Not to diminish Chris's dream-chasing escapades, and I'll bet Chris might even agree with me, if you're impressed with this, you need to listen to Bob Roll's interview wherein he discusses his incredible journey from riding with work boots in California to living in a tent in Belgium to being sent to the Giro with 7-11. Would make an Oscar-worthy movie!
Today I met a bike shop owner who apparently used to compete with you, when I mentioned you he said you were the smartest guy in the pro peloton, that your tactical awareness while racing was unmatched. He even described riding next to you and listening to you which was kind of like listening to your videos! LOL (only difference, he wasn't sure you said knuckleheads way back then!) 🤓😃
Hehehe. I’m much nicer when I’m not racing. In the races I figure everyone is pro so it’s there job to know what’s going on there so I don’t have to be nice when I was yelling someone for not knowing there job. But here on the channel it’s a family place, so it’s much more correct to keep the level at Knucklehead. 😂😜👊🦋
@@ChrisHornerCycling oh he said good things, I don't think he thought you weren't nice 😊 but more later (he just bought my favorite local shop & it's all good!) BTW I spit on my screen laughing at the McDs at the end! 🤣
I hope you get to make the story time video for your TOC win. The stage where you and Levi Leipheimer drubbed the entire field up that climb will be great to relive.
What a great story time. I don't think I've ever heard a pro talk so explicitly about his financial arrangements. Was nice to hear you eventually got some big checks.
OFFICIAL: Mark Cavendish has accepted Astana Qazaqstan's offer to "come out of retirement" and ride with them at next year's Tour de France. They pulled out all the stops to accomplish this: they signed Michael Morkov to lead out for him AND signed the Quickstep sprint trainer who gave him his 2021 mojo, Anastopoulos. And now that they have Cav, I've heard they're looking to assemble even more riders for the Jumbo-Visma of a lead-out train for Cav, with a top priority for Le Tour to help Cav win a sole record 35th (and beyond) sprint win. Astana just became my new favorite team. Yeah, both Mark and Michael are 38 now, but you know better than most that you can't dismiss the chances of determined riders due to their age!
Chris, it would be very interesting to have a story time with all the bikes you raced through the years. Technology progression, frame materials, good ones, crap ones, etc.
I remember that stage of the 2011 Tour and listening to what you were asking after the finish line. I was cringing, asking myself why your management didn't immediately pull you from the race. It was obvious you were concussed and were in no shape to ride. Hat's off for keeping it rubber side down for the rest of the stage when your brain was barely working!
Oh... the good old days! Ha! I turned pro in 1989. Late 80's and the early 90's saw the development of the first pro teams based in America, 7/11, Coors Light. Chevy, Saturn, Wheaties... Every year there were a few more teams and a few more races with real prize money. Pretty soon some legit Euro-pros wanted to race in the U.S.. There are some great stories from those times as you were coming up. Let's hear some! Those years were literally the birth of pro bike racing in America.
Right. You and I got to enjoy those years as we saw big pro races with big prize money coming in every year to the US. The energy was high from the moment the car pulled into race parking lot and we exited the vans (no buses back then ;). Great racing with you Jamie 👊🦋💥🔥🚴♂️
@@ChrisHornerCycling I've been asked a dozen times to direct the documentary about the birth of pro cycling in the 80's and the Golden era which started with the 84 Olympics and ran up until the Armstrong era. It's a great story but it's a massive project and I've just never had the time. If I do it I want you to narrate! I'll hit you up!
I was riveted, Chris, by your year-by-year breakdown of your financial situation as a pro and it makes your Vuelta win that much more meaningful, that you paid back your team with that win after two seasons of finally making the big bucks. And, all in all, wow, you were doing the dance, carving a place in Europe and back in the States and dealing with the sha-sha-shakiness of it all. Yours is a most impressive story of resilience and determination and now we have a better understanding why you have all those jerseys. 😀
I got dropped, completely dropped, today on the last climb of the ride by a local pro 1/2 type guy here in Colorado. I was laughing at how easily he rode away, and simultaneously pondered how this rider is multiple levels below a World Tour pro in the European peloton. Puts into perspective how hard it is to make a living racing a bicycle.
