- Being a professional cyclist must have its perks.
Lots of us would like to be professional cyclists,
but there must be some down points as well.
So we asked some cyclist this morning at the Dubai Tour,
what are the best and worst parts of being a pro?
(speaking foreign language)
- Um.
- The best, the best?
- Um.
- Oh, I don't know.
(upbeat electronic music)
- The best thing about being a pro cyclist?
- Travelling, I think.
I like to travel.
- [Interviewer] And the worst thing?
- Travelling as well (laughter).
Being away from home, yeah.
- Maybe use so many quotes, like saying,
"You live your dream," and you just,
I always say I'm nearly 36
and I've never worked in my life,
so that pretty much sums it up for me
and like, we come to places.
This bike brought me everywhere in the world
and just for free.
And yeah, just hanging out with great mates,
and you just enjoy what you're doing.
- And what's the worst thing?
- It comes with the fun.
Of course, it's suffering
and you don't see your family as much as you want
and sometimes you get tired of being away all the time,
but it's still, I would do this again.
- We get to go commando to work every single day.
- [Interviewer] And the worst thing?
The saddle.
Rod Ellingworth once said me when I was an under 23,
I was changing saddles a lot, trying to find one
that I really liked.
And he said, "Alex, we understand
"it's never going to be an armchair.
"It's not a sofa.
"It's not going to be comfortable.
"We just might find one that's less comfortable
"than another," so yeah.
I definitely sat in the saddle for like, five or six hours.
- The best of, for my career of the early years
is a lot of friends
making in a bike, outside the bike, you know?
You remember the snow, wind, very cold,
rain, and the guy behind
the stabilo is super, but I remember
when I arrived to the finish line, that completely dead.
- It's fun.
I mean, for myself, it's
making what I love or what I started as a
hobby, doing professional and it
just doesn't feel like a job for me,
so that's what it makes so cool.
- [Interviewer] And what's the worst part?
- Well, worst part is,
of course, sometimes you have to go out
when you don't want to,
especially when it's, for example, snowing or whatever.
So yeah, just sometimes,
but if it's,
it's still fun most of the time.
- Andy, what is the best thing about being a pro cyclist?
- Just getting to do what you love, really.
You know, for a living.
- [Interviewer] What's the worst thing
about being a pro cyclist?
- Well, it's kind of the best and the worst.
Being away from home, you know.
When you've got a family back home, it's pretty difficult
being away so much, but we're here to race our bikes
and that's what we love doing, so
it's love and hate at the same time.
- Rory, what is the best thing about being a pro cyclist?
- I think we're here.
You know, being in Dubai at the moment.
When it's cold pretty much everywhere else except
for Australia, and we get to race in a really cool city
with a really cool atmosphere.
- What's the worst thing about being a pro cyclist?
- The races that are going on
where it's not like this (laughter).
No, it's a lot of travel, being away from family,
and that's always difficult.
You know, obviously the crashes and things like that,
but on the other side, the grass is not always greener.
It's not a terrible life at all.
- What is the best part of being a pro cyclist?
John knows that he's been pro since January the 1st,
so he's had a couple of month's experience over.
- Well, so far,
nice hotels.
Nice hotels abroad
is like going on a holiday every week, so.
- Yeah, that won't last.
You're in Dubai at the moment.
- Yeah, I think maybe we start up here and steadily
through the season we'll go (whistles).
But so far, it's just that.
- And what's the worst part about being a pro cyclist?
- The worst part?
God, it's hard to find negatives to that.
Maybe if there's a massive crash today
and I'm at the bottom of it.
- [Interviewer] Crashing?
- Yeah.
- I would say the freedom,
just being able to do it everyday,
to ride your bike and go out on the roads
and enjoy nature, you know?
- [Interviewer] And what's the worst thing
about being a pro?
- Being on the road, like, away from family,
away from your wife, your friends.
That's definitely the hardest thing.
- I mean, I don't know, but you can travel a lot.
You can use some
huge people (laughter) and different story
in one word, is pretty nice.
- [Interviewer] And what's the worst thing
about being a pro?
- All the fatigue (laughter).
- [Interviewer] Being tired?
- Yeah, being tired sometimes, pretty much (laughter).
- I get to wake up in the morning on the seafront
in Dubai and just go and ride your bike
or a few hours, I guess.
- [Interviewer] And what is the worst thing?
- Probably in a few weeks' time, I'm going to wake up
in a company in Belgium
and we have to go and ride in the rain.
Yeah, probably that bit.
- [Interviewer] So hotel is the answer to both?
- Not hotel, just general weather and nice hotels
and just getting to go out and ride our bikes, yeah.
- [Interviewer] Dylan, what is the best thing about
being a professional cyclist?
- The best thing about being a cyclist?
Yeah, you see all the world so beautiful.
Now we are in Dubai, so yeah.
It's beautiful.
- [Interviewer] And what's the worst thing?
- I think rushing and sprint, that's the worst thing,
so I hope that's not possible today, but yeah.
- Jempy, what is the best thing about being a pro cyclist?
- Getting to see a lot from the world
and yeah,
it's my passion, so it's nice to have it as a job.
- And what's the worst thing?
- Training in the rainy and winter conditions (laughter).
- You come from cyclo-cross.
You must love that (laughter).
- Yeah, but I feel that I'm more and more get the road
cyclists and the rainy days
are getting worser (laughter).
- So travelling can be both good and bad.
Crashing hurts a lot, but you get to ride your bike
a hell of a lot, and that's got to be
a good thing, hasn't it?
Now, last year, Lasty asked whether they knew
the UCI rules well or not, and you can find that video
by clicking just down here.
Or, in fact, if you like to see the sort of thing
that they travel with, what's in their suitcase,
Adam Hansen showed us through his at the Tour de France
in 2016, and that video is down here.
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