Joe Petrowski: Quitting Rocket Science to Be a Pro Cyclist in France
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Joe Petrowski landed a great job as an aerospace engineer right out of college. Then he got the bike racing bug. People told him to stick with his demonstrably awesome, impressive and very high paying gig. Instead, he quit to go live in at times dismal conditions to be a pro cyclist, first in the UK then in France. And if you’re not familiar with domestic pro cycling in France, teams there are known for their extremely old school, hardcore and at times totalitarian approaches.
Joe had some great times and also often wondered if he had made a huge mistake and what the hell he was doing. He never stepped up to the World Tour, the highest level of the sport.
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And years later, he thinks going for it as a pro cyclist is one of the best and most important decisions he ever made.
Eventually he left pro cycling and went into computer science, high frequency trading and to what he does now, working on the decentralized web at polkadot.
People who stop doing the thing people who are not them tell them they should do to go do the thing they know they have to do intrigue me. That’s Joe.
Don’t forget, you’re the hero in your story, you are writing it every day, and when you hear the call to adventure, listen. It is after all, your story.
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Andrew Vontz 0:00
Yeah, what is it? Is it five o'clock where you are for 3x Three? Damn, man my timezone math is slacking, we're
Joe 0:10
in the weird two weeks of the year because the US does Daylight Savings two weeks. So ours changes on Sunday.
Andrew Vontz 0:19
So what are you GMT plus one or what are you?
Joe 0:22
Yeah, plus one?
Andrew Vontz 0:24
Yeah. Okay, look at me doing my I can still do European math timezone math. It's about that's kind of Joe. That's like the apex of my math abilities probably is timezone math. I usually don't do it, right.
Joe 0:34
Yeah. I think I have pretty good math abilities, but I still mess up. I still like, I still account like, Yeah, I mean, this is bad. Because, you know, I like as you know, I started aerospace engineering. But when it comes to like time zones, I'm like, you know, it's three o'clock, and I'm like, 456?
Andrew Vontz 0:56
Yeah, I actually, I would actually, man, I should just like find a place in my office to put up just a chart that tells me my time relative to everyone else's. And then you know, I'd have to do a daylight savings time on in a normal one. But I often find myself cuz I think I haven't checked lately, but Google Calendar usually limits you to being able to see, I think two different time zones. And I'm sure it's the case for you as it is for me. I'm you know, I'm like talking to people in five different time zones. So that's really not very helpful. Exactly. Especially when booking stuff. Yeah, so do you have do big plans for the weekend?
Joe 1:34
It might be my first weekend back on the bike in a few months. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'd hope to still be skiing, but it looks like there's a kind of nasty storm in the mountains. So I don't think anything is really scalable this weekend. But yeah, like we ended up there's like, at least in Switzerland, like there's like this main Alpine ridge. And I'm on the north side of it. So it's gonna be like, you know, stormy and rainy in the mountain parts, but then like, warm and sunny, like, I think, like 20 Celsius here where I live, so that's cool. I'll probably be on the bike, which will feel a bit weird after, I don't know, five months off or something.
Andrew Vontz 2:13
Yeah, I bet man, do you? Do you watch any youtubers that do ski mountaineering stuff?
Joe 2:20
No, actually.
Andrew Vontz 2:22
Yeah, man. There are there are a lot. There's a guy in the United States. I actually want to get on the show. His name's Cody. I'm spacing out on his last name. But he's been doing a series for the last five years called the 50. And it's he's skiing all 50 lines in this book. That's like, I guess it's the 50 classic skier ski mountaineering routes in America.
Joe 2:42
Yeah, I've been following us. I mean, I would love to get in touch with that guy. Like, I love this project. And probably like, I don't know, I'm kind of this is probably like, fast forward until the end of the episode. Maybe this will be like the shortest episode ever. I'm kind of thinking about like, our I know that I'll want to take on like some projects and in the future was skiing, although I don't know exactly what it is. But I really love this project that he's doing and like, I've been following it. And yeah, like, I'm definitely taking some inspiration from it. Yeah,
Andrew Vontz 3:13
it's I just think the amount of exposure and risk doing a project like that is, it's bananas. So to see somebody be able to do all of that is pretty incredible. And I mean, that coupled with the thing that because I've followed the whole series, I think I've watched all of his videos, and the thing that has really jumped out at me. And I noticed that where I live, like I'm noticing it this week is just like how much climate change has changed everything. So a lot of those lines it climbed, as you know, like they've changed substantially in a pretty short period of time.
