What do retired Pro cyclists do?

Lichtblick

Here's some I can think of:

Hinault - zip up jerseys on TdF podiums
Merckx - bike factory and commentating
Some Yank - spend millions on legal cases and do triathlons
Another Yank - write a book with bitter recriminations wrt aforementioned Yank
Ullrich - launch bike range
Kimmage - journalism

Boardman - presenter/commentator, range of bikes
Yates - bike team management
Liggett - commentating
Sherwen - ditto
Harman - ditto
Kelly - ditto and fundraising

Others write books, have bike shops, run bars/cafés, succumb to drink/drugs/blow their brains out*. (*Can't think of his name atm but can look it up if required.)

Do any retired Pros have a life outside cycling? If yes, who and what?

Tom BB

kelly is also a DS...as are plenty of others I guess.

Dan Fleeman runs a bike shop and a coaching company.

iainf72

Berzin : Car dealer

Bugno : Helicopter pilot (medical emergency stuff I think)

Bettini : Italy selecta and olive farmer

Basso (when he retires) : Blueberry farmer

There's that guy who runs the brothel.

alihisgreat

Flavio Zappi

Runs a cafe and cycling club in Oxford.

Cleat Eastwood

Was Dirk Hoffman ever a pro.

inseine

Didn't realize Harman was an ex pro...

iainf72

inseine wrote:

Didn't realize Harman was an ex pro...

Used to race mountain bikes I think

FJS

Marc Lotz - Maths teacher

Johan van der Velde - burglar, then Big Brother contestant, now OmegaPharma VIP chauffeur

Peter Winnen - novelist, artist (sculpture)

Joop Zoetemelk - runs a hotel

Lichtblick

iainf72 wrote:

inseine wrote:

Didn't realize Harman was an ex pro...

Used to race mountain bikes I think

Harman, Harmon? I was just trying to be thorough on the commentating front. Sorry for the mistake. :?

The point is not Harman/Harmon, it's that there are so many ex-Pro cyclists, I wondered what they do with the rest of their lives. Athletes/sportsmen have to retire early (late 30s, 40 at most). The rest of us go on working through 60, 65 years of age. That's the point of the thread.

What do the Landis, Ullrich, Hamilton, Sastre-s do next? (no particular reason for their names there, they just sprang to mind as people who used to ride for a living. I should have picked "not big names" but am multi-tasking, again)

Thanks

inseine

I never questioned your spelling! I genuinely didn't realize he was an ex pro ( if that is the case).

No_Ta_Doctor

Eat.

afx237vi

Marzio Bruseghin is a donkey farmer.

inkyfingers

afx237vi wrote:

Marzio Bruseghin is a donkey

Fixed.

No_Ta_Doctor

afx237vi wrote:

Marzio Bruseghin is a donkey farmer.

They're all called Delgado.

rick_chasey

No tA Doctor wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

Marzio Bruseghin is a donkey farmer.

They're all called Delgado.

Still haven't turned into racehorses.


A couple of Dutch ex pros (i've forgotten their names).

One got into carpentry/interior building and now has a successful business.

Another became a milkman and enjoys his north sea jazz (whatever the hell that is).

Jambes de Fer

North Sea Jazz Festival's well worth going to!

davidof

Jimmy Saville - Wrestler, DJ and Fixer

mm1

When my parents retired and went to live in Italy (in Dad's original home town), the plumber who helped him build a new bathroom had finished 7 Giri - still rode evey Sunday, despite frozen shoulder from multiple crashes.

Chap who had a bikeshop in the next town rode for Brooklyn alongside de Vlaminck and de Muynch and Filotex with the Moser brothers (who came from over in the next valley. Franceso Moser has a vineyard, while Gibi Simoni ran Moser's bikeshop when he was in between teams.

Berzin has a car dealership and Gimondi sells insurance.

A (distant) cousin sho rode for Carerra is involved in a timber business with Argentin.

Loads of ex-pros seem to have bars, restaurants and hotels (Roche), and some run cycling holiday / Tour companies (Hamsten).