Exactly. Local guy in every city that can drop most everyone. Sooner or later the best get to the top one way or another and we get to watch them in July. 👊🦋
5:16 Right there, Chris joined the Hair-luminatti, sacrificing scalp fuzz for cycling glory, a la Laurent Fignon, which he actually looks like. Oh by the way, when I was growing up bikes such as Gitane [steel] were the RAGE!
Awesome to hear JB being such a standup guy. I love his commentary over on the Wedu channel. Would love to get you two talking together on a story time episode or something like that. Keep it up!
Chris, is there any way (without compromising yourself) that would you consider a similarly frank and revealing story about drug-taking in the sport? I read recently that the retrospective tests on ‘98 TdF blood samples showed near universal use of EPO within the peloton. Love to hear your wise and honest take on the role that ‘drugs’ had, and maybe still have, on pro cycling.
Love your stories. You would create a great book. "Butterflies and Knuckleheads in the World of Pro Cycling" . I would preorder the book and would have to get a Chesterfield to sit in while I read 📚 it . 🔥📖🦋👊🏼😃
Outstanding story! I wouldn't want to be the 2 young American riders right now, having to go through the stress they are going through at all. I pray it works out for them. Especially in today's financial issues. My friend I trained with went through that stress also, and he had a family. Thanks for sharing!
Right. I started having kids in 1997. It adds to the stress for sure when you don’t know who you will be working for in a couple month time and you got little ones at home. 😬🤔🦋
Cycling Highlights just put out a 2 1/2 hour video on the Festina affair. Love the channel Chris. You’re really a great dude for putting this much work into your channel.
I am always enjoying Chris' analysis and I have mad respect for his openness and smart insights (I love the knucklehead analyses ^^). I just wonder if he will ever do a storytime about doping and whether he will admit he took some or perhaps explain about his experiences with it in the peloton. I would be very interested to hear an open conversation about that, about the pressures for the athletes and about the opinions of colleagues.
Love it! Storytime was a great episode. Thanks for the inside info. I always come away for your analysis more educated than before. Makes watching races much more enjoyable. Thanks Chris!
Great story, wonderful insight into the financial struggles cyclist go through. Primoz earns around $6 million a year. Average MLB major leaguer makes $4.6 million. Cyclist don’t get paid near enough. Chris, what about health insurance? I’m guessing when on a team you are covered, but what happens between teams? Or when you are on your own? A training accident could bankrupt you.
You are correct. My health issues with my lungs would have bankrupted me if it had happened any earlier in my career. Healthcare in the US is ridiculously bad at best when you look at the cost of it all and how easily it could bankrupt anyone who’s not way upper class financially. While riding with euro teams I was always covered but normally not when riding with a Us team. Then you buy your own coverage. 😬🦋
Chris continues to give some of the best insights in the pro sports in the business. I’ll take one Chris Horner over all the Vandevelde‘s in the planet.
This adds a great perspective on the sport. Thank you! Heard some stories of young talented riders quitting just because of the financial stress each year.
Love these stories. Your race analysis is excellent. Watching these videos for last few years. Looking forward to next years racing and knuckle head commentary 😊
Looking forward to tomorrow: Rogla, Pogi, Remco, Mas, Billy Carapaz, Pinot, Chavez (some of them already won Il Lombardia. And last race for Primož on Cervelo as he will be on Bora's Specialized.
This is so insane on so many levels as it is hard enough to be a world class bicycle racer - dangerous, demanding, takes years off your life, then have to deal with not getting paid. I can't even get some of the workers to put in a 1/2 days worth of work on the construction site. Thank you for this incredible story time!!!
When I lived in New Hampshire (1994-1997: before Switzerland 🇨🇭 ), I read about a woman racer in the New England regional circuit, who would trance-out in the middle of criteriums, and ride lap after lap, somewhat like a fish in the middle of a moving school swimming together. Her competitors knew about; what was radical would be her "snapping out of it" just as the final sprint formed. She won often, due to how relaxed she passed the previous laps.