Joe 3:48
Yeah, I mean, that was one. I mean, I kind of keep like a checklist of stuff that I want to ski. And I had seen some old pictures of this peak, Colace calm, and I thought like, I was like, ah, you know, it looks like there's like a really narrow shoot where you can kind of work your way down on skis. And I was like, I bet you could see that. And then I did a bit of research and like, some people have skied it. And then I was in the area. But all the trip reports I found about it were like from you know, like 20 years ago, like 2005 and stuff. And then I, I kind of happened to be in this area a couple of weeks ago, and I hiked a mountain that was like kind of across the valley from it. And I looked over and I was like, it's questionable. Like, there just might not be enough snow and ice left on his face that like he might just not be able to see it anymore.
Andrew Vontz 4:35
It's kind of sad. That'd be that'd be brutal. Hold on a second. I'm going to turn my Wi Fi off. I thought I did this already. Let me make sure this continues to work. That my cable works. Okay, good. Yeah, that's, uh, yeah, I mean, it's just crazy. Everything's changing stuffs disappearing. But you know, that's Uh, everything changes, man. Right? Yeah,
Joe 5:03
that is true. Yeah.
Andrew Vontz 5:05
I mean, that's all part of the game. So yeah, it would be interesting. You know, I've been reflecting on on the conversation we had previously. And as I shared in my email, I think there's so much we could potentially talk about, I think this stuff I think would be really fun to zoom in on is just, I think that that the experience in Europe is is so interesting. It's such a rich area, not your current experience in Europe, we can get to that as well. But yeah, just you know, how you ended up there, what you were doing kind of some of the decisions you had to make. And then of course, it'd be fun to talk about, Hey, why do you have ice axes hanging on your wall back? And all that kind of stuff. But, you know, that might just maybe as a starting point, it would be really interesting to talk about, you know, what was like what was going on with you, professionally, and from a sporting point of view, when you started to get this inkling of, I think I'm going to try to go make it as a pro cyclist in Europe, like what was going on at that point at the time.
Joe 6:12
So as I started a bit late, I would say and like, I guess the roots of it depends how far you want to go back. I think you can always kind of pull stuff back to like these childhood experiences and whatnot. But I was majorly into skiing. That was like my primary sport through like university and stuff. And then after, after college, I took a year or like a winter off and like, just went skiing and like I saved up a bunch of money for my summer job. So I could just ski for winter. Before starting a real job and
Andrew Vontz 6:41
hold on a second. Were you a lefty? Or did I just out there skin on savings?
Joe 6:46
I was No, I was kidding. I'm savings. Okay. Yeah. Operation, huh? No. Didn't do any of that. I thought we have a nice person list. Yeah, I thought even someone who takes the lift, which
Andrew Vontz 7:02
I think that distinction only emerged later as ski mountaineering got more popular probably. Right. Yeah.
