Max Cushway journal #03: medals, mechanicals and mentoring
In his latest journal entry, Anglo-French cyclist Max Cushway reflects on managing the ups and downs of racing life, and discusses supporting his younger brother on his cycling journey
Our 2024 journal contributor Max Cushway rides for the Morbihan Adris Gwendal Oliveux team, a top-tier elite team (N1) in France, and recently switched to a French racing licence. In his third journal entry of 2024, Max reflects on managing the ups and downs of racing life, and discusses supporting his younger brother on his cycling journey.
I hate that old cliché about the ‘ups and downs’ of cycling, the ‘rollercoaster, etc., but it’s true, and you can’t really escape it. Joe Brookes talked in his recent journal about scrolling through the First Cycling app and seeing high numbers next to your name.
There’s absolutely no shame in finishing at the back of the pack, quite literally, and often it’s team orders that have made that happen
I’ve realised and accepted that anyone who knows anything about the world of cycling understands that there’s absolutely no shame in finishing at the back of the pack, quite literally, and often it’s team orders that have made that happen!
So let me start this recap of May by doing the ‘up’ bit ….. I won silver in the French under-23 in the individual time trial champtionships. It was my first ever nationals, literally having just collected my French ID card a week before I left for the competition.
Image: Eponine photo
And then quickly comes the ‘down’ bit… Was I happy? Not really. And the theme for much of May will be the phrase ‘effing mechanicals’. It’s part of the sport which is tough to get your head around sometimes.
In my case, everything in preparation for the time trial was perfect. I am pretty OCD with TT prep – I just kind of know what I need to do, I organise it, I stick to it and it works. Normally. What I didn’t count on was looking down at my power meter and seeing a big fat zero and realising that it was synced to the power meter on my road bike which was on the roof of the following car. And so began 21.5km without knowing what power I was doing.
I think deep down I would have got that 10 seconds back if I knew what my legs were actually doing
At the first and second time split I was 4th. Knowing this I then gained 30 seconds to finish in 1st place until Groupama-FDJ Conti rider Maxime Decomble took the lead to leave me as runner-up. Would knowing my numbers have made the difference I needed: 10 seconds? My coach, manager and mechanic who followed my ride told me I was faultless; but I think deep down I would have got that 10 seconds back if I knew what my legs were actually doing. Still, the music I put on the Instagram post was easy to choose – Edith Piaf’s Je ne regrette rien – I’m a silver medallist.
Image: supplied
If that’s one ‘mechanical incident’ where I can put the blame on myself because ultimately it’s for me to check everything is synced, the next one was far harder to get my head around at the time. Having spent the Essor Breton and now Tour de la Manche working hard for our team leader, Jonas Geens (note, he won the overall in both), my one release from team duties was the ITT.
Again, all prep good, everything going like clockwork, until ten minutes before I was due to go off and my gears stopped working. There was a frantic change of batteries, uncountable times – nothing. It’s a bit of a blur now but I heard my name twice, I ended up spinning the wheel round to quickly get into a middle gear, picked the bike up and went down the ramp knowing I had no gears. I did 12km of an up and down course in one gear, killing my legs on the ascent then running very quickly out of gears on the descents.
I sat in the team camper and just put my head in my hands. I very rarely cry but I ended up with teary eyes
When I finished, with adrenalin pumping from every vein, I sat in the team camper and just put my head in my hands. I very rarely cry but I ended up with teary eyes. I took myself off to a nearby café on the course and met up with my mum who’d driven up the night before to watch the TT. She’d stayed in a bizarre AirBnB belonging to a Russian businessman turned eco warrior. Small talk out the way, she saw how much that TT had meant to me, and knew I had only a few hours until I would have to get back on my road bike to continue protecting Jonas’ yellow jersey in the afternoon stage. It didn’t take the disappointment away; I could have easily won that TT. But you just have to move on (very quickly). Oh yeah, and despite the odd joke after about the fact I could have done the TT on a track bike, I finished 8th.
