Grace Brown’s final season as a professional cyclist was everything she could have dreamed of. A win at Liège-Bastogne-Liège (after two runner-up finishes), a gold medal in the time trial at the Paris Olympics, a time trial world title (also after two runner-up finishes), plus a victory in her first and only race in the rainbow bands. She leaves the sport at the top of her game, and as the best in the world.
A month after her final race, Brown is now back home in Melbourne, getting on with the business of “working out life from here on out”. And she’s been busy. She’s already started her new role as president of The Cyclists’ Alliance – the union for professional female cyclists – and in her own words, she’s also “gathering random jobs” as she moves into the next phase of her life.
After a short holiday to Japan with her husband Elliot, Brown took the time to chat to Escape Collective about her amazing final season, to reflect on her career more broadly, and to look to the future. The Q&A you can read below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Matt de Neef: How was Japan?
Grace Brown: Yeah, super nice. I enjoyed the food a lot and just wandering around. We went to Osaka first and there’s some really cool, vibey areas of Osaka. And then also Tokyo is super interesting. You’ve got these really busy, like neon lights in some sections, and then you just walk two blocks, and it’s like the quietest little street that you could find. It’s really interesting. And yeah, the food is pretty hard to beat.
MdN: I think it’s been a month since your last race. What else have you been up to?
GB: I came back [to Australia] pretty soon afterwards and I’ve just been busy with different events, and random stuff – trying to catch up with people, interviews, podcasts. And also getting started on stuff with The Cyclists’ Alliance, so quite a lot of early morning or evening meetings.
MdN: The joys of working with people in Europe from Australia, right?
GB: Exactly. So it’s just been a bit of a mix of stuff and working out life from here on out.
MdN: Speaking of Europe, tell me about what it was like packing up in Italy. I assume you haven’t got a place over there anymore?
GB: Yeah, I’ve always just been renting furnished apartments so thankfully I didn’t have any furniture or big things that I had to deal with. But it’s still quite a painful job to pack up years of stuff, lots of cycling kit. I think I had three suitcases full of cycling kit that I shipped back to Australia. It’s yet to arrive, so I haven’t had to deal with it on the other end yet, but hopefully I can find some juniors or the likes to hand those off to.
But, yeah, it’s sort of a weird process leaving a place that I’ve spent a lot of the last decade of my life in. My few last training rides – these are roads that you travel so regularly, and to realize that you’re probably doing them for the last time is a bit weird. But there’s nothing that really prepares you for saying goodbye; you always come to the crunch point where you can’t sort of eke it out anymore.
MdN: Is it good to be back in Melbourne now, with friends, family, and obviously Elliot?
GB: Yeah, super nice to be back home. And yeah, back with Elliot, probably number one, and then yeah, having my immediate family around. My brother’s just had – not even a week after I got back, him and his partner had their first child. So that’s the first of the next generation in our family. So it’s a really exciting phase for the family. We’re all getting around that and we have a WhatsApp group that’s just like, baby pictures constantly now *laughing*.
MdN: As far as final seasons go, yours seemed pretty much perfect. I know you had a tough time through the Classics, but when you look at your wins at Liège, and then the Olympics, and Worlds, and winning your first and only race in rainbows … Have you had a chance to step back and process what you were able to achieve this season?
GB: I think I’m starting to process it a little bit more. But also it’s a weird thing – being out of that environment it becomes even more strange that I did that. Now that I’m just hanging out with people in Melbourne who don’t ride bikes for a living, to think that I was over there racing and competing and winning the biggest races in the world, seems super bizarre, and a bit like “Did I really do that?” *laughing*
But also at the time I was really mentally in it. It’s not like anything happened by accident. But it just felt like what I was putting my mind to was just working out, which is not something that happens very often in life, I don’t think.
MdN: Cycling is a really complex sport, and there’s never just one ingredient that makes for success, but do you have a sense of some of the things that went right to help you have such a good final season and tick off all those big goals that you had?
GB: Yeah, I think it was a big combination of a lot of things. For instance, the Olympics specifically was a long-term goal between me, AusCycling, and also FDJ[-Suez] came along on that journey, which I think was key, because a lot of trade teams aren’t super interested in helping facilitate those sorts of goals.
So everyone was looking at what I needed to do to win that race, and I think I went all-in more than I normally would in a season. This was the first season that I really focused on consistent gym work. In most years I come back to Australia in the middle of the year; I didn’t come back. I quite enjoy red wine, but in the month leading up to the Olympics, I didn’t drink, which is not something that I would usually take out of my routine for a goal.
So there’s just little things that maybe don’t seem that big, but when you add them all together, I guess the percentages add up. But despite those habit or physical changes that I made, I think they all signify how mentally focused I was on a goal, that I was willing to make changes.