Joe 7:07
I mean, that's another funny story. Because like I was into this, like climbing stuff ever since I was a kid. Like, before there was even like, really like good ski mountaineering gear, like I would just with my like Alpine boots, put my skis in my backpack and like hike up some mountain in New Hampshire as a kid. And like, I mean, I had no idea what I was doing. I had none other safety equipment. Nothing. I was just, Hey, that looks cool. I should come up there and ski it. So yeah, but I did do like a mix. I did quite a bit quite a bit of live skiing, and I was a little bit of a park rat at that time. And then like kind of gradually got into more backcountry skiing. And when I when I started this real job, which was working on like satellite, like shocking vibration simulation for satellite launches. It it was like a big reality check that I couldn't go skiing everyday anymore. And it kind of bothered me to be a weekend warrior. It just wasn't like in my DNA or whatever, that I was satisfied doing that. I think I was like, I had skied, like 120 days or something the season or? Yeah. And I overheard somebody in the gym that work one day like, Yeah, dude, I got 28 days last year was so good. And I was like, I can't do it. Like, I just, I can't do that. And so I started like, well, what can I do everyday, like, what's something I can really do every day? And that was cycling. I lived like, you know, 30 kilometres from work or something. So I started riding my bike to work. Were route Denver. Yeah. And so I started riding my bike to work a lot and got into that, and that some people who are into racing, they kind of nudged me to try racing. And so I did like amateur racing in the US for a couple of years. And then, yeah, I guess if you fast forward, like five years, I was racing for this team called Primal. I guess most people listening probably know, like, primal clothing. And they had, they were forming a team in the UK, as well. And they were like, in this kind of, I think it was called elite national or like, domestic elites, one of these like, like, just below pro divisions. And like, I know, the directors goal was to turn it into a continental team. He invited me over to race. He was just like, not me, personally. He kind of sets our team in Colorado, like, hey, if anybody wants to come over, and ride with us, like you guys, somebody should do it. And I think I'd actually like I'd never even been to Europe. It was like, like, even for vacation or something. I'd never I'd skied in South America before but like, besides that, like, you know, pretty much North American. And I thought, like, yeah, that'd be cool. Like, I'll go over and I went over for like, one week, I did a couple races with them. And then like a month later, he was like, why don't you just come race with us next year, and I just made this decision so fast. I think I thought I called up one friend. And like, I was like, this is kind of crazy, but like, if I don't do this, I'm gonna regret it. And he was like, yeah, totally. So
Andrew Vontz 10:00
what do you what did you specialize in as a cyclist at that point in time like Were you an all rounder? I'm getting the feeling maybe we're a climber maybe
Joe 10:09
like leaning towards climber but like yeah all around her I had a good vo two Max and horrible and aerobic power.
Andrew Vontz 10:16
What was revealed to max in it was
Joe 10:20
75 What is it? milliliters per minute? Yeah yeah so I had a good deal to max and also like this good you know, I could repeat the effort over and over again. So I was good in these races that kind of like grind you down. But when it came to like a long like, like a climb over 20 minutes that with, with like, sections over 10 or 12% I started to fall off from like, the real climbers.
Andrew Vontz 10:47
In what year was this that you were going for? For this cycling career? Yeah, this was 2015 2015. So were you doing like Redlands tour the HELOC? Or are you more focused on credits and regional stuff?
Joe 11:01
I had never done Redlands. But yeah, I did like hella cascade Jomar. And green mountain stage race.
Andrew Vontz 11:08
This is back when this all this stuff was still happening. I think they just announced that the Joe Martin race is not happening this year, I believe Oh,
Joe 11:15
that's really sad. I mean, that was like my big, like, first big results in like, like, caught one two race. I got like fifth. Joe Martin.
Andrew Vontz 11:23
And what happened in that race?
Joe 11:27
I remember the road race like, yeah, what did happen? I mean, I just stayed in the group for a long time. And with like four decades ago, it slowed down and just I saw one guy go off the front. And like I said, like my anaerobic power was always like, just absolutely horrible. And I could never like attack and get away. It was super frustrating. And then this one case, like I got lucky. I don't think I have an attack. I think they just rolled off the front. But it was like 150k into the race. And basically, nobody cared. And they just let me roll up the road. And there was like, another guy a little bit up the road. So like, we didn't get the win, but like, yeah, like in a really nice position there.
Andrew Vontz 12:04
Who were the big teams at that time. Was it like UHC? Or who are the hitters in 2015 2014?
Joe 12:12
Yeah, optim was the big one
Andrew Vontz 12:13
autumn? Is that primal Lance? Or is that a different team?
Joe 12:17
I don't know. That's all right. So
Andrew Vontz 12:21
optim and didn't optim became rally, I think, right? Yes, yeah. Okay, so there were some hitters that that race and you pulled off a fifth.
Joe 12:30
That was like the one to race? I didn't, I wasn't in the pro race that part time. So
Andrew Vontz 12:36
it's a good result. Yeah. So but I mean, what was your vision of what you thought might be possible for yourself? Or was this just more of a, Hey, this is an interesting lifestyle. I'm going to just kind of like explore this. What do you think was possible for you as a cyclist at that point?
