EPISODE 38
A Bear of a Ride: From the Canadian Wilderness to the Tour and Back
From dropping out of high school to go mountain climbing to becoming a world-class professional cyclist, Svein Tuft’s journey is anything but ordinary. In this episode, hear how a simple need for cheap transportation to climbing spots led Svein to weld his own bike trailer, tour the backcountry of British Columbia with his dog, and accidentally build the foundation for a stunning athletic career. Svein shares incredible stories from his early days of rugged, off-grid touring to competing in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. He offers a refreshingly candid perspective on the pro cycling world and how he ultimately left European racing behind and returned to his adventure-seeking roots. If you are eager to hear about a man who takes unconventional paths (less paved), this episode is for you.
Episode Transcript
Svein: So, I’d load up the bikepacking bags on my road bike, and I’d ride across the Pyrenees, over to the Basque Country, and ride back. Spend four or five days on the road, just smashing out big days, and it just brought this love of what I originally started doing this all for.
Gabriel: You just heard Svein Tuft, describing his epic training days as a professional road cyclist based in Andorra. Svein’s time in the Pyrenees brought back fond memories of the time he spent as a young man exploring the vast remote wilderness of Alaska and British Columbia. By living the hobo life, doing things the hard way and establishing an attitude of not caring too much, Svein actually set himself up for success as a professional, before ultimately returning to his adventure-seeking roots.
Sandra: You’re listening to The Accidental Bicycle Tourist. In this podcast, you’ll meet people from all walks of life and learn about their most memorable bike touring experiences. This is your host, Gabriel Aldaz.
Gabriel: Hello cycle touring enthusiasts! Welcome to another episode of The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast. The episodes have been coming out a little slower lately, and that’s because we recently added a new member to our cycling team. Little Olivia was born in July, and we have already signed her to a multi-year contract. To use some of the terminology that you will hear in this episode, we expect her to start off as a stagiaire, an amateur rider who is taken in by a professional team during the season. She might then progress to be a domestique, a rider supporting the team leader. If all goes well, she might one day fight for the top spots in the GC, or general classification, of a major tour. If you have been following the podcast this season, you know about the Filmed by Bike Festival and how you can score a 25% discount on the Virtual Pass by using the code TOURIST at checkout. Recently, I had an opportunity to screen some of the festival’s films at home. One in particular stood out, called The Path Less Paved with Svein Tuft. As a young man, Svein started to explore bicycle touring, as a way to discover the best mountain climbing spots. Perhaps due to his untamed nature, Svein would become as unusual a professional cyclist as the peloton has ever seen. Racing in Europe, he struggled to fit in and almost quit every year. And yet, by the time he was done, Svein had become one of Canada’s most renowned cyclists, winning stages in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. He is also a 13-time Canadian national champion, twice in the road race and 11 times in the time trial. Now, let’s hear about Svein’s incredible journey from the man himself. Since it’s hard to find quiet at home, I’d like to thank friends of the show, Flora and Mirko, for letting me record this episode in their studio.
Gabriel: Svein Tuft, thank you so much for being a guest on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast.
Svein: Oh, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Gabriel: Out of the several movies that I watched through that Virtual Pass that one can get, your movie was the one that stood out the most. And the reason why is because the podcast is called The Accidental Bicycle Tourist. And I love how you came to do bike touring accidentally. You basically wanted to do some rock climbing and you needed a setup. Can you just tell a little bit about how you got started?