Max (fourth from right) with teammates, including Jonas Geens in yellow. Image: supplied
Travelling as much as I have in the last couple of weeks, I’ve caught up on the other journals on The British Continental and was interested to see Pat Fotheringham talk about something which has become pretty topical in the Cushway household at the moment – the pressure on riders to be better at a much younger age.
So I’m still 19 and I found myself counselling my 16 year old brother, Rafe, the other day. Counselling is probably too nice a word for it as I was just insisting that he took his foot off the pedal regarding next year when he hits his first junior year. He’s in a Pôle Espoir for endurance cycling, he’s riding with the best riders in Brittany and arguably racing with the best in France at times, and he is, like all other 16 year olds, aware that the talent scouts are out there now, looking, talking, making notes and making selections.
The cycling journey never goes according to plan and part of it is learning to adapt to situations out of your control
At Rafe’s age I applied to AG2R Under 19s team – and I got in, spending junior years racing for my local team as well as the AG2R U19 team. Since then there’s more teams setting up specific junior teams, and I wonder if there’s now a feeling that if you’re not being “followed” by someone, you’re behind somehow. As I can vouch, the cycling journey never goes according to plan and part of it is learning to adapt to situations out of your control. Someone’s wheel touching mine in a team time trial in my second junior year took me out for half the season – at the time it felt sh*t but actually it made me stop and think about what I wanted for the next season and how I could go about getting it. Without sounding like my mum, things like this happen for a reason.
Image: Amandine Coz – photographies
So I’m telling Rafe to be patient. Just continue to work hard, enjoy it, recover well and keep your studies going. As a first year elite rider I spent much of my time riding head into the wind, protecting a leader, pulling off or finishing last but within the time cut so I could go again the next day in my working role. Which brings me back to those high numbers in the FirstCycling results that I talked about at start – 83th, 80th, 85th….. yes, I was even the lanterne rouge, but scroll up and you see that it was my teammate Jonas who won the GC. And that was the objective for those nine stages of racing.
What’s next? My first weekend off from racing coming up, a few rest days and then it will be La Route Vendéene which is 4 stages including an ITT and TTT, and then off to the French nationals time trial with the best riders in France and seeing how I get on there. Until then, with no time to do any paid haircuts, I’ll be writing another IOU note to my mum and dad for a new SRAM module to breath new life into my TT rear mech…
Our 2024 journal contributor Max Cushway rides for the Morbihan Adris Gwendal Oliveux team, a top-tier elite team (N1) in France, and recently switched to a French racing licence. In his third journal entry of 2024, Max reflects on managing the ups and downs of racing life, and discusses supporting his younger brother on his cycling journey.
I hate that old cliché about the ‘ups and downs’ of cycling, the ‘rollercoaster, etc., but it’s true, and you can’t really escape it. Joe Brookes talked in his recent journal about scrolling through the First Cycling app and seeing high numbers next to your name.
I’ve realised and accepted that anyone who knows anything about the world of cycling understands that there’s absolutely no shame in finishing at the back of the pack, quite literally, and often it’s team orders that have made that happen!
So let me start this recap of May by doing the ‘up’ bit ….. I won silver in the French under-23 in the individual time trial champtionships. It was my first ever nationals, literally having just collected my French ID card a week before I left for the competition.
And then quickly comes the ‘down’ bit… Was I happy? Not really. And the theme for much of May will be the phrase ‘effing mechanicals’. It’s part of the sport which is tough to get your head around sometimes.
In my case, everything in preparation for the time trial was perfect. I am pretty OCD with TT prep – I just kind of know what I need to do, I organise it, I stick to it and it works. Normally. What I didn’t count on was looking down at my power meter and seeing a big fat zero and realising that it was synced to the power meter on my road bike which was on the roof of the following car. And so began 21.5km without knowing what power I was doing.
At the first and second time split I was 4th. Knowing this I then gained 30 seconds to finish in 1st place until Groupama-FDJ Conti rider Maxime Decomble took the lead to leave me as runner-up. Would knowing my numbers have made the difference I needed: 10 seconds? My coach, manager and mechanic who followed my ride told me I was faultless; but I think deep down I would have got that 10 seconds back if I knew what my legs were actually doing. Still, the music I put on the Instagram post was easy to choose – Edith Piaf’s Je ne regrette rien – I’m a silver medallist.