This is the video that every aspiring junior or espoir should watch (and ensure their parents dont!). Nothing like depending on race winnings to pay your next meal. Would love more stories like this... especially the North American pro scene in the 90's/00's vs the euro scene. Thanks, Chris!
Missing the '98 TDF and avoiding getting caught up in the mess that Rock Racing ultimately was. Some positives I suppose out of all the stress (listening to the Mercury situation and the UCI response I was definitely thinking WTF?) that your story highlights so well here.
Love your story telling sessions. It's great to get a real life perspective on the struggles of pro cyclists. You guys deserve a ton of respect for the job you do. In my opinion, the paycheck does not match the effort, pain and risk you face every time you get on your bike.
I love the complete transparency in these stories wow i didnt expect to get hooked that good. This is my first storytime and im waiting eagerly for the next one! Thanks !!
Thanks for sharing information about this part of professional cycling culture. As a teenager/young man who raced during the 80's, I only knew about what I read in the magazines, and the money part of it wasn't commonly discussed unless it was a discussion about the elite riders like Lemond. It was only in recent times that I found out how little many of my cycling heroes were actually paid (particularly the women), and the stresses that came with that.
Yeah Chris we need more recollection of the good old days I have been a Velo News subscriber since 1982 and that was the only way to find out what was going on in Europe and you were one of the guys that bugged out of the US and I couldn’t believe you were with FDJ because I knew what the French did to Greg Lemond so I was just shaking my head and I know what you had to do and I know what the sport was at that time so I will never judge you but come on dude did you ever feel sorry about the French dudes who couldn’t do what you were doing there were some guys who could have been way better than you but you know and I know so don’t toot your own horn 😊
This is why the big time American gravel cyclists (the like 3 or 4 of them that exist) are turning down the European road teams. They're making more in the US with their more independent sponsorship arrangements than they'd be paid on a team.
Great stories Chris ---you were born with incredible tenacity! Anyone clawing their way to the top takes so much sacrifice...I remember Eric Marcotte in MN who was tearing everyone's legs off and then I heard he somehow held a full time job as a chiropractor in AZ -- then he won the USPro championships in 2014! crapy wages however perhaps guarantees that riders are in it for the love of the sport of cycling -- not necessarily all the $$ ...like we see a lot elsewhere in other sports...
Chris, I love your candidness on pro cycling. Can you or will you ever talk about the doping usage? You are the only person to have ridden with Lance who has never got busted. When and will you come clean? We as fans of you kinda know the truth. It would be nice if you and Floyd would get together and straighten it all out.
Very inspiring story. Good to see the Mercury jersey. I remember seeing you out front in the Simi ride here in So Cal back in 2000 thinking you had enough of Europe. Boy, was I wrong. 13 years later watching you win the Vuelta was very special. What a career...
Fantastic video young Chris! Brings back memories of racing and working full time... training rides in the mornings and going to work second shift in a nut factory. Racing on the weekends and taking vacation time for stage races.
Ok, this story time makes it so much more real and knowing that 200k gets eaten up in taxes, agent fees and housing basically means you need to be making at least 400k to be even semi comfortable
Yes. 200k disappeared quickly. After taxes, travel, agents,and cycling expenses. It paid the bills but didn’t leave much left. At 400k things started to get easier. 🤔🦋👊
I was there! Pittsburgh Thrift Drug Classic the last few years before Eckerd bought them out. Had I know to look for the future winner of the Vuelta…!!!
Chris is giving, whether he intended to, a reason to anyone who wonders why pro athletes, especially cyclist, use illegal PEDs, if you're not winning, your not getting paid well. It's simple not the same as other sports, and that's a shame, these guys, and women now, are totally dedicated to being the best..
The part of - making 200k€ a year i lived by the month I don't buy it. Take agent, taxes - 40% total, still 120k€ clean. 15 years ago with 1000€ you would rent an amazing house in Girona. Would pay a nice montage for Bend, OR. Trips? 2000€ r/t, get a handful per year. Bikes, hotels and race travel is covered by the team! I guess there were the extra cost... like Mateo Jorgenson... coach... massage... nutrition... I am surprised if a team didn't have top staff for that, but anyways. Doctors? Ferraris? Somewhere else would go that money... just saying 🤔
Brillaint honest account of things Chris. Really refreshing to just hear it how it is with no BS. Makes me kinda sad Johans been treated like he has - listen to the move just to get his view on things.