I think the Liège win was sort of different. That was just … I felt amazing and I was able to convince the team to let me race how I wanted to race, despite not having a good season up until then. I guess I’m really lucky to have had a super-good relationship within the team that they respected me and listened to me when I said that I could go after something.
MdN: When you look back at your career as a whole, do you get a sense that you managed to achieve everything that you wanted to? Or are there some results that you missed out on?
GB: I’m definitely not finishing wanting for more. But particularly when I started to get results in Europe I really thought that I could go after more of the Classics races. Like I dreamt of winning Flanders or Roubaix. I feel like Roubaix, there were years where I could have got it. This year didn’t go very well at that race, but Flanders was becoming more and more out of reach, just because I wasn’t the same rider anymore, and I had to accept that I wasn’t the rider that could do it. So there’s dreams, but there’s also reality.
MdN: From a purely Australian point of view, what about the Aussie Nationals road race? I know it’s not the biggest thing on the calendar but I imagine you would have loved to wear green and gold at some point.
GB: Yes. Obviously I was able to wear it in the time trial [Brown won the Aussie ITT title four times – ed.], but to do majority of the races in the season wearing green and gold, I think would have been a real privilege. And just to have on my cycling resume that I’ve been the best in Australia. It would have been really nice to win that, and I felt like I was so close on a number of occasions. But yep, it happens like that.
MdN: What are you most proud of throughout your time as a cyclist, whether it be results or something else?
GB: I think particularly this year, something that made me really proud was just the reaction from my teammates, staff, fans, everyone, in some of those moments, like when I announced that I was retiring, or different public moments. The reactions from those people showed that I’d had an impact personally.
I think especially within my team they saw me as a really good, caring person, and that that’s what they felt was the bigger loss, rather than me as a bike rider [retiring]. I think that made me proud to be valued as a human.
MdN: What was that down to you, do you think? What do you think you offered off the bike?
GB: I think I went out of my way to look out for my teammates, and to make sure that the team was working as a unit off the bike and that my teammates felt seen and heard. And also for the staff – just letting them know that I appreciated them. It goes a long way.
MdN: Aside from all your amazing results this year, I think one of the things that stood out watching from afar was also the role you played for your team. I’m thinking of the Vuelta and the Tour in particular when you were racing for Évita Muzic. Some of the rides you put in there were just incredible. Do you look back on that stuff with a sense of pride, too; that when you weren’t chasing your own results, you could play that role of super-domestique or whatever you want to call it?
GB: Yeah, I think especially the Vuelta was really one of the most enjoyable races of my year, helping Évita. Especially that stage that she won. I was just listening on the radio as I was climbing – I was so excited to hear what was unfolding up the road. And then, just the pride I felt for her achieving that and feeling like I’d contributed as well was probably more emotional than my own victories.
MdN: What have you learned about yourself over the last, what, seven years you’ve been a pro?
GB: Yeah, it’s interesting trying to think back to what type of person I was when I started, and how have I changed …
MdN: It’s a tough question! From the outside, we look at you as bike riders that are very good at what you do, and you go from Australia, and you go to Europe, and we watch you race bikes, but it’s so much more challenging than that. You’re uprooting your life and being away from loved ones and you have to grow a lot as a person as well as a cyclist, during that time. I’m always curious about what that’s like and how that changes you as a person through that process.
GB: Yeah, I think I’ve definitely learned to overcome … or not necessarily overcome, but live through hard times and knowing that, yeah, sometimes you just have to keep pushing through the shit, and eventually it clears and then all the pushing has been worth it. It’s something that I’ve reminded myself of in this retirement journey and this year – having all these great results you sort of get a bit wrapped up in the high sometimes, but you have to also remind yourself of the really tough parts, like when you were hating it and starting a race felt like something really mentally challenging. So, yeah, I think that there’s a lot of growth that comes from that.
I’ve also learned that … I always thought that I was a really competitive person, but I’ve learned that I’m not – I’m not actually that interested in beating other people. I just want to get the best out of myself. And I think that’s the reason why I’ve been able to retire this year, because I really reached my top potential. And winning again doesn’t seem like it will bring me much satisfaction.
MdN: It just happens to be that your best is better than anybody else’s best …
GB: *Laughing* Yeah, but I never really got that disappointed when I didn’t win, as long as I’d done my best. The only times in races that I was frustrated with myself was when I wasn’t racing at my best for whatever reason, whether it was physically or mentally, and then I’d be down on my performance. But races where I’d gone out and done a late attack and then got caught, I loved doing that, and I always finished with a smile when it was like that. But if I couldn’t put myself in the right position to be in the race, or something like that that was just frustrating, then I didn’t enjoy it.
MdN: Just going back to the being-away-from-home stuff, do you feel like it got easier over the years, being away from Elliot, and family and friends? Or did it stay pretty hard and miserable that whole time?
