Unpacking one year to unveil the next
Make yourself a cuppa, grab a sweet treat and find a comfy possie, because this might take a while to get through…
It’s hard to know where to begin when you’ve got a large list of things that you’d like to cover, but thankfully, past Ella already made a start while travelling from Christchurch to Dunedin on her way back home from Europe earlier this year.
“As of the 13th of September, I think I’ve finally decided which path I’m heading down and I’m bloody excited about it. It is truly a dream scenario. I’ll probably write something entirely separate about that role once it’s ready to reveal, but after a very tumultuous and stressful two years, I’m so excited to turn a fresh page and return to a stable environment. Driven by good intentions but ultimately hindered by a range of complex factors, including in my view an under-resourced and over-committed team management, I find myself almost relieved that my team has made the tough decision to shut up shop, even though I wouldn’t have been been part of it moving forward.”
I wrote this spiel in anticipation that the jigsaw of my 2025 plans was nearly complete. As it transpired, I still needed more time to firmly put the final jigsaw pieces in place, and also discount a couple of erroneous pieces that had found their way into the box… Okay, I’ll stop the jigsaw analogy right there. To best explain the situation that I have ultimately found myself in for 2025, let’s wind the clock right back to January 2024.
After a torrid 2023 that left me trying to resolve a long-term concussion, coupled with a lot of uncertainty and stress about whether I would even have the commitment of a 2024 contract upheld, I promised myself that 2024 would be my final attempt to prove my ability on a bike once and for all. June 2024 was to be my self-imposed deadline and if things weren’t going well by then, I’d begin to explore opportunities off the bike.
Both unfortunately or fortunately, I didn’t have to wait that long because despite a fantastic period of summer training in New Zealand, my season ended as soon as I stepped off the plane in Europe with a bout of Covid. Once I accepted that the post-Covid issue with my heart was going to be around for a while, eventually diagnosed as myocarditis, I promptly decided that the end of my pursuits in professional cycling had likely already come (although I never gave up on the possibility of a late season comeback).
It’s at this point I should probably mention the R word because I bet that’s where minds are drifting right now.
As someone who indulges in quite a lot of self-deprecating humour and can never take situations toooo seriously, I’ve always struggled with being described as an ‘athlete’, calling my cycling endeavours a ‘career’, andddddd… using the term ‘retirement’ to describe my eventual regression from that career.
That’s the R word, BTW.
My personal stance on the matter, ridiculous or not, is that those words suggest a level of seriousness, superiority and self-importance. I simply cannot resonate with them, and generally despise the use of bold descriptors that could come across as egotistical or attention-seeking. I’m the sort of person that has hidden my birthday on Facebook so nobody thinks to message me, and I also can’t bring myself to check who has viewed my Instagram stories because I find it very confronting. Weird, I know.
Anyway, cycling at a professional level has always just been one evolution of my involvement with the sport. I was riding bikes for a long time before that point and I hope to continue to do so well into the future. I’ve never seen cycling as a career; it’s my favourite sport and in my eyes, I treated it just as that - paid or not. Therefore, I’m as sure as heck not ‘retiring’ - that’s for 65 year olds in New Zealand and I’ve got many years of hard yakka left in me before then. My relationship with cycling has evolved through many different stages and even if the next one isn’t set to be as competitive, that doesn’t mean that I’m completely withdrawing myself from this sport.
So, in case I haven’t made it clear already, my bike (currently a beautiful Ribble gravel bike) will not be put away, sold, or traded for a Hyrox season pass. In fact, once my health permits, I’m really looking forward to riding for ‘fun’ while still entering events and taking them way too seriously for it to actually be fun.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m bitterly disappointed and upset that my ‘competitive involvement’ in cycling has had to end this way. I’m also frustrated that I’ve basically filled the bingo card of everything that could go wrong as a cyclist. Although I haven’t really dwelled on these feelings for a while because I’m largely a shallow-thinker (I prefer mulling over my favourite desserts), my steady and quiet demise from the cusp of potentially a wonderful career (eek, I used that word) still pains me. I never quite broke through my setbacks and their subsequent repercussions into the trouble-free period of uninterrupted, quality performance that I dreamed of, but if that’s not the universe telling me something then I don’t know what is.