If that’s one ‘mechanical incident’ where I can put the blame on myself because ultimately it’s for me to check everything is synced, the next one was far harder to get my head around at the time. Having spent the Essor Breton and now Tour de la Manche working hard for our team leader, Jonas Geens (note, he won the overall in both), my one release from team duties was the ITT.
Again, all prep good, everything going like clockwork, until ten minutes before I was due to go off and my gears stopped working. There was a frantic change of batteries, uncountable times – nothing. It’s a bit of a blur now but I heard my name twice, I ended up spinning the wheel round to quickly get into a middle gear, picked the bike up and went down the ramp knowing I had no gears. I did 12km of an up and down course in one gear, killing my legs on the ascent then running very quickly out of gears on the descents.
When I finished, with adrenalin pumping from every vein, I sat in the team camper and just put my head in my hands. I very rarely cry but I ended up with teary eyes. I took myself off to a nearby café on the course and met up with my mum who’d driven up the night before to watch the TT. She’d stayed in a bizarre AirBnB belonging to a Russian businessman turned eco warrior. Small talk out the way, she saw how much that TT had meant to me, and knew I had only a few hours until I would have to get back on my road bike to continue protecting Jonas’ yellow jersey in the afternoon stage. It didn’t take the disappointment away; I could have easily won that TT. But you just have to move on (very quickly). Oh yeah, and despite the odd joke after about the fact I could have done the TT on a track bike, I finished 8th.
Travelling as much as I have in the last couple of weeks, I’ve caught up on the other journals on The British Continental and was interested to see Pat Fotheringham talk about something which has become pretty topical in the Cushway household at the moment – the pressure on riders to be better at a much younger age.
So I’m still 19 and I found myself counselling my 16 year old brother, Rafe, the other day. Counselling is probably too nice a word for it as I was just insisting that he took his foot off the pedal regarding next year when he hits his first junior year. He’s in a Pôle Espoir for endurance cycling, he’s riding with the best riders in Brittany and arguably racing with the best in France at times, and he is, like all other 16 year olds, aware that the talent scouts are out there now, looking, talking, making notes and making selections.
At Rafe’s age I applied to AG2R Under 19s team – and I got in, spending junior years racing for my local team as well as the AG2R U19 team. Since then there’s more teams setting up specific junior teams, and I wonder if there’s now a feeling that if you’re not being “followed” by someone, you’re behind somehow. As I can vouch, the cycling journey never goes according to plan and part of it is learning to adapt to situations out of your control. Someone’s wheel touching mine in a team time trial in my second junior year took me out for half the season – at the time it felt sh*t but actually it made me stop and think about what I wanted for the next season and how I could go about getting it. Without sounding like my mum, things like this happen for a reason.
So I’m telling Rafe to be patient. Just continue to work hard, enjoy it, recover well and keep your studies going. As a first year elite rider I spent much of my time riding head into the wind, protecting a leader, pulling off or finishing last but within the time cut so I could go again the next day in my working role. Which brings me back to those high numbers in the FirstCycling results that I talked about at start – 83th, 80th, 85th….. yes, I was even the lanterne rouge, but scroll up and you see that it was my teammate Jonas who won the GC. And that was the objective for those nine stages of racing.
What’s next? My first weekend off from racing coming up, a few rest days and then it will be La Route Vendéene which is 4 stages including an ITT and TTT, and then off to the French nationals time trial with the best riders in France and seeing how I get on there. Until then, with no time to do any paid haircuts, I’ll be writing another IOU note to my mum and dad for a new SRAM module to breath new life into my TT rear mech…
Featured image: supplied
Find out more
Max Cushway journal #02: race wins, yellow jerseys and a change of nationality
Max Cushway journal #01: “It’s ‘amateur’ Jim, but not as we know it….”
Journals 2024: introducing Max Cushway
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