Joe 12:51
That's a good question. I was, I think completely naive about it. But also, like a little bit lost. So I remember when I started racing is like 2009 or something. I got fourth the first time I went to mountain bike nationals for
Andrew Vontz 13:05
in like, elite or expert or expert. Yeah, I got one. That's a great, great result. Wow. So
Joe 13:13
I was like, okay, like, maybe I could, like win one of these. And then like, that was like my focus for like, four years. I was like, I want to win, like National Championship and, and then I did it in 2013. And it opened up a lot of doors for me, as far as like getting cat upgrades and like talking to other teams. But I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do. I think like, I had these delusions of going into like a pro team. Although I kind of quickly realized they were not going to happen. At some point, I realized like I was just kind of going for the experience and and to do something to try and see what it's like. And I think I had this mix of like a aimlessness where I didn't really have this concrete goal of like, I want to win this race. It was like it was always like, yeah, I want to like, you know, the next race and then you do bad on that one. And then it's like, okay, well, the next one, you know, but like, you don't have a lot of commitment or like buy into like one particular objective. And at the same time, I had this kind of like, naivety that like, I could actually do well and move up without having like the stepping stones to get there. Yeah, I mean, in hindsight, I was totally immature about it. But you know, that's okay. That's part of life. That's how you learn. And now at this point, like, I'm glad I did it, but like at the time, like, I don't know what I was doing. I was just kind of like, following my gut, I guess. And like, yeah,
Andrew Vontz 14:33
yeah. And it sounds like that probably benefited you because a lot of I mean, I think particularly within the cycling development system. Most people start at a like a quite young age, they get quite serious, and there's probably a lot of fear. In addition to the desire drive to do the thing, there's probably a lot of fear of what if this doesn't worked out what if I fail, they have a deep understanding of all the nuances of the development system. And for you at that moment in time when you decided to jump over to the UK, how old were you?
Joe 15:15
Think 26 So okay,
Andrew Vontz 15:17
so you're 26 you are working as an aerospace engineer, I have to imagine you're probably very highly compensated at that point in time for a person that age doing that kind of job.
Joe 15:31
Yeah, for a 26 year old house. Yeah. Pretty well.
Andrew Vontz 15:34
Yeah, you're making some dough. So did you have any any fear about stepping away from that? Or did you kind of feel like, well, if this doesn't work out, I can just go back to making a pile of money doing this, this thing that I'm good at? Yeah,
Joe 15:47
I mean, that was kind of like, I had this one phone call with my friend Eric. And that's basically what he said. He was like, you have marketable skills. You can make money. You can make money again, like this is not a one time thing. Yeah, you should go do this. Yeah.
Andrew Vontz 16:01
And so you made made the jump once you actually committed and we're all in. Were you excited? Or did you then at that point, feel a little bit of like, oh, shit, I just stepped off the edge. What's gonna happen now?
Joe 16:14
I was super excited. Maybe too much so that I, I maybe didn't handle stepping off the edge, as as well as I could have.
Andrew Vontz 16:25
But say more about that. But what did you do?
Joe 16:29
I think I had this weird, like, it's. So when especially like, working like a full time job and trying to raise and train and everything. I had this a little bit of like a cocky attitude, like I made it here. Like, despite having like these obstacles, and like all these other commitments in my way. And so now, now that those are all, like, not those chains are off, I have like complete freedom. And I think I realized later, like, those constraints were a bit or more of guardrails than barriers. And that's like it, they kind of prevented me from overtraining, right. And then it's like, I did partially end up in this, like, oh, I have a problem, like, I just need to train more, right? That's like, you know, the hammer that you try to be every nail with. And I think I didn't really account for, like the cultural adaptation of moving to a new country and new place, there are so many things that like, you just take for granted at home, like, you go to the supermarket, you can you can go shopping, and like 10 minutes, because you know, where everything is, you know, all the things that you normally buy, and like, you know, I think I had a meltdown in the supermarket one time, like, what cereal do I buy, because it was just like, you know, decision number 1000 of the day. And I was like, here's just stuff that you're so that's so automatic to you. And then this feeling of like, oh, I don't have to get like six hours of training. And today, because like, that's the thing I do now, you know, I think it would have been a lot better in hindsight to say, like, you know, something's, something's you can control. And it's good to kind of like, there's this balance of like, taking responsibility for things that you need to succeed, but also a recognition that like, you can't make everything perfect. And so you have to kind of prioritize and say, like, you know, what, there's a lot of new stuff here, I'm going to make mistakes, I'm going to focus my energy on trying to do, like, get comfortable with this thing and do this thing really well. And just understand that, like, some other things are not going to go so well. And maybe I'm not going to, you know, get the perfect breakfast cereal or something like that. But like, and once you get comfortable in one area, and it starts to become automatic, you can move on and try to optimize other things. But I really wanted like everything to be perfect. And I I got into this like perfectionist mindset and ended up paralyzing me.