Svein: Sure. In many ways, yeah, I guess “accidental” is a good way to put it. Growing up, we always did like kind of mountain sports, mountain things. My dad was really into all that stuff, and it just made a big impression on me. And when I was kind of at that funny age of 14, 15, my parents separated. And I was pretty, I would say pretty lost. Yeah, I dropped out of high school. Would have been the classic thing of, like, this guy’s just losing the plot. He’s going downhill, you know. But it was funny, because it was so not the typical drinking and drugging and going to parties and doing nothing with your life. It was actually to go chase after climbing mountains. And that was really an obsession of mine at that time. I was really lucky, because I had these really good friends that just made a big impression on my life and taught me all the ins and outs of climbing, mountaineering and all that stuff. And it just kind of instilled in me this passion for new adventures, new places, and seeing the next valley, the next mountaintop and what’s behind there. And it’s something I always had, but it really sparked at that period of my life. I found myself doing a lot of these climbing trips and going and exploring the new places. In that process, I was working some odd jobs, right? Like, just to make money. And it was weird because my parents weren’t speaking. So at a time when, you know, I should have been just going to school and having the kind of normal home life, I was living between these two parents who weren’t speaking to each other. And I was, like, working on my own and like going away on these trips. Because my parents weren’t speaking to each other, I could also kind of play this thing of not communicating with anyone. I’d disappear for a week and either parent just thought that I was at the other parents’ during that time. You know, it was bad because then all of a sudden the letters start coming from school, like, yeah, he hasn’t been here for, you know, the last two weeks. At the time, it’s funny looking back because it truly wasn’t expensive, but, like, owning cars and the insurance you need and the gas and all these kind of things to get to these mountain ranges and these different places I wanted to go, it costed money. And then I just found like, oh, I’m always having to work to have this car. Even though they are just pieces of crap. Well, that was the other issue, is I could only afford like a five hundred dollar car. And those kind of had a lifespan on them, you know. They just weren’t that reliable, right? So yeah, it was one of those things where I figured, like, just through biking that this was a way to really save money.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Svein: To get to these far-off places. And it was also just reliable. It just kind of depended off of you, right? Like, your energy, your body. I really liked that idea, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Initially, I bought this ten-speed, crappy bike at like, you know, one of these secondhand stores, built a trailer, threw my climbing gear in there, my dog, and then started doing like these shorter trips. I did my first trips up to the Chilliwack Valley, which from my little area where I grew up was about a hundred kilometers.
Gabriel: Just to get the context, it’s British Columbia, Canada is where you grew up.
Svein: Yes.
Gabriel: Not everybody might know where the Chilliwack Valley is.
Svein: Yeah, sorry. Yeah. I grew up in South Langley, which is just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia, the Fraser Valley. It’s a really beautiful zone. You have like Mount Baker, this huge volcano, you know, always looking at you. So like growing up, I just always had this massive volcano to look at. And it just fascinated me. It’s just huge, right? And it kind of stands on its own. All the other peaks around it are maybe 2,000 meters, but they look like nothing in comparison. This zone of Chilliwack Valley is actually a really special area. A lot of, like, granite peaks. Yeah, just beautiful climbing zone. It’s funny because it’s kind of a lesser-known area that’s still so close to this pretty big population. And in those days, no one was back there. Yeah, you could spend a week climbing out there. You wouldn’t see a soul in September, the great times of the year for that. So yeah, I started doing these trips and it was wild because the goal was to go and climb, which I definitely did. But in the process, I ended up just falling in love with the bike and the freedom that it offered. Like, you’re just not tied to anything, right? Like, everything to do with vehicles, licenses and insurances, all these things that I just hated at the time. I really like this off-grid. You’re just free. And it was also at a time where we didn’t have devices and phones and all this stuff that I just find is so distracting nowadays. And it’s it makes trips like that not really the same anymore. So I feel so fortunate to have lived that life and lived that experience because yeah, it was really free. And so I guess it evolved into this thing where now it was about touring and the places you could go by bike. The same thing that I was after, chasing mountain climbing. It was the same feeling by bike. You know, I was still mountain climbing, but I would say the emphasis kind of switched more towards bike touring and all the places you could go with that.
Gabriel: In the movie, it shows a picture of the trailer that you welded yourself. Why did you choose to weld the trailer instead of just going for some more conventional touring setup?