Love the insight Chris! I followed your career for all of those years and these incredible details just add icing on the Chris Horner, Coke and Snickers flavored cake!
it has been a while since i commented here...but this video is EXCELLENT...love the story time and behind the scene hardships of an otherwise popular and successful cyclist. Thank you Chris, it is not always pretty to be a cyclist
Thanks. This was very informative. As a Certified Financial Planner, I am very used to learning about the financial facts and income of others and this was helpful from financial planning perspective.
Lots of good stuff here. Great lessons in wealth management, or lack thereof. Pro cyclists spend a good chunk of their prime wage-earning years struggling to make any money at all. And have the constant worry of whether or not they'll even be on a team next season despite having great results on their resume. I would guess many of them have no money in savings. Nothing set aside for retirement. No formal training for anything post-career. But they lived the life that we all dream of. . But another cool thing about this clip: did anyone notice that he did this in what is essentially one single shot? He didn't have to stop the camera and make edits; he just spoke from the heart about his career in great detail for 26 minutes without referring to notes or splicing a hundred takes together. And it was easy to follow.
Thank you for bringing this subject up. In all others sport there exist clubs while in pro cycling it does not. That creates a unique situation for pro cycling which maybe can be avoided if the sport can bring clubs to highest level.
Man, I am sitting here on the Chesterfield thinking this guy deserves mad respect for chasing down his dreams! Inspiring!! Thanks for sharing Chris!
👊🦋🙏
Not to diminish Chris's dream-chasing escapades, and I'll bet Chris might even agree with me, if you're impressed with this, you need to listen to Bob Roll's interview wherein he discusses his incredible journey from riding with work boots in California to living in a tent in Belgium to being sent to the Giro with 7-11. Would make an Oscar-worthy movie!
I had to google Chesterfield after all of his references...lol
Couch bro👍
Chris’ beard at 6:58. No way that’s aero! 😂
Certainly wasn’t. 😂🦋👊
It's WILD!
Today I met a bike shop owner who apparently used to compete with you, when I mentioned you he said you were the smartest guy in the pro peloton, that your tactical awareness while racing was unmatched. He even described riding next to you and listening to you which was kind of like listening to your videos! LOL (only difference, he wasn't sure you said knuckleheads way back then!) 🤓😃
Hehehe. I’m much nicer when I’m not racing. In the races I figure everyone is pro so it’s there job to know what’s going on there so I don’t have to be nice when I was yelling someone for not knowing there job. But here on the channel it’s a family place, so it’s much more correct to keep the level at Knucklehead. 😂😜👊🦋
@@ChrisHornerCycling oh he said good things, I don't think he thought you weren't nice 😊 but more later (he just bought my favorite local shop & it's all good!) BTW I spit on my screen laughing at the McDs at the end! 🤣
I'm sure it was great to listen to him except WHEN HE HAD A CONCUSSION!
I hope you get to make the story time video for your TOC win. The stage where you and Levi Leipheimer drubbed the entire field up that climb will be great to relive.
What a great story time. I don't think I've ever heard a pro talk so explicitly about his financial arrangements. Was nice to hear you eventually got some big checks.
They came late but they final came. 👊🦋😜
OFFICIAL: Mark Cavendish has accepted Astana Qazaqstan's offer to "come out of retirement" and ride with them at next year's Tour de France. They pulled out all the stops to accomplish this: they signed Michael Morkov to lead out for him AND signed the Quickstep sprint trainer who gave him his 2021 mojo, Anastopoulos. And now that they have Cav, I've heard they're looking to assemble even more riders for the Jumbo-Visma of a lead-out train for Cav, with a top priority for Le Tour to help Cav win a sole record 35th (and beyond) sprint win. Astana just became my new favorite team. Yeah, both Mark and Michael are 38 now, but you know better than most that you can't dismiss the chances of determined riders due to their age!
