Alan Milway: Inside the Systems, Stress & Success of Norco Factory Racing
The Ride Companion
TRC Media House
4.9 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2025
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What does it really take to manage a World Cup downhill team in 2025?
In this episode, Alan Milway, team manager of Norco Factory Racing and long-time performance coach joins Olly and Davi to unpack the chaos, structure, and behind-the-scenes secrets of running a top-tier MTB team. We dive into the logistics of back to back race weekends, what it's like managing huge personalities like Danny Hart and Greg Minnaar, and the setup mistakes even elite riders still make. Alan also breaks down the impact of the new Q1/Q2 format, the $100K belt drive prize, and why Greg Minnaar continues to be one of the most relentless forces in the sport. From scouting new talent to controversial DSQs and what the sport really needs to evolve this one is packed!
Follow Norco Race Division: https://www.instagram.com/norcoracedivision/
Follow Alan Milway: https://www.instagram.com/alanmilway/ & https://www.instagram.com/milwayperformance
Alan sells performance products too at https://www.milwayperformance.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And Greg's trackside filming and then I've been sent trackside to film so we can compare the suspension and the grip and everything. |
| 0:07.7 | And I'm in the shuttle with Danny and he's like, I think I understand now why Greg's had such a good career. |
| 0:16.1 | That is so cool. |
| 0:17.3 | It was amazing. |
| 0:18.1 | I had Danny Hart, like multiple world champions sat there going, |
| 0:21.6 | Greg Minar's a savage. |
| 0:23.1 | You know what I mean? |
| 0:23.6 | Wow. |
| 0:28.2 | Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today on the ride of companion, |
| 0:35.6 | we have special guest, Alan Millway. |
| 0:43.3 | Hyped to have you on, Dog. |
| 0:44.3 | Yeah, nice to be here again. |
| 0:46.3 | Mate, last time, we've got a great contrast here, haven't we? |
| 0:49.3 | Because last time it was new role, exciting. |
| 0:53.3 | Now you're firmly settled in. Yeah. I'm very |
| 0:58.2 | much in it, you know. Yeah. You're right in it. Yeah. Has your job role changed? Yeah, I think |
| 1:07.2 | I think about this on the way down. Like what actually is it's funny. When we, when we last met, we were chatting about the role and it was kind of the performance side of it. That's right. It had like a, like a long. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. It was like the performance manager. Yeah. And I think as I've got into it, that's the key focus, but you're the manager. You know, it's |
| 1:31.1 | everything. And I guess a really easy way to explain that is over a race weekend, you get a load of |
| 1:36.0 | like media requests and this, that and the other, and they'll all come through me. So I can |
| 1:39.7 | decide, is that the right thing for the rider? What do we say yes to? What do we say no to? So those sorts of things like you're trying to filter stuff. |
| 1:47.5 | And also you've got the team's probably about 18 people on it. |
| 1:51.1 | So there's a lot of people to kind of work with |
... |
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