Svein: Well, first of all, money was always an issue. Like all of my setups were very, very cheap. Just kind of pieced together with random parts, whatever I could find. I just didn’t have that kind of money to spend. Like, I saw the value of the money going towards the trip rather than having really sweet equipment, which I obviously learned the hard way, throughout those first few trips, like trying to fix all this crappy stuff that I thought would make it through a trip like that. Like everything, you learn the hard way. You get what you pay for in many ways with bike equipment. A trailer is amazing because you can just chuck all kinds of stuff in there. And your bike’s still somewhat free. So yeah, like I had this big dog and there’s just like no way I was fitting him anywhere else other than a big, big trailer.
Gabriel: Right.
Svein: People look at trailers as cumbersome and that’s true, but they are pretty amazing in the sense of like once you get that inertia rolling, they actually are pretty efficient. You’re not making any speed records, that’s for sure. But, once all that weight’s kind of moving along, it’s actually pretty damn good. Like, as long as you don’t have to be anywhere quick. And that was the beauty of that. Like on those initial trips up to like Bella Coola and the Chilcotins, which are these really awesome areas like further north of Vancouver, really remote locations. Those first bunch of trips, I mean, I was free. And so there was no time restraints on anything, other than maybe like seasons shifting, be home before winter comes kind of thing.
Gabriel: And this was a two-wheeled trailer, right?
Svein: Yep. Yeah, mountain bike wheels and yeah, everything was just kind of homemade, right? So you kind of learn as you go and hope for the best. I mean, it held up well, like the same setup. It went up to Alaska two times, Bella Coola. I don’t know, I consider that pretty good. No disastrous blowouts or anything like that. The hitch system is always tricky, right? But yeah, it worked well, what I had.
Gabriel: Very good. And how was it touring with a dog?
Svein: It was great. So I’d been doing so much with my dog at that point of my life. Like I had these remote mountain setups that I’d build every fall and stay up there and do backcountry skiing and snowboarding and just living through big periods in the winter up in the high country in the cascade coastal ranges and stuff. And so is this like a constant in my life? And you know, when you’re doing a lot of stuff by yourself, it’s really nice to have some kind of companionship. And a dog was always so great, because they’re just so hearty and they’re up for whatever. Dogs I found, raised like that, they’re just so sturdy. You know, you could just take them anywhere. And because he spent so much time with them, they become so well-trained in the sense of just knowing the protocol and what they need to do, almost like reading your mind. In the beginning, it took some time, getting in and out of the trailer and all that kind of stuff. We’d hit a climb and the speed would drop naturally below 10 kilometers an hour, and he’d just jump out and he’d just run. He knew to stay off the road and kind of timber cruise out there. Like, up north and that, they really cut a big swath out on each side of the road to make it so trees don’t fall into the road and that. So there’s a good chunk of natural land there. Dogs love that terrain, and he would get like tons of exercise in the day. Super fit. And it was the same with like headwind sections. You’re just blasting into a headwind. It’s like, “Well, hop out.”
Gabriel: That’s great. So you knew you were struggling when your dog jumped out of the trailer to help you out.
Svein: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I didn’t even have to say anything anymore. The only thing I had to say was to get back in. Like, I would just kind of slow down to like 5k an hour, and just kind of whistle at him. And he knew he had to like come and jump back in. And we just did. It was like a slipstream operation. After three, four months on the road, it’s just like, yeah, you’re this team doing this thing.
Gabriel: What kind of dog was he?
Svein: So he was a Chow German Shepherd Rottweiler.
Gabriel: Oh, okay.
Svein: Quite a mix, but I would say like, probably more Chow and German Shepherd. I don’t know if you know much about Chows, but they have these crazy winter coats. So super hardy in the winter could handle any weather. No issues, cold, wet, always warm, no matter where you are. Also very independent. They have one person in their life and that’s it. They’re not keen on, like, making new acquaintances. So it was also very easy to like just leave him anywhere with the bike and trailer. Not that anyone wanted my stuff, but you just didn’t have to think about someone riding off with your wacky setup. And then just kind of the sharpness of a German Shepherd. You know, those dogs are very switched on and intelligent. It was an interesting mix, good mix for that kind of stuff. Big dog, kind of heavy.
