In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Andrew L'Esperance, a professional cyclist from Canada. Andrew shares his journey in the world of cycling, starting from his early days racing with his brothers to becoming a professional athlete. He discusses the challenges and opportunities he has encountered along the way and how he has managed to make a career out of his passion for cycling. Andrew also talks about his transition to gravel racing and the different strategies and equipment choices involved in this discipline. He shares his experiences in races like Unbound and Sea Otter Classic and provides insights into the world of professional cycling.

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About the Guest(s):

Andrew L'Esperance is a professional cyclist from Nova Scotia, Canada. He grew up in a family that spent a lot of time outdoors and started racing bikes at the age of 12. Andrew has been racing ever since, climbing the ladder and participating in various disciplines such as road cycling, cyclocross, and mountain biking. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering and has always had ambitions to be a full-time athlete. Andrew has raced for Norco Bicycles and is currently racing for Maxxis Factory Racing. He has also ventured into gravel racing and is excited about the opportunities it presents.

Episode Summary:

In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Andrew L'Esperance, a professional cyclist from Canada. Andrew shares his journey in the world of cycling, starting from his early days racing with his brothers to becoming a professional athlete. He discusses the challenges and opportunities he has encountered along the way and how he has managed to make a career out of his passion for cycling. Andrew also talks about his transition to gravel racing and the different strategies and equipment choices involved in this discipline. He shares his experiences in races like Unbound and Sea Otter Classic and provides insights into the world of professional cycling.

Key Takeaways:

• Andrew L'Esperance started racing bikes at a young age and has been racing ever since, participating in various disciplines such as road cycling, cyclocross, and mountain biking.
• He has always had ambitions to be a full-time athlete and has found ways to make it work alongside his engineering degree.
• Andrew's transition to gravel racing has opened up new opportunities and challenges, and he enjoys the adventure and technical aspects of this discipline.
• He emphasizes the importance of equipment choices in gravel racing, including tire selection and the use of suspension forks.
• Andrew's favorite gravel races include Unbound and Sea Otter Classic, where he enjoys the competitive atmosphere and the chance to showcase his skills.

Notable Quotes:

• "I've always ridden a drop bar bike off-road. My first bikes were mountain bikes, and then I started doing cyclocross, which was my road bike, my winter bike, my cross bike. So, I've always had that mix of riding different disciplines on the same bike." - Andrew L'Esperance
• "I love the adventure of riding a bike, and it's a lot easier to find adventure on a gravel bike. In general, in the places that I spend the most time riding." - Andrew L'Esperance
• "If it's going to give you an advantage in the race, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, and it needs to be at the right time in the race." - Andrew L'Esperance on using a suspension fork in gravel racing
• "Gravel racing is a combination of endurance, technical skill, and equipment choices. It's about finding the right balance and making the most of each race." - Andrew L'Esperance

Transcription:

 

[TRANSCRIPT]

[00:00:00 ] - (): Craig Dalton: Andrew, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Craig. Yeah. I'm excited to have this conversation. I know you're, you're off to Europe tomorrow, so I appreciate you squeezing us in before you

[00:00:13 ] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: go. Yeah. Thanks for you making it happen too. I think you were just on traveling as well. So thanks for making it work with your

[00:00:20 ] - (): Craig Dalton: schedule.

**** - (): Yeah, absolutely. We always like to start off by learning a little bit more about you. Where, where'd you grow up and how'd you originally find the bike?

[00:00:28 ] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Uh, I grew up on the east coast of Canada, uh, in the province of Nova Scotia, just outside the main city there, which is Halifax. Uh, and yeah, kind of grew up in a family that, you know, spent a lot of time outdoors and we rode bikes together as a family on vacations.

**** - (): And I'm the youngest of four boys. In the family, so I have three older brothers, and as you can imagine, like, I just looked up to my brothers big time, and especially my oldest brother, and he did a bike race once, so it was basically like, oh, I've gotta do a bike race, and yeah, I just kind of did my first race when I was 12, and ran, what's that, and, um, I've been racing ever since, kind of climbing the ladder, doing some education in there.

**** - (): Uh, but yeah, just been racing ever since and obviously like sprinkling some other sports in there early on.

[00:01:27 ] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, was Nova Scotia the type of area where youth cycling was easy to come by? I wouldn't say it

[00:01:35 ] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: was easy to come by. Um, I think, I think I was, like, fairly self motivated, like, to make, to make it happen, and had some good support from my parents to make it happen.

**** - (): Um, but there's definitely a tight knit community, and I think they certainly took me under their wing, for whatever reason. And, yeah, helped me, helped me Come up in the sport, but I guess the first race I did was a Tuesday night short track series. So from that perspective, certainly, um, that's like, that's a really great entry point for use.

**** - (): To the sport. Um, when you say, um, when you say kind of youth programming, I kind of think about like a bike club or that sort of thing for like specifically for youth, because we see a lot of that around now. And there was certainly nothing like that. But that kind of forced me to kind of ride with the older, older people, uh, that were definitely better than me and that kind of helped pull me along in the sport early on for sure.

[00:02:47 ] - (): Craig Dalton: Were you sort of racing consistently at that young age or did it take some time before you kind of really committed to a season?

[00:02:55 ] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, I mean, I think when I did my first race, I was still doing other sports. Like, so I was definitely not like full on right away. Um, but it was definitely a slow process to get into it.

**** - (): Like the, it was more like regional racings first. I don't think I did any provincial level racing when I was 12. It was, it was, the racing I did was the short track series. It was like for, you know, eight or 10 weeks in the summer. And that was, that was the racing and it was, yeah. Like that was the season, uh, and then I just got more and more into it.

**** - (): And next year I did provincial, provincial level races. Then probably when I was 15, um, I went outside the province to race. And by that point, it was kind of like doing every kind of racing that I could, uh, coming from a smaller province. You know, there's not, there's not a ton of racing, but, um, so you kind of need to do all the things.

**** - (): So like do road, do cyclocross, do the mountain bike racing, do the group rides, all those things. Um, and yeah, that's how it, that's how I kind of started things off there.

[00:04:12 ] - (): Craig Dalton: And at what point did you start to see professional cycling as a career opportunity?

[00:04:19 ] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, I don't, I don't know. To be honest, maybe, maybe I just have started to see it as a legitimate career opportunity in the last couple of years, you know, I, I have a degree in mechanical engineering.

**** - (): It was sort of, um, that was always kind of the way I was going to make, And I never really saw bike racing as a way to make money, but I loved it and I could make it work. Um, and I, I do think I did have ambitions to somehow figure it out to be a full time athlete, whether, you know, putting that professional label on it.

**** - (): Um, it's kind of, I feel like that's kind of different. Um, but yeah, I definitely wanted to be a full time athlete. It's a really, It's a really great lifestyle and just, I've just been chugging along trying to figure out how to make it work. And I would say in the last five years, um, Yeah, I figured that out and

[00:05:27 ] - (): Craig Dalton: were you figuring that out from a, you know, what's known as a privateer perspective or five years ago, would you enter a team program?

**** - (): Um,

[00:05:36 ] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: yeah, not definitely not as a privateer. Uh, so previous, so I'm currently racing for Max's factory racing, uh, and this will be my third year on the team. And prior to that, I raced for Norco bicycles in various capacities for about 10 years. Uh, kind of finishing my career with them on the Norco factory team.

**** - (): Those years, there was a period where there was, um, gro