How To Become A Pro Cyclist with Jack Burke

Toms is a world tour pro in his 5th year with Trek Segafredo. Toms raced for various French Continental teams for 3 years before coming to North America where he raced for the Hincapie team for 2 seasons then turned pro with Cannondale Drapac after some amazing seasons in the North American scene. Toms then moved to Trek from Cannondale where he's been since and is now in his 7th season in the world tour. 

Jan and I were teammates in 2019 on Leopard. He raced for Leopard through till the end of the 2021 season and for 2022 is on Bike Exchange - Jayco, making it to the world tour at 26 years old.  

This is the second part of telling my story about testing positive and being wrongly accused of doping. 

Quinn is a Durango Colorado native and one of the brightest young talents on the bike coming out of the U.S. He's also one of the youngest riders in the world tour after skipping the U23 catagory and going straight from junior to the world tour. Before jumping on the road bike Quinn was a mountain biker and Skimo racer. He may be the only junior athlete to be on the podium at the world championships for both road cycling and skimo. 

Mike Creed is widely recognized as one of the best directors in the sport and while he's been offered jobs in the world tour, he's chosen to work with the best U23 riders in the U.S on the Aevolo U23 team. Mike started racing super young and rose to the very top of the sport where he was teammates with Lance Armstrong and George Hincapie at U.S Postal. Feeling the pressure to perform Mike shares stories you wouldn't believe about how he pushed it too far and what he was willing to do to make his cycling dreams happen. 

At one time one of the greatest cyclists in the world. Before that he lived like a hobo, dropped out of highschool to climb mountains and explore. From Alaska down to Mexico on a thrift shop bike and self welded up trailer to tow his gear and dog named "Bear". Sveino can only be reffered to as a legend even though he's often described as the Chuck Norris of cycling. Google his name and you'll read stories of him fighting off a wolf that attacked his dog in the middle of the night with a hockey stick up in the Yukon. You can't make this stuff up. Sveino could fill endless podcast episodes with stories and I've been fortunate enough to call him one of my close friends and mentors for some time so I wanted to get out more of the stories not yet publicized. Svein's been and continues to be a mentor to the current best cyclists in the world and has given more to developing and helping young Canadian cyclists than any other club or organization yet never has asked for any recognition. Please enjoy stories beyond imagination from a man unlike any other. 

In 2013 I tested positive for a banned substance after winning the biggest race of my life. To this day I remain the only athlete in the history of anti doping to be found completely innocent and not recieve a ban or even a repremand or first strike. I was found to "bare no fault" and while there was a perfect storm of events that caused this positive test result, I also caught some lucky breaks which allowed me to be the only athlete able to prove a negative and prove I had done nothing wrong. My life still went into a tailspin and I was treated no different than Lance and every other doper who claimed they didn't do it. I'm actually grateful for this experiance now and how it's shaped me but it's been 7 years and this is the first time I've openly told the full story. My appologies for the rambling and jumping around. I wanted to make this as clear as possible but there is so much to tell and I've pushed it out of my mind and tried to forget about it for almost a decade so dredging it all up to a microphone was difficult. If this is news to you, I'm sorry for the shock factor and if you've heard parts of this story before, I hope this fills in any blanks.

Kevin is the head of Strategy at Cycling Canada and for road athletes he's the main decission maker when it comes to selecting riders for major national team events such as the world championships and Olympics. Kevin's also been a director for generations on some of the biggest teams in North america over the last 30 years and has been working with the best athletes in the sport for just as long. This is an awesome episode for any young cyclists trying to make it to the world tour as Kevin does an incredible job of giving stories, advice and the attributes he thinks are most important and common among those that make it in such a brutal sport. For everyone else, Kev also has so many incredible stories from races and the athletes he's worked with and the insane things those athletes have done to make their dreams happen. I hope you enjoy all the stories and advice Kevin has to share. Thanks for sharing so much wisdom buddy!

If I had to describe Felix without using the word Bud, it would be best roommate. No stress, always easy to live with and unbelievably considerate. In his early 20's Felix is chasing the pro cycling dream but has also been running his own coffee roasting business for several years. Felix's parents are the founders and still owners of Rocket Espresso, the Ferrari of the coffee world so we get into coffee quite a bit. Beyond that there's plenty of banter between two buds about cars and other crazy stories from being the two foreigners breaking rules we didn't know existed during lockdown in Austria. I hope you enjoy this more casual conversation!

Will and I are the same age and first met by sharing podiums as junior cyclists when he was racing for team USA and I was on team Canada. Will's an absolute pleasure to interview as he's so well spoken and humble. We cover such a broad range of topics from fun stories to specific tech. Please enjoy the former Axeon Hagens Bermans rider, current world tour Pro and all-round gentleman Will Barta.