Andrew Vontz 18:44
Yeah, and when you're stepping into a supermarket, and you're trying to find cookies, and they're called biscuits, you're just adding a tremendous amount of cognitive load, I have to wonder also, and this is an aspect of professional cycling, that I think the average person really doesn't think about too much. If you watch something like those whiffed Academy series, I don't know if you've watched that. But I think part of what's really interesting about it is, you know, they bring in a set of writers who have proven on Swift that they have the physical capacity to compete at the World Tour level, and then, you know, they then have to repeat that in real life around other people, which is a little different than on a trainer. And it really seems like the biggest filter is does this person fit in on a team? And more specifically, can they get along with a diverse group of people under really high stress, high consequence circumstances? So for you once you were over in the UK, and this was your full time thing, how did you adapt to that aspect of it just being on a on a team and needing to be a teammate?
Joe 19:53
It was hard. For sure. Especially because like your I'd only been on one amateur team I didn't like really jump around from team to team. And so coming into a new team that's basically established. And we were this group, the, there were three of us saw one guy from Catalonia and one guy from France. And the team was 12 people. So it was like nine British people who had all been there the year before. And then the three of us outsiders, and we all shared a house together. And, I mean, it was, it was bizarre, like, I got along with like, a lot of my teammates, but there definitely was friction. And also, like, a lot of, I guess, like, you know, I thought I was gonna do well on these races, and I started not doing well, and then everybody just beats up. It's like the circular thing of like, I want to be there. I want to do well, for myself. I want to be there for my teammates, and it's just like, yeah, it wasn't going well. I guess I kind of lost a little bit to like, exactly. The question. Yeah, I
Andrew Vontz 20:56
think well, when you when you showed up in in this team, and so where were you all based out of where was this house?
Joe 21:02
So the three of us were in Plymouth, but the team was kind of like Southwest England. Yeah. But the team was spread out. There was like some people in Plymouth and the Southwest. Also some people up in Manchester. There was like this element of like, some, some people wouldn't even see them except for on race day.
Andrew Vontz 21:18
Yeah. And what was Did you have an understanding of what your role was supposed to be within the team when you showed up? No, no, I didn't. Yeah, and said when you met the other guys, I mean, did you think hey, I'm just gonna, this is when I started winning, or did you think I'm here to support these guys? Were there a lot of different personalities?
Joe 21:41
Yeah, there were a lot of different personalities. I think, yeah. I didn't have a lot of clarity. I think I was supposed to start winning. And then when that didn't happen? Yeah, I don't know. I did not. Yeah, to answer your question. I, I really had no idea what I was doing in there. Yeah.
Andrew Vontz 22:00
Over time, how did that become apparent to you? Was there any pressure? Did your teammates have any expectations of you that they shared with you?
Joe 22:11
I mean, over time, this is like, over a short amount of time. So kind of what happened was, I think by like may or something, there were some obvious issues in the team with like, budget and, and stuff like this. I always kind of like, out of the I mean, the season started in February, like, I think by April, I was kind of like out of the A team race squad. Anyway. And my French teammates was having issues as well. So like, I was actually like, kind of ready to go back to America. Like when I quit my job in an engineering, my boss actually, like he didn't let me fully quit. He's, I take a one year leave of absence. Like if something goes wrong, just come back here. I almost did that. I mean, I was really like, on the verge of doing that. And then my French teammate was like, hey, just like come over to France. Like, we've got a spare bedroom at my parents house. And I'll show you a little bit around the French racing scene. And I kind of checked, you know, all the visa rules and stuff and like, you know, can spend like, three months or whatever, in France without a visa. And I was like, Yeah, well, you know, the leave of absence is still valid ones next time. I'm like, I'm already here. I got my bike, like, just spent three months doing this, and then I'll go back, right? That obviously did not happen. The three months turned into I guess it's like coming up on 10 years now. So yeah, I mean, like, I literally like I, I again, like packed all of my stuff into a few suitcases and took the ferry over from from England to Cali. I rented a car and I, I only said a month with my my teammate. That's another story. But yeah, I ended up like kind of moving around living out of the car and racing a lot that summer. What
Andrew Vontz 23:52
was your understanding of what French racing was like, in French teams before you ended up in France?
