Voicebox

In this sport, retirement isn’t about numbers. It’s not about the results on a piece of paper, nor the money in the bank account, nor how many kids a rider has at home, and not even the age of the rider. Those metrics do not provide the answer. But yet, those are the only metrics anyone outside of the athlete really knows, so they feed into speculation about when a rider might call it. That kind of speculation cuts a rider deep, because retirement is a deeply personal thing. If you imply that a rider might be done, that’s not too far removed from calling him old or washed up. It strips away the only identity they’ve ever known—racer. It stings.