Gabriel: And what was the dog’s name?
Svein: Bear.
Gabriel: Bear, okay. So better to tour with a dog named Bear than with a bear named Dog.
Svein: Yeah, absolutely. Knowing when bears and certain animals are around, they’re just switched on to things that you aren’t necessarily. And there’s just something nice about having that like on big long solo trips, it was, yeah, a really nice point of my life.
Gabriel: You talked about Bear being tuned into bears, because other guests who have toured Alaska and British Columbia said bears are a pretty big deal in these remote sections.
Svein: Yeah.
Gabriel: Did you get a warning from him, or how did it work out if there were bears ahead?
Svein: Dogs are pretty amazing. Like a dog, especially that’s always out in the bush, their noses are just incredible, right? So something like a 5k radius, they let you know about it right away. So that doesn’t necessarily mean it keeps you safe. But what it does is kind of makes you more aware, right? And I think the biggest thing about being in the bush is just being aware and kind of understanding naturally where these kind of bigger animals hang out and understanding that probably the biggest time you’re going to have an issue with them is if you surprise them. In some cases, a dog can be a nuisance, like a really dumb dog can aggravate a bear to basically come after you, right? Because the dog will piss the bear off and then run back towards you. So that’s dangerous, right? You can’t have a liability dog like that. Bear, my dog, at a younger age got swatted by a black bear. And that imprinted in his mind, for the rest of his life, they’re just not to be messed with. I’ve kind of grown up around constantly seeing bears, coming across bears in every fashion, you know, mother grizzly bears. We live right near a nesting area for the grizzly, where they spend their winters hibernating. So they come out every spring and it’s like, it’s kind of very regular for us and my family to come across grizzlies, and I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of bear interactions, you know, and nothing negative… yet. The only times I would say it was somewhat sketchy was when it was a bear that was close to Whistler, British Columbia, which is like a heavily populated area, and they’ve been exposed too much to human garbage and living as a parasite off of, like, the human civilization. I think it’s really an issue when we have them so close to civilization and we allow them to keep coming closer because no one wants to harm them. And I think that’s what actually does the worst harm, because as soon as they start to get garbage, as soon as they start to think this is a place for them to get food, well then they become the problem. And then they either have to be put down or shipped off at a huge expense, right? The people who are writing stories, it’s a lot of clickbait stuff to get you very fear-based. And the reality is you can have hundreds of interactions and they’re all pretty damn okay.
Gabriel: Yeah, that’s what we’ve heard about as well from other guests. Definitely need to act in the right way.
Svein: Yes.
Gabriel: Okay, so let’s get back to your story. You had been doing these backcountry expeditions for a while, and I guess at some point, you needed to do something to earn some money, even though you were doing it on the cheap. How did you combine your new interest and bicycling with earning money? Did those come together initially?
Svein: No, it was always kind of a nuisance having to work, because it took away from my trips. But, you know, there was kind of these shoulder seasons of fall and spring that it would be like, well, I got to work. Because after my second Alaska trip, I was going to go down to South America. Just continue on down to Argentina. You know, at that point in my life, I thought I was just going to live on the road forever. I had no other ambitions than doing that. Truly, that was it. That was all I had in my mind. I’m just going to travel around on the bike. And I got this job. It was a secondhand sports shop. More bikes than anything else. Like they had hockey, you know, where I grew up is big hockey town. Had all that kind of stuff, but it was like the main floor was used bikes and bike parts. I had the sweet gig because I could sleep in the shop. So it was through a buddy. So I needed a place to live, right? And so this, like, fit the bill. I could live there and work there. And then I just kind of did my things throughout that winter. In that moment, working there that spring, I got exposed to riding a really fast race bike. And that changed me forever. I was putting out the same power that it took to power this mountain bike and trailer and dog and all that kind of stuff. And now I’m on this road bike, same power doing like 45k an hour. And I’m just like, “Oh, this is amazing.”
