Phil Gaimon is a pro-ass bike racer who worked his way up the ranks of the domestic racing scene to a spot on the Garmin Sharp squad. His book “Pro Cycling on $10 a Day” is an intimate, funny and at times poignant look at the journey from office park crits to the World Tour. “Phil the Thrill” (that name contains irony) and I corresponded via email until he could stand it no longer.

schmalz Your book was a pretty no holds barred look at your rise through the ranks of pro cycling, did you ever have a moment when you thought, "Oh crap, I may never get hired again if I write this."

Phil Gaimon When I wrote the book, I had literally nothing to lose. My team had run out of money in July, and I had nothing to do but sell old bike parts on Ebay and hack away at the laptop.

In general, though, I tried not to make it the typical tell-all. There was lots of catharsis and blame when I wrote the first draft, but I didn’t want to make the book about that. I cut out all the negative parts that I could, unless a) I needed to throw someone under the bus to explain how I got where I am, or b) it was really funny. When possible, I left names out. Looking back, most of the time that I was a victim, it was because someone was forced to in a "him or me" scenario, and it was more the fault of the sport and the situation than the individual, and I tried to convey that as well. I really want "Pro Cycling on $10 a Day" to be a breath of fresh air in the dump heap of pro cycling’s recent era.

schmalz I really think it’s the best book about rising through the ranks of the domestic cycling world—but enough butt kissing—I need to keep it real like the the readers of our site did when they flamed the crap out of you in our comments section for bitching about prize money.

Phil Gaimon Phil the douche. 

schmalz Well, that was a quick interview, I guess I need to ask another question?

Phil Gaimon Haha I was wondering… I’ve had much worse interviews, though. 

schmalz Well, to be honest, I was a little disappointed that someone called you "Phil the Douche", not only because it’s no fun being called a douche, but it’s so unoriginal, I mean at least throw in a "Land Phil" or something.

You raced for the Sakonnet team, have you done any of the ass-crack of dawn NYC races?

Phil Gaimon New Yorkers don’t mince words, I suppose. 

I never made it to the Central Park races. If I could get up that early, I’d have a real job. I raced the Harlem Classic, and that was enough to know that NYC crits and I didn’t have much future together. I remember moving David Guttenplan to the front and trying to slot into the top ten with a few laps to go, and getting a stiff elbow in my ribs. These days I enjoy that sort of thing, but I wasn’t comfortable with a lot of contact back them, so Guttenplan was on his own after that. I think he finished 13th. He was always 13th that year. He’s gotten better. I also got a parking ticket. 

Gavi Epstein was on the team with me, and he did those pretty often. The rest of us were based a couple hours away in Kutztown Pennsylvania for the summer. 

schmalz Now that you’re an international racer of mystery, do you think your crit skills give you any sort of edge, or does everyone at that level have the same skills?

Phil Gaimon I should first make it clear that I wasn’t really known for criterium prowess in the U.S. I won a lot of local crits, but at big races, at best I could jump off the front for a few laps to pick up some primes or look good for the cameras, maybe work for a teammate if we were controlling the race for some reason, but it’s not like I was lapping the field. Over the last few years of crit racing, I learned to joke with friends at 30 miles an hour, and managed to enjoy myself because no one expected me to do anything, but I was still one of the stronger dudes, so I didn’t have to fight for wheels. I mastered the art of tailgunning certain courses, cruising the fast stretches and bombing the corners (Frankie Andreu and Omer Kem loved seeing me last wheel all day). According to my power file during the Redlands crit in 2011, I coasted for 35% of the race, and didn’t have to sprint once.
 
I did think that my crit skills would help in Europe somehow, but they didn’t. Guys corner just as hard there, and there’s more fighting for position, more wind, and worse pavement, so you don’t get a chance to coast, and if you do, someone will take your wheel. You think they’re good bike riders at Speedweek? Try racing the Three Days of West Flanders, where you spend a day in the gutter on the edge of a grass ditch, because sure you might fall in, but there’s more draft right there, and that strip of dirt is smoother than the cobblestones. Then you go through a town, and someone would bunny hop onto the sidewalk at full speed to make up a few spots. I thought “That guy’s an asshole, and that’s dangerous. I’d never do that.” Fast forward 50k, there’s a big Belgian dude getting dropped in the crosswind in front of me, so it’s me bunny hopping that corner full speed to pass him, blasting out into the middle of the peloton, where they’d better make room for me, or someone’s eating cobblestones. My crit skills didn’t keep me in the race there nearly as much as my general survival skills.

schmalz You mean one hour races are only good practice for one hour races? Now that you are on Garmin, where do they have you racing?

