the sentence like that.
It's now a diminished crime because it's white collar. It's like it's a crime. It's the same thing.
But it's the same in this when you when it's, you know, little digs, when it's constant slurs, that's compounding on somebody's insecurity. And that's I think what makes it very very difficult for somebody unless they're very very self- assured or in a culture that makes it easy to come out. Yeah, completely.
And I mean, it's the straight men that are going to have to help, you know, normalize this and and make it okay. And and it that just might take a while. So, how did you journey from being a soccer player and an aspiring academic to saying I love on your blog.
I was reading your blog and I'm Did you I'm not sure if you wrote it or was it like a g a ghostriter but it's like hung up or soccer cleat. I'm like that's the most American term I've ever heard because I used to be a soccer player as well. We don't say soccer cleat.
What do you say? Football. Football boots.
Football boots. Yeah. Yeah.
soccer, please. Yeah, you know, I played soccer competitively from the time I can remember until I started university. And and when I started university, I kind of had a choice of whether I could go academics because I got a a scholarship for academics or I could go play soccer at like a smaller school.
And my other dream besides being a professional soccer player, which I kind of could see, I wasn't quite at the level I needed to be to make that happen. So, I chose uh academics and went full gas into university and was premed and and that was kind of the goal. And then I slowly just started really to miss competition.
I was like going in the in the fieldhouse at the university and just like running laps and like trying to beat people around the inside track because I needed some competition like and I did. Yeah. And I missed kind of like that sporting world.
And I had a friend at the time who who rode bikes. And so I raced bikes, which I didn't even know was a thing. So I got my first bike, I think when I was 19, almost 20.
I think I turned 20 by the time I really started riding the bike. And yeah, I mowed lawns for a summer to buy like this super pink Cannondale. Nice.
You have a pink confident legal blonde stereotype. I definitely went with the the shrink it and pink it model of bike at the time. And but I loved it immediately.
Like I yeah, I fell in love with it from the first time I I rode the bike. And and I didn't just get a bike to ride it. I wanted to race it like immediately, of course, because I'm so competitive.
So then I I just jumped in full gas and um yeah, I never really looked back. But isn't that such an exciting time? I remember I forged a application form in the bank.
I told him I needed a car for university and I bought my bike with I think I spent like €2,000 euro on my first bike and it was like Jura Ace 9 speed and like I was just transitioning from being a soccer player where I was thought I was going to be a pro and then that dream was like okay this is disappearing and I started uni and I got the bike but I had no peer comparison because I had no friends who were good cyclists so and my upward trajectory you know when you're getting started it's so fast you're literally like I don't know where this could end like I could be unstoppable. Yeah, that's the best part. I remember first long ride I did was like 14 miles and I thought it was like the hardest thing I'd ever done, but the race I wanted to do was 60 miles and it was like two weeks after I got my first bike.
But yeah, the progression from your first bike to like how good you can get quickly is is pretty incredible. Um, but so are the bonks that you have when you first get a bike and you don't realize that you need to eat when you're riding a bike. Do you have any particularly bad bunks?
I just remember like having to stop at a gas station and feeling like I couldn't even like function well enough to like get a candy bar and take it to the register because I was just so spectacularly bonked. And you don't even know that it's hunger at first. Like it's just such a such a new feeling that you don't even know until you're a cyclist.
I think I had one in Toronto. So I would actually I was quite experienced at this stage. I'd, you know, done the amateur thing in France and now I was racing full-time in the US and I was doing a training block in Toronto and I was so poor that I'd run out of money for food on a six-hour training ride.
And I remember like hands and knees going like I'm not going to make it home. The lights are going out. And I had a Ziploc bag that I had my phone and my keys and stuff in.
So, I went into Starbucks and I get the honey and I squirt the honey into the Ziploc bag and I'm literally licking it outside in the car park like a homeless man. That was desperation. Oh, it was grim.
And people are like texting you going, "Oh, living the dream, bro. Living the dream." That's pretty incredible.
That's That's a That's a good bonk story for sure. Oh, man. It was bad.
But I suppose that's a good segue to you gave up uh you know aspiring career as an academic and you know I my background I went through university and you know I never got to world tour level like you but I qualified as a lawyer and then I tried to do the cycling thing and then never really went back cuz I started just setting up businesses and little things like that. But you gave up a pretty solid career like when you're in academia academia you know there's the next step is you know an entry- level wage. The next step is a mid-level wage.
Next step is a partner. The next step is a good salary. It's a pretty nice career path and there's not much risk involved.
You gave that up and you traded it for uh sport which is a niche sport and then you have women's cycling which is a niche sport within a niche sport. How difficult was that to make that plunge? Yeah, I mean it's funny when it was first happening I didn't realize it.