To do a quick stocktake, since my first year riding for Canyon//SRAM Racing in 2019, I’ve racked up two broken collarbones, one broken femur, a crack in my pelvis, a very severe case of the all too pervasive REDs, one broken hip socket, 8 months of concussion and a bout of myocarditis. Presently, I have a disfigured collarbone plate, a large metal rod in my right femur, a plate around my hip socket, and a sequel of myocarditis that doesn’t want to fully go away. I feel as if I’ve reached a point where it would be stupid rather than stubborn to continue jeopardising my long-term health for a salary that is not sufficient compensation for the risks I personally associate with competing in cycling today. With 2024 being the final year I gave myself to obtain results worthy of a more lucrative contract, I am sticking to my guns. I am no longer willing to put my body on the line and then not be valued adequately for that sacrifice. Furthermore, I really don’t want to keep stagnating - I could waste years just jumping around smaller teams and potentially never making it back to the top level, all the while forgoing opportunities in other areas of life. I’ve been fighting an uphill battle for too long now, and I’ve never raced to simply make up the peloton numbers.
If I have a quarter-life crisis and the allure of professional racing shines brighter once more, perhaps I can try to make a comeback. Right now though, I’m very keen for the next stages of my cycling life to be more sustainable, casual and enjoyable, and I’m really motivated to set goals in safer and more predictable pursuits. If I can’t achieve what I want in cycling, it’s time to move my focus towards a different direction where I might find more success - sporting or not. It’s also far more difficult to break a leg while working on a laptop or running on the trails - unless figuratively speaking, that is.
That was a very drawn-out way of describing my mental shift from ‘professional cyclist’ to ‘profession-less’ back in April. Essentially, both my heart and head were telling me to let go of the last few road racing ambitions that I was stubbornly and optimistically clutching onto.
In hindsight, I feel very fortunate to have had all this time to decide what I want my coming years to look like and amongst all the career options that have piqued my interest, which are the most enticing. It was almost a blessing that I didn’t have to keep kidding myself until my original June deadline, because I certainly had some weeding out to do.
As an aside, the concussion I sustained during the 2023 season led to a prolonged recovery, which was further complicated by the lack of a robust team concussion protocol at the time (you can read about my earlier thoughts on concussion here). Not only was I working to my own June deadline, but if I was to be contracted to the team for 2024, I needed to agree to a clause that would enable a termination of my contract if I did not start in at least five UCI races prior to June 2024. While the myocarditis was completely unrelated to the concussion and outside of my control, the threat of a contract termination remained. My race season clock felt like it was ticking from the moment I contracted Covid.
I managed to narrow down my profession-hunting scope to two relatively niche and very different areas - Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and the all familiar cycling industry. My interest in the first sector stems from my rather specific Bachelor of Agribusiness qualification, majoring in Food Marketing and Retailing. Basically, I’m a sucker for anything vaguely related to supermarkets and the process of how an input, say oats, is taken from pasture to shelf, more often than not with considerable value added along the way.
Conversely, I’ve nearly finished a Bachelor of Communications majoring in Journalism and Media Studies, so I really wanted to combine these areas with my cycling knowledge and experience.
The key factor to consider was that opting for the FMCG side of things would likely mean returning to New Zealand (our consumerism game is STRONG), while choosing cycling would require me to remain based in Europe where the industry is centered. In a nutshell, I felt like I was standing at a very big intersection, and choosing either side would send me in completely different and potentially irreversible directions for the rest of my life. Nothing major then.
Aside from keeping up with my university studies this year, job-hunting was almost a full time occupation in itself (a constructive distraction from the strict physical limitations imposed by the myocarditis). I found myself in a cycle of applying for roles and then being ghosted by the employer (it seems that’s the generally preferred method of rejecting candidates these days), before realising that I didn’t want that type of job anyway. I’d then take interest in another style of role that I thought would be good for me, but would be unsuccessful applying for those also. Even though I said above that I’d narrow my focus down to two key areas, they could still be broken down into oodles of options.
When the June deadline in my contract came and went with no communication from team management, I continued to spend the time until August largely concentrating on finding future employment, because that’s how long it took until I started getting some promising leads. It’s just so typical that after a period of having no success and zero look-ins, options start suddenly presenting themselves all at once, and it becomes difficult to feel overwhelmed in a positive sense rather than downright stressed.
It was also announced at the beginning of August that my team, LifePlus-Wahoo, would be folding at the end of the 2024 season, which actually meant ceasing all operations effective immediately. As a slight tangent, we received a message one innocuous Monday, asking us all to be available for a group call at 3pm that afternoon. I was heading down to Barcelona that day for another MRI on my heart and was due to be jumping on a train back to Girona from the Barcelona underground at 2.50pm. It was difficult to say whether or not ten minutes would be enough time for me to resurface and regain sufficient mobile reception. As it transpired, my train was delayed, but only once all passengers were sitting inside with zero bars of service. Once we finally saw blue skies and the rows of Barcelona industrial buildings some 25 minutes later, the call was already over and my ‘sorry, what have I missed?’ messages went unread.
