Andrew Gerrans - Behind the Scenes: Working in a Pro Cycling Team

Life in the Peloton, presented by MAAP

Mitch Docker

Health & Fitness, Fitness, Sports, Wilderness

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rapha presents Life in the Peloton! Have you ever wondered how you get a job on a Pro Cycling Team as a staff member? Or who the people are who work behind the scenes? What qualifications do they have? What is a Soigneur compared to a Physiotherapist or to an Osteopath? Well I sat down with Andrew Gerrans, or Andy as I know him, the brother to well-known retired pro cyclist Simon Gerrans. Andy is a veteran in the cycling world, not as a cyclist, but as an Osteopath. He’s worked in pro teams for more than 10 years, and like all the other staff, can be a jack of all trades at times, moulding into the routine and getting the job done, often outside of his trained skill set, on the rigorous day to day grind of World Tour racing. But his path into the World Tour wasn’t as straight forward as you might think and I was keen to hear how he eventually came to work in cycling & ask him about keeping a job in the sport and the day to day life of a pro team staff member. After a few brief periods trying a job in cycling while studying Osteo in 2005, Andy decided to take the more ‘traditional pathway’ for a university graduate and set up his own practice in his hometown of Mansfield in country Victoria, Australia. In 2013, realising he was looking for more, he sold his practice and took off on a soul-searching backpacking trip around the world. While visiting his brother, Simon, in Europe in June, he was asked to put his Osteo skills to good use and help him prepare for the upcoming Tour de France. It turned out GreenEdge was also looking for a therapist to join them for the month of July. And then in August… And September. And soon Andy’s solo trip was cut short. Andy is now working with Israel Premier Tech after a long stint at GreenEdge and has not only made a life for himself as a World Tour Osteopath living in Europe but, very much like his older brother, an impressive reputation within the world we call top level cycling. I knew it would be great to have Andy on the podcast to give some perspective into what it’s like working for a World Tour team, & hear the ins and outs of finding (& keeping) a job in the sport. It was great hearing his insight into just how differing and dynamic the staff roles are. I hope you enjoy the chat. Stay tuned next week for Talking Luft with Simon Gerrans! Cheers, Mitch Listen Listen & subscribe to this series on the Life in the Peloton website, at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, GooglePlay, Stitcher, Youtube or your favourite pod app. Show Notes Episode breakdown: 0:00min to 3:48mins – Intro 3:48 to 27:25min – Andy’s path into working in the World Tour 27:25 to 49:45min – Finding a job on a cycling team, the day to day & working with pro athletes 49:45min to end – Outro . . . This episode is brought to you by Rapha, makers of the world’s finest cycling clothing & accessories and the worlds largest cycling club, RCC. Find out more about Rapha: their kit, their club, their events and awesome clubhouses at rapha.cc. . . . Merch NEW! Our fresh new Talking Luft caps will be going live on our shop tomorrow, Thursday 16th June. 12:00 pm CEST Madrid, ES 11:00 am BST London, UK 20:00 pm AEST Melbourne, AUS 6:00 am EDT New York, USA Paris-Roubaix Caps are back in stock. Get your cap collection growing – jump over to our online shop to grab one now. Shop LITP casual Merch anytime online at our store. From casual caps to mugs, embroidered tees, logo tees, sweaters and much more.. Keep in touch Find all our episodes, LITP news and merch on our website www.lifeinthepeloton.com Listen on all good podcast apps, and now on Youtube. Follow us on socials: Instagram: @lifeinthepeloton Twitter: @lifeinthepelo Theme Music The theme music for Life in the Peloton was composed by Pete Shelley, who was lead singer of the punk band Buzzcocks. It was commissioned by the production company behind Channel 4’s coverage of the Tour de France in the 1980s and was used as the theme music for the nightly highlights show. Pet

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, good I, everyone.
0:10.0	Oh, good eye, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Mitch Stocker. This is Life in the Peloton.
0:28.6	And this podcast this year is being brought to you by our proud partner, Raffa.
0:33.8	Now, ever since Raffer was founded, they're all about trying to make people fall in love with
0:38.7	cycling. They do that through their RCC, the Rafa Cycling Club members, the events that they do
0:44.9	and the stories they create. That is the motto of Raffer, apart from making fantastic kit,
0:51.5	which you hear me talk about all the time. This week on the podcast, we've got a
0:56.5	different guest. We've got something a little bit different. Have you ever wondered how those
1:00.5	staff, I'm talking about the world tour staff, I'm talking about the swaniers, the mechanics,
1:06.1	the osteopaths, the chiropractors, how do they actually get in the teams? What is the pathway of getting
1:12.6	across there? If you're not a European, across there living in Europe, you're an Australian,
1:18.0	you're an American, a Kiwi, and you're thinking, how can I actually get across there and work
1:23.1	on one of these teams? How does it all happen? Well, this is the podcast for you. I'm sitting back talking
1:29.6	with Andy Gerrins. Now, you may have heard that name before. Gerens, Simon Gerens, of course.
1:35.7	Well, this is Andrew Gerens, his brother. Now, I had the pleasure of working with Andrew
1:40.5	way back when I stagiaired with AG2R in in 2005 and Andy was also staghering himself as an
1:47.7	osteopath or as a swanier on the team out here at the Herald Suntur in Melbourne and ever since then
1:53.0	we've sort of followed each other's footsteps and he went away from the sport for a while
1:57.2	came back into the sport and then has since been in the sport since 2013 when
2:03.5	he rejoined with Green Edge back in those days. Anyway, I'm not going to get too much into the
2:08.3	story because we talk about it there. Now, you're going to have to excuse the audio on this one
2:12.5	because we were sitting outside at a park. I caught up with Andy when he was back here
	...

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