Some have lost money to con mem (Pascal Richard) or have ended up getting involved in crime (van De Velde). Michel Pollentier was a tyre salesman, while his best mate (and the big hero when I was a kid) Freddy Maertens is curator of the Ronde van Vllanderen museum in Odenaarde. Speaking of which, when we were in the Ghent Campenille for this year's Ronde, we saw Erick Vanderaaden (DS with QS?) checking in - judging from the reception he's still very much a "face" in Flanders, he looked pretty fit too.

While its wrong to generalise, many pros are not well educated

davidof

Ian Hallam - Dentist
Tony Doyle - Quango Boss
Raymond Poulidor - advertising products to elderly people on French TV

RichN95.

Eric Heiden (US Champion in the 80s but better know as a speed skating legend) is a doctor, an oestopath I think.

A fair few try their hand at politics - before he ran Katusha, Andrej Tchmil was Minister of Sport for Moldova. Vino is off to be an MP in Kazakhstan.

Dario Cioni makes olive oil (as well as working for Sky).

BelgianBeerGeek

When Anquetil retired he became a farmer. Never rode a bike again apparently, and even had to be persuaded to get the bike out of the garage.
Apart from that, living the good life and having very unconventional family/domestic arrangements.

Pross

Cippollini makes bikes (well, not personally but you know what I mean), runs a team and threatens comebacks as no-one is as good as he was.

Many become DS for teams or do the VIP escort for those teams. I'm sure Harmon has mentioned that one of the ex-pros rides a TV camera bike at the big races.

disgruntledgoat

Lucien Van Impe moans about how it were all fields around here...

disgruntledgoat

Pross wrote:

Many become DS for teams or do the VIP escort for those teams. I'm sure Harmon has mentioned that one of the ex-pros rides a TV camera bike at the big races.

Jalabert certainly used to do that.

Spiny_Norman

No tA Doctor wrote:

Eat.

In truth, though, they probably have to learn quite fast to stop eating. Once they're not burning however many thousand calories a day on racing, it must be very easy to balloon in weight even if they feel like they're cutting back compared to how much they used to eat.

Are there any ex-pros at all who look anything like as thin as they used to?

Vino2007

Didn't Paul Kimmage mention in his book that the tour provides jobs for ex-competitors such as putting out barriers etc. I would be surprised if this still continues into the modern professional era though. Sadly like many sports, the majority squander their early education to eat, sleep, breath cycling so by the time they are retiring they haven't got many qualifications or experience in the work place.

I'd say a lot from the late 90s/ early 2000s are working in bike shops or competing in lower leveled events for cash.

lostboysaint

They fight off allegation of drug use/admit to drug use.*

*delete as appropriate

DeadCalm

In the case of Jose Beyaert, Road Race Champion the last time the Olympics took place in London, Colombian national coach, bar owner, factory manager, treasure hunter, emerald miner, logger in the rainforest, drug runner and (reputedly) contract killer. Alexander Vinokourov has got something to live up to.

dave milne

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Pross wrote:

Many become DS for teams or do the VIP escort for those teams. I'm sure Harmon has mentioned that one of the ex-pros rides a TV camera bike at the big races.

Jalabert certainly used to do that.

paolo salvadelli does too

deejay

iainf72 wrote:

inseine wrote:

Didn't realize Harman was an ex pro...

Used to race mountain bikes I think

Mountain Bikes in Essex :?: well if he had been any sort of pro rider then he wouldn't be as Squeamish while watching riders go through narrow gaps or when they pile up.
His best race (he said many years ago when he was a sidekick of David Duffield) was a Chain Gang ride through Epping Forest and out Harlow way but he got dropped.
He spent too much time on a "Motor Bike" to be a Pro Cyclist.
He turned up with a camera on the back of a motor bike along with a guy called Wilkinson in the Kellogs, I seem to remember their crap pictures.

I read somewhere, he was referred to as the "Voice" of Pro Cycling by some twit who probably thinks a guy who won 7 TDF's was clean.
Well he has come a long way from that time but still seems to act (he thinks it's needed) as an interpreter to Sean Kelly's observations with an over long extended oratory.

I'm off to "Mute" the other wind bag on the Eneco Tour while I watch the pictures.

deejay

Spiny_Norman wrote:

Are there any ex-pros at all who look anything like as thin as they used to?

Big Mig Indurain is still a reasonable size, but then he works on the family farm.