There are millions upon millions of names out there in the world, providing trillions upon trillions of potential given name and surname combinations.
So, to be a cyclist and to find yourself with the same name as a prominent pro rider is quite the coincidence, the chances are very slim. But for Stephen Cummings of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that’s exactly what happened.
Stephen Cummings (of Pittsburgh; we’ll refer to the pro, British Cummings as Steve Cummings, for ease), was a racer himself, competing at a regional elite level, with some UCI points in cyclocross, a pro mountain bike licence, and as a Category 1 (elite amateur) on the road. But then, in a common tale, he says that at any national-level event, “You just see the true greatness of WorldTour guys and how good they are and you realise how bad you are real quick, you know?”
But that didn’t deter Stephen Cummings from getting stuck in and enjoying his racing. And while racing in the USA often requires a ton of time spent driving to events, one Friday back in 2011, a four-hour drive down to a stage race was interrupted by something rather unexpected.
“I got this email and I thought it was junk, and [then] I start looking at it,” Stephen Cummings tells Escape Collective.
What he’d been emailed was Steve Cummings’ contract with BMC racing for the upcoming 2012 season.
“It was from the sports management company, that was the email address. But then I opened the attachment and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ What are the odds of him sending it to the wrong person and the wrong person knowing exactly what it was?”
Back when Google first introduced email, Stephen Cummings quickly snapped up all the various iterations of his name. ‘cummingsstephen’, ‘stephencummings’, ‘cummings.stephen’. “I don’t know which one he has, but I have the rest of them,” Stephen Cummings explains.
Pondering how to reply to this incorrectly delivered email, Stephen Cummings eventually settled on a witty response that included: “Hey I bet you didn’t know that there is a crappy cat 1 in Pennsylvania also named Steve Cummings. If you need somebody to fill a spot let me know. This email is amazing.”
Within minutes, he received another email back.
“I’m very sorry for the mistaken email address. I have the correct email now. If you wouldn’t mind simply deleting my mistaken email to you and not distributing it anywhere, it would be much appreciated.”
The news that Steve Cummings was switching from Team Sky to BMC wasn’t out there yet. Stephen Cummings was never going to leak the information but he wanted to have a little bit of fun with it.
“Not that easy BRO!” Stephen Cummings replied to the (probably incredibly-stressed) agent.
“I understand the situation and will keep it quiet. However, I did get third in the Ohio state road championship last weekend and was once ranked 358th in the world at cyclocross. I will delete the email but keep your contact info in case I pull out a sick result at the local stage race this weekend.
“Seriously though you don’t have to worry about me leaking this. Can I get a pair of socks or something? Thanks.”
“Those teams have buckets of stuff,” Stephen Cummings tells me, explaining his rationale for the cheeky request while at the same time not wanting to ruin anyone’s day or job. And sure enough, a cap and a pair of socks soon did arrive in the post.
It’s a fun anecdote for Stephen Cummings to share on group rides, but that’s not quite the end of the story yet, however.
“But then even after that, and I’m talking years, I would just get emails, because I think [my email address] would be auto-populated, I was getting sent room assignments for the whole of the Giro.
“I was just getting everything,” Stephen Cummings continues, “for the whole team, what floor they’re on, where they’re staying, where the food is. Brent Bookwalter was looking for his headphones for weeks; it was pretty funny. I didn’t read too deeply into it, but just seeing the inside workings of the team and just how much of a mess it is managing that many people was pretty funny.”
Does he still have the socks?
“I probably still have them upstairs,” Stephen Cummings guesses.
Have you ever met the British Steve Cummings?
“I’ve never met him,” he admits. “We used to follow each other on Instagram, I think we still do … we’ve emailed, he’s been like: ‘Hey, mate, sorry about the emails,’ or whatever. But then it obviously made me a fan of him. I was a fan of him to begin with but then he seems like a nice guy.
“And there was a while ago he posted he had like a Vespa two-stroke and I had one, and I go by Stevo and it looks like he might go by Stevo, and we have the same hairline. So, I’m a big fan. I remember when he won his first Tour de France stage how excited I was. Like, it was pretty badass. I was real stoked on it.”
Final thing, if you could have the same name as any other pro rider, who would it be?
“One of the guys from when I was racing a lot who was on top, uh … Zdeněk Štybar, Sven Nys or someone,” Stephen Cummings chooses, “because those guys are badass.”
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