Gabriel: What a difference.
Svein: Yeah, I was just sold. Because I always wonder like, well, how did I shift from this kind of simple hobo life to that? And that was it. It was that addiction to, I just, I love that speed. I love that efficiency. You know, after my second time up to Alaska, I put together all the pieces of like what it takes.
Gabriel: What do you mean?
Svein: Just like energy expenditure and time and averages, all that kind of stuff. Because even though may not seem like it, I paid a lot of attention to that kind of stuff. And yeah, riding a bike like that was just amazing. It was like, I still know the feeling. Like I still feel it right now. I was on this like busy kind of secondary highway where you kind of get the draft from the trucks. And I’m ripping along on this pretty wide shoulder. And it was just like I was hovering, you know. It was probably the worst place to ride, yet it’s like still one of my favorite experiences when I think back to riding a bike. And it was just that efficiency, that speed, that kind of ease of travel, compared to what I’d become accustomed to.
Gabriel: Yeah. When you get on a fast bike like that and you’re just flying through maybe the same roads or places where you used to go a lot slower on… Wow. It’s like getting a motorcycle.
Svein: Three times the speed, right? Yeah. It’s totally different world. Absolutely.
Gabriel: Since I’ve watched the movie about you, I know a little bit about you and I know that racing bikes are going to play a pretty big part in your life. So can you tell a little bit more about how it developed from that initial adrenaline-filled ride to a pretty crazy career as a professional cyclist?
Svein: You know, when I think back to the odds of making it as a professional road cyclist – like, I work with young riders now who are trying to make their way, you know – and it’s really hard because the odds are so slim, right? And you see how they’re already perceiving the sport as a younger person. They have to make it. And you’re just like, it doesn’t work like that, you know, you have to love this. And I was very lucky I was in this position where I just loved riding, no matter what. To go back to my story, how it kind of happened is my dad’s Norwegian. Very much he grew up with European sports. He was a cross-country ski racer himself. And, you know, at that time, like I kind of mentioned before, we’d drifted apart a bit because all the things going on with the family and this and that. And he saw this kind of driving me this kind of interest at this point. I was in this sports shop all the time so he could come and visit me and hang out. And like we started, you know, just talking a lot more and our relationship became much better during this time. And anyways, he started kind of planting the seed of like, oh, I think he’d be pretty good at racing, you know, and I kind of was just initially going along with it. And we decided to build up a bike at this shop. We had access to all kinds of parts and pieces and random stuff. So we built this Frankenbike road bike. We started just going in like the local races. And because I built this engine, towing this dog around and doing big, big miles, for the last four or five years, I’d just been building an aerobic engine, unknowingly. And so that allowed me in these first races to just go and smash it. And it was the kind of thing, like either my equipment held together and I would win by 10 minutes or I just had like a massive blowout or just tactically like not adept at all, you know, just not understanding how things work and that racing world. But if the course suited me, yeah, I could just ride away, you know, because you just had this engine. There’s something about like winning or being good at things. I’ve never really been that good at things before. And that changes you, right? It changes your, I don’t know, your perspective. And my new thing just became, like, trying to win bike races. And then, you know, you kind of travel around the Pacific Northwest. We did trips down through the States. At the time, bike racing in North America was really healthy. So these were good places to actually kind of show yourself. And it’s another thing I say nowadays is like, just go and race and race as hard as you can and show yourself. If you have what it takes, it’s just going to be inevitable. People will notice you and talk about you. You become like a known factor. And that was what I was doing again, with just like my stubborn, hard-headedness, like, just going and racing as hard as I could at every opportunity.
Gabriel: At this point, you were about 20 years old or so?