Joe 23:58
I had no understanding of it's really just like, I mean, I had like I said, like, I had never even been to Europe before. So it was like it from America is like you see the Tour de France on TV. And that's it. But like the whole French like elite scene, I had no idea what I was getting into.
Andrew Vontz 24:15
And I'd love to hear how you would characterize it my understanding of the French domestic scene. So I'm at World Tour teams as well. But in particular, the continental probe teams, whatever they're called now, so it's kind of the second tier of racing that happens within France, for anybody who's listening that's not super deeply familiar with professional cycling. So this is the highest level of professional cycling someone could do within France, I have to imagine that these squads are also competing around Europe, and lower tier UCI level races, but they're not like going to the Tour de France. And historically, you know, as somebody who has been a journalist and fan of the sport for quite a while now A couple of decades, French teams typically are very old school. And like super hard ass is kind of how I would describe the management style and the methods that they use. And that's that kind of holds true today, they tend to not be on the cutting edge of technology, it's more a lot of old school. Hey, you know, we don't use air conditioning in the hotel rooms, because you're going to end up, you know, getting a cold, it's going to ruin your life, just a lot of stuff like that. Or there's also a lot of dietary restriction on French teams, I hear a lot of stories coming out of even World Tour teams about that you've actually lived it. So how does the reality mirror or not the outside world's perception of what's going on inside of these French teams?
Joe 25:49
Yeah, spot on.
Andrew Vontz 25:54
So like, you show up and you meet the how do you end up on a French team? And then I would love to hear some anecdotes about, you know, what were they saying to you about your training about your diet? Yeah. So
Joe 26:06
I actually I ended up with a director who was not a hard ass, but definitely like old school. And like, so yeah. So the way I ended up on the French team was after this summer, like 2015, I, I had a French friend at this point. And like, he helped me put together a resume. And I literally, there's like 70, I think like elite teams in France. And I basically, like I found the director of email for every single, every single one of them. And I emailed it to everyone. And I ended up talking to like, I don't know, four or five teams. And for me, like, I ended up going with like, kind of a lower division team. But I really liked the director, he seemed like, really honest, I had seen already from like, a few of the other scenes around Europe, like, a lot of people promise like, Yeah, we're gonna go to all these, like, huge racism and give you like, free bike, and like, all this stuff, and everything. And this, I threw a few email exchanges and Google Translate with this director. He was very like, look, we're a small team, a lot of volunteer staff. But like, this is the stuff we can we can do for you. This is the stuff we can't do for you. But like, we'd love to have you. And I thought like this guy just seems really honest and down to earth. And that's kind of the environment that I'd rather be in. And so I ended up going to this team. But yeah, I mean, the no air conditioning, like borderline religious about food, and like always eating pasta, like three hours to the minute before the race starts, like, race starts at 11am They're all there eating pasta AM. I I mean, I remember one time we were at, like a stage race. And it was like, one of these days, we had like a time trial in the morning, and then the road race in the afternoon. And like, I think the time trial, the first start was like 8am. And everybody was freaking out. Because like, we were in this, like, we were put up in this like, like the tech school, like a trade like agricultural trade school dorm. And it was like a big, like, very like, like fluorescent lighting and like, like a, like a 1950s hospital vibe. cafeteria and unless like, everybody's like, Oh my god, like, are they going to open breakfast for pasta at 5am? Because like the race of the time trials I ate and I was like, you know, I think you can do like a 12k time trial or something without like your, your pasta three hours before routine. So this was like, quite entertaining. But yeah, I think at this time, like it had been a year in Europe and I have learned to lighten up a little bit and not be so hard on myself about all of these things and like okay, I can I can go I can go with the flow and like still do okay with it.
Andrew Vontz 29:00
When you applied to be on these different teams, your race resume, did that have your power numbers, your VO two Max, like, what were they actually looking at to evaluate whether they wanted to work with you?