I’m not going say Mark won’t win #35 next year. He was super close already in 2023 TdF. 👊🦋
What a great year it's gonna be
I love the independent pro story. Fabulous
One of the most interesting videos you have done. Thanks Chris
And he won his #35
Chris, it would be very interesting to have a story time with all the bikes you raced through the years. Technology progression, frame materials, good ones, crap ones, etc.
Wow, extremely in-depth!
Thank you Chris for explaining the reality of being a cycling pro.!
👊🦋
Sticking with cycling after seven of these episodes is a testament to your tenacity.
I remember that stage of the 2011 Tour and listening to what you were asking after the finish line.
I was cringing, asking myself why your management didn't immediately pull you from the race. It was obvious you were concussed and were in no shape to ride.
Hat's off for keeping it rubber side down for the rest of the stage when your brain was barely working!
Oh... the good old days! Ha! I turned pro in 1989. Late 80's and the early 90's saw the development of the first pro teams based in America, 7/11, Coors Light. Chevy, Saturn, Wheaties... Every year there were a few more teams and a few more races with real prize money. Pretty soon some legit Euro-pros wanted to race in the U.S.. There are some great stories from those times as you were coming up. Let's hear some! Those years were literally the birth of pro bike racing in America.
Right. You and I got to enjoy those years as we saw big pro races with big prize money coming in every year to the US. The energy was high from the moment the car pulled into race parking lot and we exited the vans (no buses back then ;). Great racing with you Jamie 👊🦋💥🔥🚴♂️
Dude you guys were my heroes I remember everything about you guys from Velo News you were my inspiration 😊
@@ChrisHornerCycling I've been asked a dozen times to direct the documentary about the birth of pro cycling in the 80's and the Golden era which started with the 84 Olympics and ran up until the Armstrong era. It's a great story but it's a massive project and I've just never had the time. If I do it I want you to narrate! I'll hit you up!
I actually recall your name bro. Have been following cycling since late 70's
Starting racing 80, Cat 3 until 92👍👊
I was riveted, Chris, by your year-by-year breakdown of your financial situation as a pro and it makes your Vuelta win that much more meaningful, that you paid back your team with that win after two seasons of finally making the big bucks. And, all in all, wow, you were doing the dance, carving a place in Europe and back in the States and dealing with the sha-sha-shakiness of it all. Yours is a most impressive story of resilience and determination and now we have a better understanding why you have all those jerseys. 😀
I got dropped, completely dropped, today on the last climb of the ride by a local pro 1/2 type guy here in Colorado. I was laughing at how easily he rode away, and simultaneously pondered how this rider is multiple levels below a World Tour pro in the European peloton. Puts into perspective how hard it is to make a living racing a bicycle.
Exactly. Local guy in every city that can drop most everyone. Sooner or later the best get to the top one way or another and we get to watch them in July. 👊🦋
5:16 Right there, Chris joined the Hair-luminatti, sacrificing scalp fuzz for cycling glory, a la Laurent Fignon, which he actually looks like. Oh by the way, when I was growing up bikes such as Gitane [steel] were the RAGE!
Awesome to hear JB being such a standup guy. I love his commentary over on the Wedu channel. Would love to get you two talking together on a story time episode or something like that. Keep it up!
Meanwhile I’m on chesterfield doing nothing with my life. Epic story Chris, I love these kind of stories and insights!
It would be great if you could get Johan as a guest on your show (or you as a guest on his podcast) so that both of you can talk about old times.
👊🦋
Crazy how Americans just idolize cheats. It says so much about the nation.
Its like being a "professional" musician but you get laid less😂
Hehehe. 😂👊🦋🦋👊👊👊🦋🦋
Chris, is there any way (without compromising yourself) that would you consider a similarly frank and revealing story about drug-taking in the sport? I read recently that the retrospective tests on ‘98 TdF blood samples showed near universal use of EPO within the peloton. Love to hear your wise and honest take on the role that ‘drugs’ had, and maybe still have, on pro cycling.
This would be so awesome
This was a really great and interesting story-time with Chris Horner.
👊🦋🙏
Love your stories. You would create a great book. "Butterflies and Knuckleheads in the World of Pro Cycling" . I would preorder the book and would have to get a Chesterfield to sit in while I read 📚 it .
