Bottom Line to Start Line

[GamJams loves guest contributions, particularly when they're beautifully written, or topical, or inspirational. This one is all three, and it comes from Beth Leasure, a cycling coach and performance muse to the pro peloton for over two decades. Learn more about Beth at bethleasure.com or on her remarkable blog, "Good Spin."]

Bottom Line to Start Line
by Beth Leasure

While pro riders clamored at Tour Down Under last week for a photograph with Lance Armstrong’s $25k bike, many of us wonder – in this economy – things like – just which part of our current budget goes to replace just which part of our old gruppo so we can ride without sounding like a push mower. This is where we can all say with President Obama, “I stand here today humbled by the task before us.” Fortunately, we’re bike racers and we know how to stretch chains, muscles, and wallets.

Is there a more resourceful group of people? Here are examples from the very elite. One Olympian lived in a van in a friend’s driveway so she could train full-time. Another accumulated spending money by autographing each season’s training kit and selling it at a bike swap at year end. It was impressive how much that guy made from his used shorts! Another aspiring pro worked construction in the off-season – the ultimate in off-the-bike functional strength training. Another developed a network of flexible homeowners, and did odd jobs for them between trips and races.

The point is if we want it bad enough, we find a way. Sometimes we find many small ways that add up. You don’t really need to spend a small fortune on supplementation if you learn to mix energy drinks like a bidon bartender or stuff your musette with mini-treats. Most bike frames and bike parts last a long time even if their prestige devalues after a season. One owner of a global bike frame company patches and re-patches his tubes. A former racer, he can’t stomach waste. Become more selective about your race schedule or tighten the radius for travel between venues. Even pro teams cluster their schedules so they can move by region according to the season.

Bike racing is a clannish society, but the fresh announcement of the day concerns community – pulling together for achievement but also for shared resources. Car pool to a race, borrow and lend stuff, barter services. Think the unthinkable and coordinate with other teams, competitors, and cross-pollinate among racers, officials, promoters, mechanics – all strata of the peloton. I once raced an entire year sans entry fees by volunteering as a road marshal at every race. There was little physical drain from this, and it allowed for performance visualization having seen lap after lap of good racing. I had a lot of wins that year because I could afford a coach!

Racing lifestyle comes with certain non-negotiable requirements. You must have wise advice, sound equipment, and consistent discipline. We’re poster children for physical leanness, and this easily transfers to financial management. Where we calculate energy in to equal energy out calorically, we must also have a cash flow plan.

The B word - Budgeting - connotes straight jacket – something we free wheelin’ roadies disdain. Instead of thinking of it as a restriction, take some time to sit down and create a plan.

online resource: DaveRamsey.com

Aim at nothing – that’s what you get. As with race goals so with monetary goals. But aim at where each dollar needs to be spent, and you have enough resources to fund your performance goals. Sticking to the plan brings peace of mind because you already know what you have to work with and you can plan realizable objectives accordingly. This beats the blind-folded archer approach because it takes pressure off you for results to win prize money. A rider who must win to ride may have incentive but also has a big distraction from reading a race objectively. Good directors require financial planning from riders. Otherwise, a team of needy individuals racing for cash will not work together. But a team of guys who understand what needs to be accomplished in order to keep the operation afloat will sacrifice self again and again for team sustainability.

A big part of your training plan must be income IN – your work life. Career planning is a part of even europro lifestyle. Top-paid Tour riders implement extracurricular income strategies, such as owning property management companies, book deals, and educational goals in preparation for retirement. How much more relevant this mindset is for weekend warriors, elite riders striving for pro development, and everyone else in between. Choose a job within your core strengths so you can have balance for bike time. I have amateur athletes with monumental, even life-saving, responsibilities in their careers but they’ve nailed their off-the-bike talents and are working in the center of their ideal task and skill-sets. Consequently, work-related energies and stress are more easily managed leaving energies for other pursuits and the passion of bike racing.

Years of living the dream of bike racing full-time on two continents taught me how to live within my means. Now I’m poised in this economy with no debt, a savings, tangible assets and equity. As committed cyclists, we really can turn our sweat equity into dollars and sense. Now I want to work hard to maintain good stewardship and to invest in others.

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Beth Leasure offers coaching, strategy and inspiration for elite cyclists and teams. She is also the moderator of the Facebook group "Inspiration for Pro Cycling's Influential" (by invitation only). Contact her via her website at bethleasure.com.

Comments

[Fasting is a Cheaper Way to Make You Faster]

If you were to take the total amount it would cost to lighten a bike by say five pounds, and compare that to what it would take to just lose five pounds of body weight a lot of this would be a no brainer. Of course for the cost of lightening a bike by that much one might be able to lose the five pounds by liposuction, and still have money left over!