GB: I think leaving [Australia] got harder, but being away – I got into a routine with it. Elliot and I had quite a strict policy about making time every single day to speak to each other, even if it was only two minutes. So I think that was really important, just not to lose that and get into a bad habit of not speaking to each other.
And also coming back got easier. The first couple of times I went away, then coming back and working out how to be back in Australia and in my home environment here was hard. But we also found a way to do that and now I just come home and we know how to be together.
But definitely, when I left for Europe at the start of this year, I was like, “I don’t want to have to do this again.” The weeks leading up to it, I just had dread.
MdN: Tell me about The Cyclists’ Alliance gig. How did that all come about?
GB: Yeah, it was sort of a bit serendipitous, I guess. I just saw an email from The Cyclists’ Alliance saying that they were specifically looking for a president and vice president of the board. And I thought in my head “I don’t really have experience to be either of those roles, but I would quite like to be on the board.” So I just sent my CV and expression of interest through and basically, Iris [Slappendel] came straight back to me, saying she was very excited that I’d put in an application and that she thought I would be a perfect president to replace her. And I was like “Ooof, OK.” *Laughing*
But when she explained it, it made sense to me. She’s stepping away because she’s been in it for so long, it’s been a huge job for her to get it to this point, and she has her own brand and other work that she now wants to focus on. And also she feels like she’s been out of the peloton for so many years that she’s no longer as in touch with the needs of the riders. So she thought it was important to have, a recent rider in the role, and also someone with, I don’t know, a good reputation and someone that the cycling world recognises, basically, and respects. So yeah, I guess that’s why they saw me as a good candidate for the role.
MdN: And what attracted you to the role?
GB: Yeah, for me, personally, the role was really attractive because I guess in retiring from the sport, my fear was that I would lose my connection with it, and my connection with the riders. And also just being part of the growth and positive movement of women’s cycling during my whole career, to step out of that and not be part of that positive change anymore, I was sad about leaving it. Now with the role, I’m in there, still involved in a positive way. So that’s really cool, I think.
MdN: What will the job look like for you? Will you do it from Australia and head over to Europe occasionally? Is it a full-time thing?
GB: So it’s a voluntary role, but the time commitment is like an open door, basically *laughing*. It’s probably not sustainable for me to do it as my full-time job, for free. I need to support myself in other ways as well.
I’ll mainly do it from Australia, but I hope that I can come back over to Europe in the summer, around the Tour de France Femmes at least to be a little bit more present. But yeah, there’s other staff on the ground in Europe, thankfully. I mean, most of the team is remote, all the meetings are online, so it’s fine in that regard. It would be better if I was in Europe and could physically go to a few more things, but yeah, I think we can make it work like this.
MdN: Do you have a sense of what you might do to to earn some money now that you’ve stopped cycling and the TCA job isn’t paying?
GB: A few things. I’m gathering random jobs *laughing*. I’ve got quite a few sort of event and speaking jobs lined up. I’ll be at Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Race in January. And, yeah, also speaking with SBS about getting onto commentary. So you might be lucky enough to hear my dulcet tones of a night.
MdN: Will you be doing commentary at Tour Down Under and Cadel’s Race too?
GB: I don’t think I’ll be on the race commentary, but maybe more like start line, finish line stuff. But it’ll be a bit of a mix. I think they want me doing something different every day.
MdN: So it’s fair to say you haven’t left cycling behind.
GB: No, and I don’t want to leave cycling behind. It’s an awesome sport and a lot of my community is in cycling, so you’ll see me around.
MdN: Have you been riding much since you got back to Melbourne?
GB: I did get out quite a few times in the first week that I was back, and now it’s just sort of fallen off a cliff a bit. I’m finding it more time efficient to go for a run.
MdN: Ah, a comeback! [Brown was a cross-country runner before she was a cyclist– ed.]
GB: Yeah, not approved so much by my Strava followers.
MdN: Do you have a sense of the sort of riding you’ll do going forward? Will you do some events, or just have some fun with it?
GB: My main aim for riding is just to enjoy it. To go out with Elliot and friends. I’ll do a few events, but I’m not gonna race because I don’t really like racing when I’m not at a good level *laughing*. So yeah, we’ll just have fun with it, but maybe do a bit more off-road stuff and enjoy it. Do some challenges that aren’t quite the same as beating people.
MdN: Are you allowed to wear your rainbow stripes when you’re on your road bike? Or do you have to be on a TT bike to do that?
GB: Yeah, technically, when I’m training on my TT bike is when I should be wearing the rainbow stripes. But, yeah, I don’t know. A lot of people have been telling me that I should just wear them anyway, but I feel awkward about it *laughing*.
MdN: Do you think if you ride down Beach Road, someone’s going to come up to you and say, “Oh, you shouldn’t be wearing those.”?
GB: Yeah, probably. “You’re an imposter.” *Laughing*
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