🔥📖🦋👊🏼😃
Sitting here on my ordanary seat thinking, "why Chris Horner is not writing a book ??"
That was really interesting !
Also looking forward to the stories of how the riders lived through the Festina tour.
Outstanding story! I wouldn't want to be the 2 young American riders right now, having to go through the stress they are going through at all. I pray it works out for them. Especially in today's financial issues. My friend I trained with went through that stress also, and he had a family. Thanks for sharing!
Right. I started having kids in 1997. It adds to the stress for sure when you don’t know who you will be working for in a couple month time and you got little ones at home. 😬🤔🦋
Cycling Highlights just put out a 2 1/2 hour video on the Festina affair. Love the channel Chris. You’re really a great dude for putting this much work into your channel.
I am always enjoying Chris' analysis and I have mad respect for his openness and smart insights (I love the knucklehead analyses ^^). I just wonder if he will ever do a storytime about doping and whether he will admit he took some or perhaps explain about his experiences with it in the peloton. I would be very interested to hear an open conversation about that, about the pressures for the athletes and about the opinions of colleagues.
I remember see n you at a velo promo race early spring in 2004.. I think it was copperopolis rr ? Steve Larsen was also on that team (RIP)
Love it! Storytime was a great episode. Thanks for the inside info. I always come away for your analysis more educated than before. Makes watching races much more enjoyable. Thanks Chris!
👊🦋🙏
Great story, wonderful insight into the financial struggles cyclist go through.
Primoz earns around $6 million a year.
Average MLB major leaguer makes $4.6 million.
Cyclist don’t get paid near enough.
Chris, what about health insurance? I’m guessing when on a team you are covered, but what happens between teams? Or when you are on your own? A training accident could bankrupt you.
You are correct. My health issues with my lungs would have bankrupted me if it had happened any earlier in my career. Healthcare in the US is ridiculously bad at best when you look at the cost of it all and how easily it could bankrupt anyone who’s not way upper class financially. While riding with euro teams I was always covered but normally not when riding with a Us team. Then you buy your own coverage. 😬🦋
Thanks for those insider stories,Chris. You did yourself well through all that hard work!
Chris continues to give some of the best insights in the pro sports in the business. I’ll take one Chris Horner over all the Vandevelde‘s in the planet.
I love story time, thanks for the insight into the peloton. 👍
This adds a great perspective on the sport. Thank you! Heard some stories of young talented riders quitting just because of the financial stress each year.
Love these stories. Your race analysis is excellent. Watching these videos for last few years. Looking forward to next years racing and knuckle head commentary 😊
👊🦋
Looking forward to tomorrow: Rogla, Pogi, Remco, Mas, Billy Carapaz, Pinot, Chavez (some of them already won Il Lombardia. And last race for Primož on Cervelo as he will be on Bora's Specialized.
This is so insane on so many levels as it is hard enough to be a world class bicycle racer - dangerous, demanding, takes years off your life, then have to deal with not getting paid. I can't even get some of the workers to put in a 1/2 days worth of work on the construction site. Thank you for this incredible story time!!!
When I lived in New Hampshire (1994-1997: before Switzerland 🇨🇭 ), I read about a woman racer in the New England regional circuit, who would trance-out in the middle of criteriums, and ride lap after lap, somewhat like a fish in the middle of a moving school swimming together. Her competitors knew about; what was radical would be her "snapping out of it" just as the final sprint formed. She won often, due to how relaxed she passed the previous laps.
great story Chris. what a trip down memory lane with the names of the pros you raced with.
So pro cycling is just like any other career👍
Thanks for that Chris, very informative insight into the realities of pro bike riding at the top level. God bless you and you're family.
Just a great story Chris. Very interesting. We need more story times 👍
This is the video that every aspiring junior or espoir should watch (and ensure their parents dont!). Nothing like depending on race winnings to pay your next meal. Would love more stories like this... especially the North American pro scene in the 90's/00's vs the euro scene. Thanks, Chris!