Phil Gaimon Yeah, it’s annoying how that works. And stage races like Nature Valley, where you race maybe 9 hours over 6 days, doesn’t prepare you a whole lot for the Tour of Catalunya, where almost every stage was 5 hours or more. It’s frustrating to look back at the amount of time, energy, and effort I spent going to races just to get by and keep my job year-to-year, but they really didn’t get me any closer to my ultimate goal.

I think the focus for the spring was to throw me into a ton of different races and see what I’d learn. I started the season in Argentina, then Mallorca, West Flanders, Catalunya, and Circuit de la Sarthe in France. Then I came back over for Cali and nationals. For the summer, if you’re not on for any grand tours, there’s not a whole lot of racing going on, so I get a bit of a break, which is fine, since I’ve already had more race miles this year than I’ve ever had in a full season. Next up is Austria in July, Utah and Colorado in August, and probably another trip to Europe later in the year.

schmalz All that gas money wasted! It’s a problem in the US that races are shorter, but it’s a complex problem because there’s no cycling culture, and talking cities and police into closing roads is a tough sell, trust me. Not to blow my own horn, but even putting on my own little Gran Fondo in Iowa is a big challenge because people just don’t get what you’re talking about.

Were you going to mention your win at San Luis? Geez, what kind if self-promoting pro are you? 

Phil Gaimon Did I win something at San Luis? What year was that?

schmalz  Are you messing with me?

Phil Gaimon  Yeah that was a joke. San Luis feels like a really long time ago. 

schmalz So how has your confidence been since then? Where are you on the emotional bike racing roller coaster?

Phil Gaimon I was prepared to get humbled this season, not being the strongest guy anymore. San Luis gave me confidence that I’ll be safe when contract time rolls around, and it showed me that when everything goes right, I can race with the best of them (that Quintana guy that beat me there…I think he might turn into a good bike racer some day). The first year in Europe is always a lot of adjustments and sacrifice, but I know what I’m good at now, and what I need to work on, and I don’t think I’ll look back at San Luis as the best result of my career. I know I’m good enough that I can make this my job for awhile, and I can do the races I’ve always watched on TV. I don’t know if I’ll be able to win a ton of them, but I’m close enough and improving at a rate that I wouldn’t rule it out. Lifewise, I’m still on a one-year contract, in a highly-competitive, volatile atmosphere, so I’d be dumb to be confident, but the team has been happy with my performance, teammates and directors have commented at how much better I’ve gotten just from February to May, and I was able to do my job and help the team at every race I entered. I hope that I’ll be able to take what I’ve learned and what the team has learned about where to use me, and continue to find out what I’m capable of in the sport.

schmalz Now that you’re at the top level, how are things different? How many varieties of caviar does JV put in your musettes?

Phil Gaimon When I rode for BISSELL, they were well-organized, supported, and professional, so it wasn’t exactly rags to riches, but Garmin-Sharp is definitely different. It’s just a huge organization, with way more staff, riders, resources, and stuff. Just to see the service course in Girona, with all the cars and buses, and there’s a huge room of just clothing, you get a sense that you’re a part of something important. There’s also more going on with sponsors, PR, media, that sort of thing, which means schedules, lots of email coordination and logistics.

No caviar yet, but there is more stuff. You wouldn’t believe all the clothing we get, for example. I’ve had a race bike (that the team keeps) and a training bike (which stays at home when I’m off racing) for years, but never a spare bike, or a choice of bikes at each race, depending the terrain of a stage.

The funniest thing is that I thought the guys would be more strict or intense or maybe competitive, but it’s almost the opposite. I remember being on domestic teams, doing 30-40 race days, and thinking it was really important that I stayed away from gluten, and never touched a drop of alcohol. Then I’m sitting at a race in Spain, watching all the top Euro guys pound stacks of bread at breakfast, and pass around a bottle of red wine at night. They’re serious about training, recovery, and diet, but they’re also humans about it, which was a relief. 

schmalz You mean I can have wine-soaked gluten? GODDAMMIT!! Do you think that because they stress less, they are more successful?