Joe 29:11
I don't remember for how my power numbers. I think just my race results. I ended up with like quite a few good race results that summer. And so I just put some things like yeah, I'm American. These race results, you know, and, and so on. I'm pretty sure. In my team, I was the only person who actually owned a power meter. Wow, I don't think they I don't think they would have known what to do with those numbers.
Andrew Vontz 29:38
Yeah, I feel like you had an SRM. Am I right. You're right. I did. Okay, you just strike me as an SRM kind of guy.
Joe 29:45
They seem to be kind of out these days. No. Oh,
Andrew Vontz 29:48
they're back. They're back. Yeah. Well, particularly at the World Tour level for amateurs who are coming up because there can be such variants. In the accuracy of commercially available power meters, World Tour teams regard the SRM as the gold standard. So typically, if you want to get on to a world tour team, and you want them to trust your power numbers, it's the best move is just to like right on an SRM, because that's accepted as as being legit. Yeah,
Joe 30:20
I mean, at this point of time, like I think power meters now actually don't have one. I get the sense power meters now are probably like pretty reliable. But like back, this is like 10 years ago, right? And like, I think in, like 2013, or 14, I tried a couple of the other brands that were out, and there was there would be somewhere else like, it's humid and it doesn't work like right, and they were so sensitive.
Andrew Vontz 30:44
Yeah, you sneeze and the power meter stops working. When you were in France, you're racing, you're on this team. What did you like about the racing? And how did you find it relative to what you'd experience in the United States?
Joe 31:01
Ah, that's a good question about what I liked. I never really thought about it. I just I liked as I kept doing it for a couple of years. Yeah, it's definitely different from the US like, in a lot of ways. So one is, of course, like the format, although they do have this race. It's called a Nocturne. And it's very similar to a criterium only longer, they tend to be about two hours instead of one hour. And they start at like 10pm. And so they finish at midnight. And it's like, often, like in city centers and stuff, and you're just like going through through the streets, late at night, and out if they don't put lights out. I mean, it's France, like, you have to like learn where the potholes and stuff are during warm up and you know, like to avoid them in the corners. I actually, like, it wasn't really my style. I was like, more into like, the long hilly road race, for whatever I love these Nocturnes like they were just so much fun. And then doing like the long road races? Yeah, I mean, I don't know how it is in the US now. But like, even 10 years ago, like, there wasn't a ton of long road races in the US, like, there were a couple of big ones. Yeah, like cascade and Isla and stuff. But these were like, you know, a few special weekends in the calendar. Whereas, like, in France, you know, I think every week, like, you could do two or three races that are like, the short ones are 120k. But you can also find, like 150 280k road races. I mean, I loved that, that was cool. That was like, you know, living the dream a little bit. And then also, just like the pack sizes, again, I don't know how it is now in America, but like a lot of P one, two races in the US are like, you know, 40 to 60 people would show up. Whereas, like, races would regularly have 200 people in them in France. So, and on these, like really narrow roads. So you get, you start to learn a lot more about like pack positioning. And it's really important to stay at the front as the cliche goes, but like the peloton can be, like strung out so long that like, if you're at the back, like you literally can't see the front, it's just somewhere down the road. And so it was like a, it was a really interesting experience. And then also, just like physiologically, I mean, I started I had never had problems with like cramping, for example. And then I start cramping, like in the middle of the season. And you know, I'm just kind of like, angry about it, like, you know, how come I've never had this problem? What's going on? And then, of course, you look at it a year later say like, oh, yeah, you know, I used to do like 40 crits a year. And now I'm trying to do like 70 road races that are like 150k adds up, it takes, you know, it takes several years to develop the ability to take that kind of volume, and I just didn't have it.
Andrew Vontz 33:50
How about intellectually because professional cycling has all kinds of people involved in it. And, you know, you're not necessarily around people who are rocket scientists or aerospace engineers a lot of the time and I mean, you know, you'd come from a highly intellectually stimulating environment where you were using your brain in a really different way. What was it like to then be a professional athlete in a different environment with a totally different set of people.