That a great topic for story time. 👊🦋
Missing the '98 TDF and avoiding getting caught up in the mess that Rock Racing ultimately was. Some positives I suppose out of all the stress (listening to the Mercury situation and the UCI response I was definitely thinking WTF?) that your story highlights so well here.
Crazy times that’s for sure. 🦋😱
RE: Mercury. That Verbruggen was a criminal
Love your story telling sessions. It's great to get a real life perspective on the struggles of pro cyclists. You guys deserve a ton of respect for the job you do. In my opinion, the paycheck does not match the effort, pain and risk you face every time you get on your bike.
Awesome story. Did that Athens Twilight ;) who knew you would win a grand tour. Epic.
Wonderful storyline.
👊🦋🙏
I love the complete transparency in these stories wow i didnt expect to get hooked that good. This is my first storytime and im waiting eagerly for the next one! Thanks !!
What a great and humbling story. Thanks for sharing this. Im glad you had Johan in your life!
memory recall is uncanny. fluid, no hesitation. impressive. oh, and the stories are very interesting.
Thanks for sharing information about this part of professional cycling culture. As a teenager/young man who raced during the 80's, I only knew about what I read in the magazines, and the money part of it wasn't commonly discussed unless it was a discussion about the elite riders like Lemond. It was only in recent times that I found out how little many of my cycling heroes were actually paid (particularly the women), and the stresses that came with that.
Yeah Chris we need more recollection of the good old days I have been a Velo News subscriber since 1982 and that was the only way to find out what was going on in Europe and you were one of the guys that bugged out of the US and I couldn’t believe you were with FDJ because I knew what the French did to Greg Lemond so I was just shaking my head and I know what you had to do and I know what the sport was at that time so I will never judge you but come on dude did you ever feel sorry about the French dudes who couldn’t do what you were doing there were some guys who could have been way better than you but you know and I know so don’t toot your own horn 😊
This is why the big time American gravel cyclists (the like 3 or 4 of them that exist) are turning down the European road teams. They're making more in the US with their more independent sponsorship arrangements than they'd be paid on a team.
Yep. It’s a risk to go over. 🦋🤞
Thank you for sharing!! Great reminder that sometimes we have to fund our own dreams, initially!
Great stories Chris ---you were born with incredible tenacity! Anyone clawing their way to the top takes so much sacrifice...I remember Eric Marcotte in MN who was tearing everyone's legs off and then I heard he somehow held a full time job as a chiropractor in AZ -- then he won the USPro championships in 2014! crapy wages however perhaps guarantees that riders are in it for the love of the sport of cycling -- not necessarily all the $$ ...like we see a lot elsewhere in other sports...
so you could ride the Tour completely unconcious. Nuts!
Enjoyed that. Honest about the situation.
Greetings from Thailand. Great video! Thanks for sharing your real life experiences during your pro career.
👊🦋
Chris, I love your candidness on pro cycling. Can you or will you ever talk about the doping usage? You are the only person to have ridden with Lance who has never got busted. When and will you come clean? We as fans of you kinda know the truth. It would be nice if you and Floyd would get together and straighten it all out.
Can you do a follow up video about the struggles after retirement?
Very inspiring story. Good to see the Mercury jersey. I remember seeing you out front in the Simi ride here in So Cal back in 2000 thinking you had enough of Europe. Boy, was I wrong. 13 years later watching you win the Vuelta was very special. What a career...
Great to hear your real-world behind the scenes stories!
Defiantly wanna hear a story time book out the festina team
A really interesting video. Thanks for going through all of this. Really shows how chaotic cycling is.
👊👍
Fantastic! Thank you. Looking forward to next story time. You are Da Maaaannnn.
Fantastic video young Chris! Brings back memories of racing and working full time... training rides in the mornings and going to work second shift in a nut factory. Racing on the weekends and taking vacation time for stage races.
Thanks Chris!
By far the best cycling content out there!
Keep it up!
👊🦋
Very informative and entertaining. I now have a much better idea of what goes on behind the scenes in pro cycling. Thanks for sharing.