I think I just because I'd grown up being obsessed with sport and being obsessed with like the idea of being a professional and to go to the Olympics and to compete, you know, I loved watching I loved watching all sports, but like especially soccer and I kind of grew up in the in the era of the 99ers. So like the first women's World Cup team that was really really good. Mia and yes, Mia, Brandy Chestain, all those girls were like my heroes.
had posters and if I could have been a professional soccer player that's the route I would have gone for sure because I just loved that and but I had a similar kind of passion for like human biology and physiology and I knew that that was something that I also really loved. So I was okay when I made that switch. Um I was really focused on um on my university and and really focused on school.
But then when I started cycling again, I kind of I did both for a while and I still continued to love both. Uh and sometimes I wonder because you know I I still am very fascinated by medicine and I sometimes think maybe I'll go back and it's a long career though to get to to like it's I mean it's nearly 12 years from start to finish just to like get through medical school and and to and to be a resident. So that's it's a long time.
Um, but at the same time, I would never change like what I've done and what I've got to see because of cycling. Um, I think my my life is incredibly different than it would have been had I gone the other path. Um, but yeah, I don't regret it at all because yeah, it's been it's been pretty spectacular um this decision too and and I wouldn't know Olympia.
So, there's that. And can you make without prying too much and also tell me to off if you don't want to answer. It's like can you make a living as a female pro cyclist and how many of the female pelaton are making a living because we've seen like you know there's suppose public record of a lot of the girls are struggling.
Yeah, definitely. It right now it really depends on the team you're on. Um if you ride for our team you definitely can make a living.
I would say most of the girls on our team make a I think all of the girls on our team actually make a wage that you could live on. Um is there a minimum wage in the world tour? Uh Tre set a minimum wage this the same as the men.
So that's a UCI rule but Tre Seafredo made did it before I think the UCI is going to make it a rule in the next year or two that they're uh the minimum salary equal to the men's minimum salary but TRE went ahead and did that before they could make that rule. That's good. Um, we do have a minimum salary, but it's really low.
It's like $21,000. Yeah, I think I think that's what the World Tour Women's minimum is. Um, are you seeing this thing like I know I have friends who've raced for Italian teams and they'll ride at like ProConte level and they'll get like a wage of 30,000 for the year and then they'll say, "Oh, well there's a 30,000 like compulsory contribution towards coaching for the year as well.
" So, they have to give their full 30,000 back. That's pretty awful. I'm sure that's happening.
I think I've been pretty lucky with the teams that I've raced on. I mean, when I started, yeah, my salaries were super low and um you definitely had to like climb your way up the ladder. And I still think there's a lot of women that are on top teams that don't make enough money at all.
Um I think that's fine. like climbing your way up the ladder, there's an expectation like like I raced in France for a division national team and I got paid 50 euro a week and it's like it's but you expect it like you're doing apprenticeship but there is an expectation that if you make it like you've made it you're at the top tier in world cycling there's an expectation that if you make it all the way you should at least be able to you know live a middle class life. Yeah and I think that is the way it it is now in the women's pelaton.
do think the girls at the very top are they make enough to live, you know, better than a middle class life. Like they live they live they at least on our team. I don't know.
I can't really speak to you just talking about Lizzy, aren't you? Just balling around in Lamborghinis. It's so frustrating that that salary is so taboo and that it is like people can't talk about it because I honestly think that if it wasn't so secret, girls would know what to ask for.
But honestly, nobody knows what other people are making for the most part in the Pelaton because it is be been so taboo and so secret. And thankfully, the cyclist Alliance, I think, did a um an anonymous survey so that at least you could see the ranges because I think not every female like in the Pelaton has an agent that can negotiate their salary. And I think those that have agents probably negotiate good salaries, but the girls that are just doing it on their own, I don't think they know what to ask for.
So I often think they're underelling themselves a lot. You want I guess you want to benchmark it against like someone on another team. You go, well, I'm similar age, similar experience, similar Palm Marz, similar budget team, you know, I I deserve 45, 50K, whatever it is.
Exactly. And it's funny because I'm reading Megan Rapo's book right now and she's talking about how salaries in soccer obviously were horrendous. and so much lower than the men's for so long.
And there was also this thing where nobody talked about it. So she's like, if nobody knows what other girls are making, they don't know what to ask for and they don't know what to fight for. And it's it's a similar thing in cycling is I think yeah, even within our team, it's not like we don't ask each other what each other makes, but like I kind of have an idea, but you still don't really know.
You see what car they're driving. That's the kind of the joke with the the men's team. They're always like bringing their fancy cars around and one of them asked one of the girls on our team that like, "Oh, oh, it was I think they asked Lizzie, what car do you drive?
" And she's like, "I don't know, a black one." Whereas they're all like, "I drive a Jaguar or I have a this BMW with this many horsepower." And and we none of us really care about cars.
So even if we made millions, I think a car would be what we spend our money on. What's Ryan Mullen driving? He came up here in a in a Beamer.
So I don't know. Some kind of BMW flash prick. Yeah, he's quite flashy.
He is flashy. I've had Ryan on the podcast a few times. He's always good fun.