Svein: No, I was, again, very late. Like nowadays in the world tour, they consider you washed up. I was 25 years old.
Gabriel: Oh, wow. Okay.
Svein: Yeah, very late. Yeah, like they wouldn’t even look at you nowadays. I had a bunch of success racing around. And then I went in the Canadian nationals, my first time. And I was in the breakaway with the big names of Canadian cycling at the time. And just riding like a dummy. I basically pulled the break all the way and the best guys in Canada kind of rode away and won. But I made an impression on them and they kind of put my name forward to go to the Tour de l’Avenir. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that race, but it’s basically the Tour de France for 25 and under, which it was in those days. Now it’s an under-23 national team race. But in those days, it was a professional 25 and under. And that meant there was guys who’d raced the Tour that year. They were also doing the Tour de l’Avenir, right? So like, I went from a guy who was like racing locally here in the Pacific Northwest, you know, British Columbia, Washington, whatever, doing small little races, racing against guys who are working full-time kind of thing, to going over to Tour de l’Avenir. Like the first time I traveled internationally, anything, and you know, it was a 10-day stage race. I think the most I’d ever done up to that point is like three or four days. And we’re talking like a crit, a time trial, one road race and a circuit race. Like, not really a stage race, do you know what I mean? Like total kilometers for the weekend, maybe 180 or 250k kind of thing. And now you’re doing stages that are like mountains, in the Alps, you know? So far and above and beyond. But I got through that race. I got through, but I was a mess. I’ll never forget, like I was riding with this Ukrainian guy who had like a bent bike. Every day we were out the back just doing like a two-up, two-man time trial to get to the finish before time cut, you know? Every day was an experience for me. And it was just all stuff I’d never dealt with. Crosswinds and climbs and fighting for position, like, I was a fish out of water. I remember I came back from that race just kind of going, yeah, I don’t know if this sport is for me. I thought I was pretty good up to that point, you know, because I had this quick success. And I think one of the keys to being like a good bike racer is to just forget things easily. I don’t think that’s a good quality in life, but you kind of move on pretty quickly, right? And just kind of think that it will always be better. And I’ve always had that belief. I’d say like a week after being home, like I’m ready for next year.
Gabriel: Sometimes forgetting quickly can also be a good strategy in bicycle touring.
Svein: Totally. So anyways, yeah, in that second year of racing, I’d got a stagiaire position with Mercury-Viatel. At the time, it would be like getting a stagiaire position with a World Tour team, right? And again, like just not anything I was ready for. They flew me over to Europe. They hand you like two duffel bags full of more clothing and equipment than I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a really strange, strange thing for me. And I remember I crashed out of my second Tour de l’Avenir there. They sent me home. I’d hurt my back really bad. And basically I was coming home and I was going to just stop the sport. I was like, this sucks, you know? This other guy from the States, Kirk Willett, got in my ear about another team coming up. And that team kind of changed my whole life going forward as to culture within a team and how environment is so important for everything you do. And I rode on this really great team for the next two years, Prime Alliance, which just taught me a lot about what it is to be a pro in many good ways and kind of maybe some bad ways too. Because these guys were more about having fun out on the road. They were just super talents, and at the time you could just be a talent in North America and not have to really work hard. Now the level everywhere is just so high you can’t get away without doing the work. So life on the road was just kind of fun. It was like you can drink and have cheeseburgers at night after a criterium and smash a bunch of beers and then just get up the next day and do it again. Because the racing load wasn’t that crazy, right? It’s not like European stage racing where recovery is everything, right? You’d do like an hour long crit at night and make some cash and move on to the next place, like a little traveling circus, right? So is this such a different environment and vibe. When that team folded, Prime Alliance, I quit for a year because I wanted to kind of live all of the experiences that I thought I’d been missing out on. I was helping a buddy on one of the Gulf Islands with his resort and working, but you know, drinking, kind of smoking some weed and doing these things that I thought I was missing out on, I realized really quickly like after a month of that it’s like, oh, it’s not as fun as you think it is, right? Especially when you have this kind of drive in you, this energy you need to expend, and I found my way back to cycling after that year through like a Canadian team that was trying to become a team that made it to the Tour de France. The owner lived very close to where I grew up and he would just call me every day. I was working a landscaping job, doing a different life and he’s just like, “We’ve got to get you back on the bike.” I get back with them and have kind of a breakout year. Yeah, it just sent me on this journey. Like, with that team I had some of my best results traveling down South America and racing all over North America. It was just this great time. I was like, it’s some of my fondest memories of racing. But again, in 2008, the crisis hit here and that company was very reliant off of the construction market. And so, yeah, it folded.