I felt fortunate that, unlike the rest of my teammates, I wasn’t expecting to race again by that point. As a result, I didn’t experience the sudden shock of having the rug pulled out from under me, after already spending many months preparing for the next phase of my life. To put it bluntly, my ambitions had been crushed earlier in the year and as bad as it sounds, the team folding felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders.
Before receiving this news, I felt like my hands were tied. I wanted to publicly promote myself for cycling-related opportunities in an industry where networking and the ‘who-you-know’ element can be very valuable, but I didn’t want to undermine my current employer while still under contract. It also proved difficult to get in front of team management to talk through my thinking and possible ways I could add value and resourcing to their operations while I remained unable to ride. I was grateful to still be receiving a salary, considering my contract was intact and could have easily been terminated due to my absence from racing in the 2024 season. Part of me wonders if this was only because removing me off the books was put in the ‘too-hard’ basket, considering that the team was slowly falling apart behind the scenes.
Given the uncertainty and ambiguity I was facing, coupled with my ongoing cardiac concerns and a rapidly declining sense of self-worth through my inability to contribute to the team, I experienced immense guilt, angst, doubt, and stress right up until the team’s closure.
I often suspected that our team management gave more weight to aspirational thinking and future planning, over nurturing existing relationships and attending to the essential day to day details. I for one received no communication from team management for a period of three months after I’d arrived in Europe and the extent of my health issues were slowly unravelling. My only contact during this time was with a team DS/ performance coach. Lofty ambitions were often shared, even as recently as one month prior to the team shutting its doors for good, such as seeking to achieve the new UCI Women’s ProTeam status in 2025, and forming a strategic partnership with a university.
That’s just a snapshot of my experience as a rider, having signed for the team at the end of 2022 and just prior to a period of unforeseen upheaval and uncertainty, created by the sudden exit of a key title partner. On a personal level, I found those behind the team to be incredibly lovely, considerate and personable individuals. I regularly found myself very conflicted and confused, because there were aspects of the team’s practices that were at odds with the warmth of the interpersonal interactions I experienced. I quickly came to lean on the concept of Hanlon’s Razor, which states “never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence”. To this day, I believe operating a cycling team had become too all-consuming and overwhelming for the resourcing that was in place. Unfortunately, the collateral damage has been far-reaching, and no doubt it has impacted their own personal lives also.
To summarise and to get myself back on track after yet another diversion, I had encouraging options beginning to emerge down the FMCG route, but I felt as if I wasn’t fully able to exhaust all possibilities for a role within cycling, not until I was free from the clutches of precarious employment.
My two dream scenarios at this point in time were to either be accepted into an Australian or New Zealand based marketing graduate programme of a large FMCG business, or to find something along the lines of a marketing/communications/media/sponsor relations role within a UCI WorldTeam, mens or womens. With my LifePlus-Wahoo contract suddenly not worth the paper it was written on, at last I felt free to search for other cycling opportunities without fear of disrespecting those existing agreements.
Before August, I had already been reaching out to experienced people in the cycling industry who I knew, respected and trusted, using them as sounding boards for my thoughts at the time and to see if they had any ideas of their own. I ended up visiting Shift Active Media in the UK during June for a week of work experience, and was also able to check out the Global Cycling Network (GCN) studios. This was an awesome and very insightful trip away, leaving me surprisingly motivated at the prospect of a ‘real office job’, and the change in lifestyle that it would bring. Even though I hadn’t been able to train or race for a while, I still really craved the idea of having a standard 9am - 5pm routine, casually commuting to a workplace via bike or foot, not thinking about work things when at home, and having weekends as a relevant time construct in my life once more. On the contrary, people who have this typical employment arrangement would likely be incredibly envious of the lifestyle that I’ve been able to lead, and are probably screwing their faces up while reading this… I suppose you always want what you don’t have, and spoiler alert, I’m not going to be getting my weekends back in 2025, either!
A little while after my UK trip, I was approached to take on a part-time role, working a handful of hours each week with The Cyclists Alliance, something that I’m still doing to this day. I’m really enjoying the sense of purpose and satisfaction that TCA gives me, and it’s a cool group of people to work amongst also.
My main breakthrough for more of a full-time job came in the days following the Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift when Beth Duryea, Marketing and Communications Manager (along with wearing many other hats) at Canyon//SRAM, messaged me. I was already in touch with her earlier in the year, so I guess you could say that the door had stayed ajar.