Yeah, I bet. So, I think there's a problem in not just women cycling, but there's a problem in male sports in male cycling as well with the way we're generating revenue because really we're reliant on rich businessmen to nearly make charitable contributions to run these teams because they're not getting a return on investment. And I can't believe that we haven't gravitated to a place where, you know, compulsory in contracts is people's social followings going, well, look, Taylor has x amount of followers.
She can help you shift, you know, this many bikes we estimate this year, and now they can peg that back to investments. And if it does go that way, which seems to me like a natural way for it to move to a better business model, I think the girls are just so well placed to make a lot a lot of money because it's just so much easier to have a big following as a female athlete than a male athlete. Yeah, it's true.
We always kind of joke that like and the and the marketing um people on the team always always kind of joke that it's easier to market the women's team and we're better at social media for whatever reason. I don't really know why. to look at.
Yeah, maybe it is that. Maybe. I don't know.
But and I think Yeah, I think that would be a much better model for sure. Um, yeah, the cycling model is is broken when it it really does a lot of times it's just like a a rich man that invests in the team and that's so many teams, men's and women's. Thankfully, Tre is I mean, I think we're really lucky because our main sponsor is super solid.
Yeah. Trek and Sega Fredo. Did you get a Janaba free sego coffee machine for your house?
I have not, but I'm sure I could if I if I asked. Oh, I want one. They're badass.
So, have you been over to Ireland with Olivia writing? Olivia is uh Taylor's partner who is former Irish national champion Olivia Dylan. If anyone just is unsure of what the Olivia reference is.
Yes, I love Ireland. It's my favorite place to travel. And I'm not just saying that because you live in Ireland and you're Irish.
I absolutely love it there. And I've been so sad because this is the first year and since I've known Olivia that we haven't gone to Ireland because of COVID and I miss it so much. Like love I I think it's my favorite place to train.
Even though the weather is absolute sometimes, [laughter and gasps] but it's so be like on a sunny day there is not a more beautiful place than Ireland for sure. And I mean she's from Mayo, so we ride around there a lot and like Yeah, it's it's incredible. And and her is like a fairy tale.
Yeah, it's gorgeous. Kamara and just Yeah. All those play a island and Yeah.
Have you raced over? I did Rosamon once. That was really fun.
Yeah. How did you get off? That was great.
I won. Oh, great. It was the first year I think in like five years that Olivia didn't win and and she was racing for the Irish national team and I was just racing for like a composite team and they had they they had the joke that like three stages in and I was winning and they were like why didn't why did you bring her like why couldn't you just put her on the hop on hop off bus in Dublin and like let her be a tourist.
I I love the idea of just world tour riders just rocking up to local races and it it's just it's what's beautiful about our sport as well like and we get it with the Irish guys to come home like Nico Roach or Dan Martin or Ryan Mull and stuff and they come home maybe they're home for the nationals and they just decide to jump into like some shitty criterium on a Wednesday night and you just rock up and it's like all the cool kid the cool bike and you're like oh this is brilliant because we don't get to play against Lo Messi. Yeah. No, it is one of the really cool parts about our sport is it's so like approachable and it's so I mean you can connect in so many different ways and yeah I love I love jumping in just like local races or um I loved doing Rosamon and there was some really good girls.
It was it was it was one of my favorite races actually and just beautiful roads and and I got lucky we had a whole week of sun. That never happens. H never happens.
You know what I think like a good good amateur like a good cat one amateur can hold the world tour guys on a flat for quite a while but when they plot the nationals courses with like super steep 16% you know 1 km kickers in it it's just like impossible for the amateur guys to hold the world riders. Oh yeah that's yeah that's brutal. That would be brutal.
Uh what's your preparation coming along like for the season to come or what's on the cards races wise for you? Yeah it's good so far. We were supposed to actually be racing right now.
Um our first stage race was supposed to be Valencia, but then it got postponed uh because of COVID and um Valencia was in lockdown for a little while. It's back open again. Um so we had one team camp in January here in Dena and now we have another one because we didn't have the race.
So yeah, two team camps and then a little bit of rest and my first race is is strata in a couple weeks. But the teams start um with opening weekend. So, head news blad should be should be fun to watch.
Nice. In good shape, I think. So, getting there, you know, it takes a little bit to come out of the winter and then get your snap back.
But yesterday, we we did some speed work and I was like, this is what it feels like to race again. So, um yeah, I'm excited. And so, will you base yourself in Europe for most of season?
Yeah, so we have an we have a place in Drona and I'll probably be there most of the year unless there's nationals, which I can't really see that happening in the US right now. I'll probably stay yeah in Europe for the for the whole season. I absolutely love Jirona.
Uh I try and get over it's like you coming to Ireland. It's the longest period I'd say in the last 10 years that I haven't been to Jirona because of COVID. So I normally try and get out like a good few times a year.
So I'm very jealous of your place over there. Yeah. Well, if you know when we're not there, it's all yours.
Taylor, thanks for taking the time to chat. Yeah. No, it was great.
Thank you. And I'll pop all your Instagram handles and website, blog down below so you don't have to rattle them off now. So, uh, we will catch up soon.
Awesome. Cool. Thank you.
Cheers.