Phil Gaimon I think that’s part of it. If you’re worried about your cereal, you’ll never get your head in the game. Some guys are strict about diet, like Tommy D., but the team helps, he takes care of himself, and nobody’s a pain in the ass about it. I remember former teammates going “so and so was having beers last night.” There’s none of that.

Some of it is just that marginal gains are just that…marginal. If you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and no amount of lactose is going to take it away. Quintana would have won that Giro on KFC if that’s what they gave him, and if you want to be in the sport for a long time, you have to make reasonable sacrifices that have real benefits. I spent the last few years in an environment where everyone is sort of guessing what it takes to “make it,” making guesses and trying things, stressing over nothing. Now I’m surrounded by dudes who did make it, who figured out that balance, and it’s damn interesting to look at the differences.

schmalz So I guess there’s no amount of paleo dieting you can do to overcome bad genetics. This is where things get a bit murky though, because guys who are "almost fast enough" think that if they just dope up, then they can ride like guys who have a better hand genetically. These riders convince themselves that everyone’s on dope, so it’s not like they’re doing anything immoral, because facing the fact that they won’t ever be a top pro is just too painful to consider.

OK, so that’s not a question. Here’s a question, what percentage do you think talent has to do with becoming a top pro? Is it 100% talent, 0% effort or is it 0% talent, 100% effort? I imagine the answer is somewhere in between…

Phil Gaimon Diet is a factor for sure, but getting out and doing the training is 99% of it, and I’ve seen a lot of people stress about the 1% gains and neglect the 99.
 
I do know some people who seem to be guilty of what you’re saying, but it’s really hard to know how much genetic potential is a factor. Is Taylor Phinney a phenom because of physical gifts from his parents, or was he raised in an environment that taught him to succeed? What does it mean then if I know that he also works his ass off to be fast? And what would happen if you took away the most basic physical gifts, but he still got the tenacity or a work ethic?
I’ve known a lot of people with physical gifts who fail because they lack the focus, patience, or work ethic, but I know very few who did all the work and didn’t find some level of success. I’d put it something like 80%-20% work to talent.
schmalz So do you think there’s a place for less (physically) talented racers in the top level of the sport? Can a relatively regular racer make it?

Phil Gaimon I think anyone can make it. I don’t know about Europe or Grand Tours, but an average 18-year-old moved in with me, focused 100%, obeyed all of my orders for five years, he’d be a continental pro by the end of it, and potentially Worldtour five years later. In fact, I’m officially offering that service to any misguided parents out there who really want their kids to race bikes. The price is $1,000,000, up front. 

schmalz Cool, will you be serving them some wine soaked gluten?

Phil Gaimon Wine costs extra.

schmalz You mentioned Tom Danielson before, who’s your teammate and who you are friendly with. You’ve been critical of ex-dopers before (like Mancebo), how do we know which ones to accept and which ones to reject? Can you be the permanent arbiter of this subject? It would make things a lot easier.

Phil Gaimon I should start by saying that Mancebo was a good villain in my book, but I tried to express that I understand the guy and don’t blame him for what he probably did. If you wanted to be a winner back then, you had to dope, and it would take a lot of courage to not try and get away with it. The thing that makes this sport so funny is that a guy who was in the thick of all that and was rejected by the Europe scene, could then come over and beat the crap out of a bunch of young Americans for a few years instead of retiring. In the book, I compared it to if a high school team picked up Sammy Sosa. You couldn’t blame Sammy for walking through a door that was open to him (he’s just trying to get paid), but would they cheer when he hit another home run? Was it helping anybody? Damn, he was good, though. I learned a lot from losing to Mancebo, and it was great when I finally figured out how to beat him.
 
I’d love to be the arbiter, but I think you have to really know the guy to make the call. It’s not like there’s one thing they can do and everyone will agree to accept them again, and I don’t have the time or emotional energy to keep navigating that. You want to assume that anyone who doped is an evil, selfish bastard, but then Frankie forfeits his last paychecks so the riders can get paid when the team runs out of money, Tommy D. stops mid-interval to help a guy change a flat on the side of the road, and you realize it’s not that easy. Maybe I’d like Mancebo if I got to know him. All of his teammates did. You almost need a philosophy degree in this sport.

schmalz That should be your next book, "These are the guys who suck" by Phil Gaimon. Speaking of books, have you read George Hincapie’s book?