She asked if I wanted to go to Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche (a name that rolls off the tongue) with the Canyon//SRAM Generation team, and take care of the general team social media and communications from the event. All going well, there would be the possibility of turning it into a more permanent role within the team. My answer was an instantaneous yes, apart from the small issue that I already had booked a flight back to New Zealand for that week.
Back on August 5th, once I’d been brought up to speed on the team situation after that fateful train ride, I went into overdrive, trying to rearrange my upcoming plans based on the sudden change in circumstances. It’s one thing having your life largely in Europe, but with no job lined up in 2025 to sustain that life, and then no job from that very day, you have to start moving fast. Fortunately, I was already of the mindset that I would be living in New Zealand for 2025 and even if an opportunity in Europe were to crop up further down the track, I still wanted to prepare as if I was heading back to New Zealand. After all, it would be fine for me to come back to Europe with nothing, but I couldn’t simply leave behind a mess without easily being able to clean it up. Therefore, as of August, I had already sold my dear car Bruno, arranged to vacate my apartment at the end of September, and was making good progress with getting rid of superfluous personal possessions. The amount of household items and personal belongings that one can collect in six years of hanging out on the other side of the world is quite staggering. Sorry, I just got sidetracked again…
I promptly moved my New Zealand flights to one week later, went to Ardèche with Canyon//SRAM, and had a terrific time. Not even one tiny part of me wished I was riding in the bike race, and I thoroughly enjoyed being everywhere except in the peloton. Slightly embarrassingly, it isn’t the first time I’ve had thoughts along these lines because sometimes when I REALLY didn’t want to race, I’d look out the camper windows before a race start and secretly wish I could switch roles with the soigneurs standing outside. It’s therefore probably not a surprise that I loved getting fully immersed in #stafflyf, which was not just limited to writing race previews and social media posts, but also included washing the cars and dumpster diving for a missing credit card. That’s one thing I like about working on a cycling team - everyone has their own specific role but that doesn’t always mean that you can relax once you’ve accomplished your tasks. You can get your ‘me’ time when you’re back at home, but when you’re at a race, it’s full focus on the team.
I returned from Ardèche at 10pm on the 8th of September and after having quite a short space of time to tackle quite a long list of errands, I was on my way to the mighty Barcelona-El Prat Airport at 5pm on the 10th. My trip with Canyon//SRAM had been really positive, and I’d received word that they wanted to offer me a permanent role for the 2025 season. At this stage though, I didn’t know what the proposal would look like and whether I would indeed be returning to Europe in the foreseeable future. Did I need to say my final farewell to Girona?
Regardless, I’d been on a cancellation spree from bank accounts and insurances to wifi, and had turned my apartment into a temporary post office by painstakingly selling hoards of old kit and clothes on Vinted, and offloading countless other items on Wallapop and the iconic Girona Livin’ Facebook page. Even if I was to return to Europe and specifically to Girona, I really didn’t mind that I had completely shut down my life in Spain. The whole situation provided fantastic impetus to do what eventually would have been inevitable anyway - the small matter of entirely decluttering my European existence. The prospect of potentially returning to Europe with only a suitcase and starting completely afresh was actually very appealing.
It’s taken me a very long time to arrive at this point so I applaud you if you’ve made it this far, but we’re now essentially back at the beginning of this monologue, on the 13th of September. I envisioned that once I arrived in New Zealand, I’d feel completely at peace and stress-free, having completed the journey back to the homeland with all my remaining material possessions. Only 2x suitcases, 1x duffle bag, 1x bike box and 2x carry-on plus a 10kg box coming via sea freight - it could have been worse. I did feel relieved to be home and have a sense of security in what was set to be a real transition period as I awaited my next chapter of employment, but I still didn’t have that employment nailed down.
Actually, I tell a lie, I DID have an employment contract for a one year commercial operations internship with a large global corporate sitting in my inbox, but it just didn’t feel like it would light the biggest possible fire in my belly.
Furthermore, there was an unexpected plot twist later that day when we arrived home in Dunedin. I received an email informing me that I was through to the final stage of a graduate recruitment process for what I had come to consider as my dream FMCG employer. This, and a role with Canyon//SRAM, were the best 2025 employment scenarios that I could have imagined, in my desired industries of FMCG and cycling.
My illusion of a cruisy period tinkering about at home was quickly dissolved when I spent the next two weeks intensively studying for this unexpected ‘Graduate Final Panel’ in Auckland; learning absolutely everything there was to know about the company, preparing for a group case-study discussion, creating a presentation to share on a “digital development that could shape the future of the FMCG industry”, and then making sure I could still sell myself in the interview that would come afterwards. To say this process was all-consuming would be an understatement - I almost felt as if I was doing another Zwift Academy, but to unlock the next stage of my life in an entirely different direction.
