Life in France #2: The Money Situation

I often get asked if I’m a professional cyclist. Honestly, no, I’m not. Do I live like a professional? Yes. Do I train like a professional? Yes. Am I professional rider? No.

Pour le Francais: Je vais essayer d'écrire un futur blog en français, mais pour l'instant, je suis désolé mais c'est en anglais!

I’m going to put my opinion out straight away. Unless you’re making a liveable income from cycling alone. You cannot call yourself professional. You can be a full-time rider, or semi-professional but you aren’t a pro.

In cycling, it’s often viewed that ProConti and WorldTour are the professional ranks. It’s at this level that the UCI start to implement a minimum salary of €30,000 and €40,000 respectively – note this is for men’s cycling and it’s slightly less for Neo-pros. In the 21st century, there’s ways to make money through personal deals if you have a big social profile. There’ll be some riders at UCI Continental, or even Elite level who’ll be making more money than WorldTour guys. But then equally, a high majority of Conti riders make no salary whatsoever, or even pay their way onto teams.

This leads me onto the next question I often get asked: how do you afford to be a full-time rider? Now, this changes from rider to rider, but here’s my situation. Cycling's a bloody expensive sport.

I’ll openly admit that I’m lucky enough to have a supportive family behind me. I’m at an age now that I want to be as self-sufficient as possible, however I recognise that I’m extremely lucky to have that safety net if needed. It’s this safety net that even allows me to pursue my career at all and I respect that a lot of people wouldn’t even get the opportunity.

For a start, I’ll say that team are extremely supportive. While we don’t receive a wage, the team provide our housing, most of our food costs and all of our equipment for free. This is a huge advantage because it means our outgoings are limited.

I’m also in a fortunate position to receive some funding from the Dave Rayner Foundation. The DRF fund a whole host of riders who are racing on foreign teams and have taken the plunge to pursue a career on the continent. Due to the fact that I receive a lot of support from the team, I’m on the lower end of the sliding scale but the monthly income certainly helps. It’s pretty simple actually, without the DRF, living abroad would be impossible.

Personal sponsors come into play for a lot of people in my position too. At CCF, we have the opportunity to sell a singular spot on the jersey to a personal sponsor. This is something I didn’t really realise this season but it’s something I’ll actively look into for the future. I’ll also say that this is extremely rare. I’m lucky enough to receive some support from private individuals/ companies. These are often friends, or cyclists from my area who want to help out. I know a lot of you will be reading this and honestly, I can’t thank you all enough. I appreciate it wholeheartedly.

The final way a lot of us afford to race abroad is pretty simple. We work! Throughout the winter, it’s extremely common to hear of people getting part time jobs. From shop-assistants to cleaners, we try and earn as much money in the off-season and then save up so we don’t have to work during the race season. Last winter I worked as a part-time spin instructor at Burn Fitness, a local gym in Cleethorpes. In addition to this, I worked for a couple of weeks in a friend’s shop. I currently work as an apprentice coach with Peaks Sports Consultancy. I help Andy, the head coach, manage some of his clients as well as working on some social media for him.

So far, I’ve made it sound like we get everything either for free or covered for. While we get lots of things paid for, there’s numerous costs that aren’t covered. For example, we have two meals covered Monday-Friday, but then we cover things such as breakfast, any food that isn’t at mealtimes and then all training/ racing nutrition. In addition to this there’s ‘invisible expenses’, in other words, insurance. I have travel insurance which covers me for racing and training in Europe, and on top of that I have car insurance. Insurance for a 19-year-old driver is expensive, add into it that it’s got to be ‘specialist’ for driving in Europe, it’s into the four-figures. Travelling home is another thing we cover ourselves, it’s not a fortune but it adds up. Then finally, there’s the cost of having a life! We’re bike riders, not robots, we still go out to get coffee, get lunch every now etc.

To conclude. There’s a blurred line in what a professional rider is. If you’re ProConti or WorldTour, you can class yourself as a pro, in my opinion. However, if you’re making a liveable wage on a Conti team, I think you can also class yourself as a pro. Away from this, you’ll find that most U23 and Conti level riders have some sort of ‘side hustle’ or personal sponsors on the side.

I hope this has given some sort of insight into the life of an aspiring professional. Let me know your thoughts!

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