Joe 34:21
I so I actually really enjoyed this part of it. I'm quite introverted, I like a lot of solitude. So the training aspect that like I could go out and ride a lot and have like a lot of time on my own. Even just to think about random stuff, I really enjoyed that. And then off the bike I had this one year I read so many books like I lived in this like small apartment and the building out like the worst Wi Fi it will just drop out for like sometimes two or three days at a time. And so I would always keep like a backlog of unread books on my Kindle, and then have the Elector of the internet when out for a couple of days. I mean, my day was sometimes just like, you know, wake up, have breakfast, read a book, go out and do some training, come home, eat lunch, and just read a book for six hours until dinnertime and then read a book and go to sleep, like. And I would get bored reading the same book all day. So I was reading like three books in parallel, quite quite often, just this week, I was like changing the channel. I actually kind of enjoyed that. Like, I don't know if I'd want to do it forever. But I enjoyed that side of it. And I was happy or thankful that I had like an education and something to fall back on. Because kind of like you said, like, there are a lot of people that they leave high school, they don't go to university, they're all in on cycling. And like, I mean, for everybody you see in the world tour, you know, there's 10,000 people who tried and didn't make it. And a lot of them don't have a lot of good career career prospects. So, I mean, I spent a lot of time you know, kind of whining, you know, like, I started racing when I was 22, or 23. Oh, what if I started earlier? Like, I could have done all these things like I could have really made it, but like, I also could have, you know, crashed and broken a leg or something and ventured out of luck. So, yeah, it's, it's kind of tough actually, to see that, that like you see a lot of people who are like dedicating themselves fully to this thing, and they might not have a lot of options. If they don't make it.
Andrew Vontz 36:24
Did you get jammed up with any injuries? Or were you involved in any major wrecks?
Joe 36:31
Nothing too physically major, I got pretty lucky in that regard. Most of my crashes were more hurting my ego or my psyche.
Andrew Vontz 36:44
At what point did you feel like this needed to go in some direction?
Joe 36:51
Ah, so that was kind of funny. Like, I don't think I had like, a particular moment like that I did. I was thinking like, there's two paths out of this. And neither of them ended up being true. I thought one is like, I will have a bad accident. And I'll just basically be forced to endless. And option two is that like, I make it and have some like glorious big win or something and quit while I'm ahead. What happened in reality was like, I just got interested in in other things. And I started like, especially economics and computer programming. I started like reading a lot about this stuff, and like trying to build some of my own computer programs. And eventually, like, I think it was like probably March of 2017, or something. I told my director, I was like, I'm just like, glued to my computer like Kindle, trying to learn about this stuff. And like, I'm having trouble kind of going out to train.
Andrew Vontz 37:49
Was he like, what's wrong with you, Joe? What do you do?
Joe 37:53
Now? I mean, I think he probably saw the writing on the wall. Yeah. And it was kind of funny, like, so I asked him, I was like, Can I take one month off from racing, and like, just let me kind of like, find a routine where I can, like, get the balance of this going. And that was like, actually, my plan when I asked him that I thought like, I will take a month off. And kind of like collect myself and, and get back into this season. But I knew the next day, like I woke up the next day, and I was like, I'm not thinking about training and stuff like this. And it's also like liberating that. And I just knew I just knew I was like it's over. It's for sure over and that was kind of like the end of it. And I started working on some of these other projects.
Andrew Vontz 38:40
The moral of the story here, I don't want a dime you out to future employers. But don't give Joe a sabbatical. I think that's one of the takeaways from this episode. He's not coming back. And so over time, how did that lead to what you're doing now? And what are you doing?
Joe 38:58
Yeah. So now I work on this project called polka dot, which is a blockchain protocol. So I started out actually working on trading algorithms, which I thought like, I had worked in like shock and vibration simulation. And I really liked this idea of like algorithmic trading, it felt very much like cycling to me, actually. In the sense that like, when you have a bike race, most peak compared to other sports, like, you know, like soccer or something, you know, one team wins and one team loses. Whereas like in a bike race, there's 200 people. And you might even think like, just one of them wins. But that's not entirely true. Like some people have other goals like they want to win like the climbers, Jersey, they want to win stage, the sprinters jersey, or like, I mean, some people just want to be on TV or like getting the breakaway. Like, there's a lot of different definitions of success that people have in a bike race, and also a lot of different strategies. It's not just like score more goals. And also like in markets I I thought this was cool like there are people who are doing like really short term trading they're like big hedge funds or like pension funds they're just going to like rebalance their accounts.