Phil Gaimon I haven’t read George’s book. I try not to read anything about cycling or sports, because I don’t want to accidentally/ subconsciously steal anything (although I don’t think it would have been a problem with that one). The only exception was Kathryn Bertine’s "Good as Gold," because she’s hilarious, but I didn’t open it until I’d sent my last draft to Velopress. 

schmalz That’s odd, because I think I heard someone mention that George wrote that he should’ve punched Lance in the nut also.

Phil Gaimon Then he plagiarized that shit off of me. Mine came out first. 

schmalz Did he also plagiarize the part about how he fixed bikes in 2006?

Phil Gaimon Maybe from someone else. I feel like I was racing in a different sport than those guys.

schmalz You kind of were, did you ever feel any of the "Lance Effects" (positive or negative) at the level you were racing?

Phil Gaimon Not exactly. I feel like there was a pro cycling surge in the United States during those years, and I’ll credit Lance for that, but it turned out to be a bit of a bubble, and it hurt when that popped. There were 13 pro teams here when I started, so lots of jobs, and a few guys doing very well. I think last year it was down to 5. I don’t think there was much doping going on in domestic scene by the time I got there.

schmalz How do you feel about the top guys from that era being dopers or ex-dopers? 

Phil Gaimon It’s sad but I understand the position they were in. You work that hard and then find out what it really takes to win, because a few guys ruin it for everybody. 

Think about the whole neutralized descent controversy in the Giro just now. It takes one dude to attack when he shouldn’t, and then everyone else has a choice: do I go with him, or do I lose the race? 

schmalz Oy, cycling is so full of sadness and moral decisions. I bet curlers don’t have to put up with this crap.

Phil Gaimon I imagine that the deeper you get into any sport or industry, from cycling to apple computer, the more you see. Cycling just looks worst because the grass is greener. But yes, curlers are all saints. 

schmalz I concur, curlers are virtuous, slightly inebriated saints of the ice lands. I guess cycling got bad because the whole top level of the sport got taken over by dickheads. Do you think the temptation to dope partially stems from the insecurity pros feel from having to get signed to contracts?

Phil Gaimon I think the biggest issue in the sport is the team/individual conflict. It was an individual sport at the beginning, before drafting, etc., and I think it got defined that way and has yet to wear off. Now, it’s a team sport 100%. You don’t win a big race if there aren’t seven guys willing to give up their result for yours, but at the end, they still say that "Chris Froome won the Tour," rather than Team Sky, and he’s the one who gets the vast majority of the glory and benefit, I’ve won a couple big races, and I’ve finished second a few times. The difference in what it gets you and how you’re perceived is enormous, while contributions from teammates who make the difference are almost completely overlooked. I think that top-heavy reward and value system was a huge part of the doping culture.

schmalz Yeah, David Millar said that the UCI points system bred a culture of greed and desperation. Individual points makes for selfish racing, I never understood why teammates don’t get points for a stage race win.

So is Garmin at least going to let you get your Vuelta on?

Phil Gaimon Millar is spot-on. I think everyone recognizes it, and hopefully the UCI will get around to a designing better system. 

No, I don’t think I’m on the hook for any Grand Tours this year. My hope is to sign back for next year, and convince them to toss me into the Vuelta for development, but I think they picked me up to represent at the American races, and Utah and Colorado are great events for me to target. Every race I’ve done with the team has been a great experience, so I don’t have any reason to rock the boat yet.

schmalz It must be a bit of a surreal experience for you, being able to enter all of the big American races after years of worrying about whether your team would get invited or not…

Phil Gaimon Yeah, it’s great to have that element of drama removed. Amazing how much of a rider’s career and a team’s season can come down to that selection. That was a main reason I went to BISSELL in 2013. They were the only team that never missed an invite. 

schmalz So now that you’re big time are you extra careful about giving the cold shoulder to guys on smaller teams?

Phil Gaimon Yes! The Euro teams would always look down on guys like me at races like Tour of Cali, and I understand that, because we sucked, and I sucked, and we were in the way a lot. That said, everyone has their own goals and expectations in a race, and we’re all human beings. The group I finished with at nationals was 8 minutes down, but a bunch of guys sprinted for 22nd place. In Europe, that’ll get you yelled at, and maybe a few bottles hurled at your head, but to me, if 22nd place means more to one guy than another, let them sprint for it, and fuck the etiquette. 

schmalz Ah the unwritten rules, funny how they seem to benefit the people who are already established. Have you encountered any new unwritten rules now that you’re with Garmin?