Prioritising my preparations for this recruitment process meant that once it was all over, I really had to knuckle down on my three rigorous university subjects and their numerous assignments that were due to wrap up towards the end of October. The trip to Auckland and all that it entailed was basically a fourth subject in itself.
As much as I would like to say that I was duly rewarded for putting my head down and nearly tearing my hair out during the preparations, I didn’t end up being offered a place in the graduate programme. It was strange because the various assessments on the day in Auckland went as well as I could have hoped, but I just had this gut feeling in the following days that I wouldn’t be selected. Sure enough, I received a very deflating email to say that I hadn’t made the cut, followed up by a feedback call to talk through the decision. I came to realise that despite seeing a graduate programme as my north star for an entry into the FMCG industry, it might not actually be my best option after all. I was told that based on my background and innate characteristics (ie drive, discipline and all those typical cycling traits), they thought I would likely become quite bored by the programme and might already be beyond a graduate role. Although I couldn’t help but feel very disappointed to not be rewarded for the immense time and effort that I put towards the recruitment process, the outcome really altered my perspective, which was ultimately still very valuable.
Unfortunately, those new insights didn’t mean that I could magically get a non-graduate role in a New Zealand business because those certainly hadn’t been forthcoming up until that point, but the rejection did remove the need for me to make a very pivotal decision between the FMCG and cycling industries, and New Zealand versus Europe.
Essentially, all I needed now was a job description, and hopefully an offer, from Canyon//SRAM. There was no doubt in my mind that the overall proposition of duties would be exciting and appealing; the only unsureness lay in the nitty gritty details - whether the position would be providing enough work to make it financially viable for me.
My prayers were answered, when at the beginning of November, I received a contract which immediately dissolved all uncertainty.
That being so, after over 4000 words, we’ve finally reached the crux of this entire post, which is to say that I’ve signed another contract with Canyon//SRAM (now Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto) from 2025! I think it’s quite amusing to say that, only because without context, that could really have people scratching their heads. Obviously, I have not signed as a rider, but rather as a “Marketing Communications Assistant”, to throw my official title in there.
It will be a full-time role with an overarching purpose to drive the team’s online presence and support various marketing and communication initiatives. More specifically, this will involve generating social media content, crafting compelling stories, managing media and partner relations, and more. Strong emphasis has to be placed on the more because it isn’t easy to write this sort of dynamic role down on paper, and I’ll undoubtedly be pulled into other tasks, related or not - cleaning the cars immediately springs to mind. Previously, Canyon//SRAM has only had one person, Beth, to handle everything within this realm, so it’s pretty cool to be moving into a brand new position, and hopefully getting familiar with many different behind-the-scenes aspects of cycling team operations.
I really should have started writing this update earlier than the 29th of December but after finally being able to soak up the satisfaction, comfort and excitement of having confirmed plans, I majorly procrastinated actually telling a few others. Who knows what people might think the future holds for me, especially those in Dunedin who have seen me doing my ‘fun job’ filling supermarket pick and mix bins on Sundays. No pictures of me in my cap and polo, sorry.
I didn’t anticipate writing something of quite this length, but I also wanted to provide an open, frank and honest account of the turbulent ride that I’ve had this year. The majority of my 2024 has been pretty bizarre, nerve-wracking, and very much in a state of limbo, which is quickly forgotten when you’ve come out the other side and largely moved on.
I genuinely appreciate those who have read this whole thing in its entirety (even if it’s just you, Mum xoxo), and I hope that it wasn’t too dull or overly self-indulgent. If nothing else, it’s been quite cathartic for me to immortalise all of these thoughts and experiences in words, and it has also reaffirmed the motivation and eagerness that I have to be returning to my old stomping ground.
I don’t actually know what the beginning of my new role and year will look like, but seeing as I’m officially employed as of this week, I’m sure I’ll be finding out soon enough. I will base myself somewhere in Europe once again, most likely in Girona (yawnnnn), while working semi-remotely and travelling regularly to different races and events.
Even if the universe was doing everything in its power to stop me from racing bikes, it still seems quite keen on keeping me in the sport, and I’m pretty pleased about that.
EL FIN.
This is great Ella, not the crappy 23-24 stuff that is but your social media game is so strong and great to watch. It's so good you can return to Canyon/SRAM after seemingly actually having a pretty good time there as a cyclist in at least some aspects. Early career/first option not going to plan happens for many of us (self included), so you're not alone! Anyway all the best in the very exciting new gig 👏
Congrats, as just a random person watching your YouTube videos years ago, I always thought you should be hired to do just that ☺️