Ok, this story time makes it so much more real and knowing that 200k gets eaten up in taxes, agent fees and housing basically means you need to be making at least 400k to be even semi comfortable
Yes. 200k disappeared quickly. After taxes, travel, agents,and cycling expenses. It paid the bills but didn’t leave much left. At 400k things started to get easier. 🤔🦋👊
I was there! Pittsburgh Thrift Drug Classic the last few years before Eckerd bought them out. Had I know to look for the future winner of the Vuelta…!!!
These are some of your best podcasts. Keep the stories coming!
Great personal story!!!!!
Chris is giving, whether he intended to, a reason to anyone who wonders why pro athletes, especially cyclist, use illegal PEDs, if you're not winning, your not getting paid well. It's simple not the same as other sports, and that's a shame, these guys, and women now, are totally dedicated to being the best..
6:57 Chris are you the techno viking?
The part of - making 200k€ a year i lived by the month I don't buy it. Take agent, taxes - 40% total, still 120k€ clean. 15 years ago with 1000€ you would rent an amazing house in Girona. Would pay a nice montage for Bend, OR. Trips? 2000€ r/t, get a handful per year. Bikes, hotels and race travel is covered by the team! I guess there were the extra cost... like Mateo Jorgenson... coach... massage... nutrition... I am surprised if a team didn't have top staff for that, but anyways. Doctors? Ferraris? Somewhere else would go that money... just saying 🤔
I love these stories! Thanks for sharing! Would love to know story behind you eating at French McDonalds looking like you went to hell and back....
Brillaint honest account of things Chris. Really refreshing to just hear it how it is with no BS. Makes me kinda sad Johans been treated like he has - listen to the move just to get his view on things.
Hi Chris: Thank you for your story. I did enjoy it and appreciate your telling it. John USA
Love the insight Chris! I followed your career for all of those years and these incredible details just add icing on the Chris Horner, Coke and Snickers flavored cake!
Thank you so much for this lesson. 💗
it's like watching Jarhead movie. what really brings you down is not war but everyday life....
This one french guy on the team got caught doping😂
Great video Chris, you are true CHAD
It's refreshing to hear actual numbers.
it has been a while since i commented here...but this video is EXCELLENT...love the story time and behind the scene hardships of an otherwise popular and successful cyclist. Thank you Chris, it is not always pretty to be a cyclist
Thanks. This was very informative. As a Certified Financial Planner, I am very used to learning about the financial facts and income of others and this was helpful from financial planning perspective.
Hard to plan in cycling when some much is changing from year to year. 👍🦋
Back in 1972 when I raced amateur we were lucky to win bike parts
damn you have to really love cycling to go through all that
Great insight Chris
Lots of good stuff here. Great lessons in wealth management, or lack thereof. Pro cyclists spend a good chunk of their prime wage-earning years struggling to make any money at all. And have the constant worry of whether or not they'll even be on a team next season despite having great results on their resume. I would guess many of them have no money in savings. Nothing set aside for retirement. No formal training for anything post-career. But they lived the life that we all dream of.
. But another cool thing about this clip: did anyone notice that he did this in what is essentially one single shot? He didn't have to stop the camera and make edits; he just spoke from the heart about his career in great detail for 26 minutes without referring to notes or splicing a hundred takes together. And it was easy to follow.
this video deserves alot of views! should be a netflix docuseries or something
What a great story and an inspiration. Thanks for sharing, Chris!
I believe I saw you in a criterium in downtown Columbus Ohio early in your career. Not sure what year.
Yep. I was racing there. 👊🦋
❤ THE VIDEO I did the uspro as well godbless
Great to illustrate the less enjoyable parts of professional racing, and good to know this with everything happening right now. Thanks again.
Thank you for bringing this subject up. In all others sport there exist clubs while in pro cycling it does not. That creates a unique situation for pro cycling which maybe can be avoided if the sport can bring clubs to highest level.
Thank you Chris horner
That's a very humbling story.
🦋🙏
I love these storytime vids.
Thanks for sharing this ...im your fan allways ...🎉..its important to tell this ...its real life
Sounds a lot like being an entrepreneur. You make it work
Yes. Very much. You just got to keep push on. 👊🦋
As of Friday morning Sporza is reporting the merger/takeover is off. Good news for the riders and staff. Thanks for storytime!