Phil Gaimon The team has been surprisingly relaxed and easy, compared to what I’ve been used to, and what you might expect on the outside. Everyone follows the schedule, but no one says anything if you’re two minutes late to the meeting. Maybe the bigger races are more intense, but all the little bike racer details had already been drilled into my head by previous teams and teammates. 

I was pleasantly surprised that’s it’s okay to poop in the RV before the start. A lot of teams have a "#1 only" rule. Or maybe they just said that to me because I have a high fiber diet. 

Any ride over 3 hours or under 1.5 requires a coffee stop. The latter means it’s a recovery day, so you should have two coffees and take your time. 

Don’t touch Danielson’s jar of almond butter. 

Don’t argue with the mechanics. I’m pretty sure they outrank JV on the team. 

schmalz I think one of the parts of your book I enjoyed most was how unrealistic some team directors were when it came to tactics and expectations. How different are the team orders from Garmin?

Phil Gaimon No, those days have happily been over for a long time. Every team struggles to find a good balance between what they WANT the riders to do (win the race), and what we actually can do (sometimes, winning is hard), but Garmin hires great staff and directors. I’d never heard of most of the DSes (there are like 10 of them that rotate around), but then I’d google them to find their resume from whenever they raced, and the reaction was always "Damn he was good!" And then since there’s actually enough staff (as opposed to domestic teams, where director might also book plane tickets and glue tires), they have time to research the race and direct properly. 

For example, Eric Van Lacker was our DS at 3 Days of West Flanders. He’s won lots of big races, and directed many more. After we talked about our basic plan as far as the early break, who’s the sprinter, and who’s getting bottles, he pulls up a slideshow on the big TV screen on the bus (guess which brand the TV on the Garmin-Sharp bus is), and shows us a map of the course, which way the wind is blowing in each section, close-up photos of the cobbles in each fucked-up cobblestone stretch, a photo of the road where it’s about to turn into a fucked-up cobblestone stretch. So then, I’d be forty guys back in the group, and I’d be like "Oh hey, there’s that house where it’s about to turn left and blow the race to pieces. Oh well, I’m 40 guys back!" But it was good to know it. Frankie Andreu always had good race strategy, but he didn’t have time for all that. Or a big screen for the bus. Or a bus at all.

schmalz That’s totally preparation doping! How will the other teams keep up?

Phil Gaimon Have you ever heard Boonen talk about Flanders or Paris Roubaix? Dude knows every cobblestone. 

schmalz Do you know any race that well? 

Phil Gaimon There’s this training criterium around an office park Alachua, Florida we used to do every Saturday when I was in college. It’s pretty much a huge U, with one corner that you can crash on if you try really hard, and a sort of uphill where all the big attacks are launched. I know that one pretty well. Some weeks, we’d mix it up and do the course backwards. 

I’d done about a hundred laps of the circuit race course in San Dimas, so you’d think I would know that pretty well, but I hooked a fence there last year and nearly killed myself.

schmalz Yeah, that was pretty bad one (but it did inspire a pretty good selfie), did that crash make you want to look into other fields of employment?

Phil Gaimon No, it really didn’t, but hitting your head doesn’t necessarily make you more rational. I was riding so well before the crash, so close to nailing down a spot with Garmin, it probably got me more fired up to train and put 100% into bike racing for another few months. Looking back, I definitely started racing too early after my concussion. My legs were great, and I almost won Gila (finished 2nd overall), but if an acorn had fallen on my head, I probably would have forgotten 3rd grade or something.

schmalz Let’s hope you remember enough to do another book, maybe this one will have cool battle ninja scenes in it, as that makes every book better.

Phil Gaimon I’m not sure if I’ll if write another book. On the one hand, it was emotionally healthy to think back on everything. There were a lot of times that I’d write something and think  "Oh shit, I never apologized for that," or "I never actually thanked that guy," which usually resulted in a weird phone call, where I gave a long speech, and someone on the other end tried to remember what the hell I was talking about. I’m not a crier (I’m a manly man), but I lost it when I wrote about the last lap at the Sunset stage of Redlands, where I was trying to catch Mancebo to hold onto yellow, and I saw all my teammates and friends standing on the side of the road, because they wanted to cheer me on and see me win. 

On the other hand, I could never use a ghost writer, which meant it was a lot of work and time, and I’ve had enough of the difficult/highly competitive/marginally lucrative category in my life. But I’ll pick a fight with the next ninja I see, in case I do write a sequel.