Gabriel: Which company was that? Who was the sponsor?
Svein: It was Symmetrics, but the main money was coming in from a company called Westland. It was like this special form board for concrete. You know, when you pour concrete, it had this kind of layer on it where you could re-strip this plywood multiple times without it, like, shredding the plywood. So, you know, you could buy like this whole schwack of reusable plywood for when you pour big concrete foundations and stuff.
Gabriel: Oh, I see. Okay. Very odd sponsor, I would say.
Svein: Man, that’s cycling in general though, right? Like, we look at all these brands, they’re all affiliated, but the main guy behind it is usually something not at all affiliated with cycling. You know what I mean? It’s like most of these teams have like some private guy that is putting in the most of the money, right?
Gabriel: Sure. I basically grew up being a very big cycling fan. So, when you say European sports, I totally relate to that. And I had a dream of riding the Tour de France. This dream did not go anywhere at all. But as a kid, I was really into the riders and the teams. At least with the sponsorships, you could say that a good number of them had something to do with maybe consumer products or something that it would benefit them for a bunch of racing fans or people in general to find out about, like, I don’t know, a supermarket chain or a candy bar or something. So, it just seems like something that allows you to reuse plywood on concrete slabs, it just seems bizarre even in that context.
Svein: You’re 100% right, but it is funny. Like, think of Mapei, one of the biggest cycling sponsors for however many years they were around.
Gabriel: Right.
Svein: I mean, what are they? They’re tile or they’re like a grout…
Gabriel: Yeah, Mapei makes all kinds of products for the construction industry.
Svein: So, it’s a similar thing, right?
Gabriel: It’s true. There are a number of construction-related sponsors of cycling teams now that you mention it, like Home Depot type equivalents in Europe, I think.
Svein: Yes, exactly.
Gabriel: Castorama had a team, I think, BigMat.
Svein: That’s right.
Gabriel: Maybe there’s a construction… Yeah, people who are into construction like cycling, I don’t know. That’s a good point.
Svein: I think so, yeah. But anyways, when that team folded, I had one of my best years in 2008. So, I went to the Olympics, and then I was second in the World time trial in Varese. Like, a real breakout kind of a result for me. That was like a big deal. And at team Garmin-Slipstream was Jonathan Vaughters, who I’d been a teammate with on Prime Alliance earlier in my career. And he was talking to me about a contract. And, you know, up to that point, I’d just been so sick of, like, the stuff I’d constantly heard in Europe and the experiences I’d had in Europe. Everything was doping, everything. So, Europe was never really on my radar. It was just one of those things that wasn’t really for me. But it was interesting because at a certain point, you kind of run out of options in North America as far as, like, what’s interesting and what can actually pay you. And it’s not to say it’s, like, all just about money or whatever. But at a certain point, when you’ve put so many years into this sport, you can’t just do it scraping by every year, right? And at that point, like I remember at Worlds, I had to sell one of my road bikes. So, here I am, like, I’ve just been second the day before in the time trial at the World Championships. And now I’m standing outside at one of the main vendor areas where all the people, you know, that come to watch the World Championships are walking around. And I’ve got a sign on my road bike and I’m trying to flip it. I needed cash, basically, to make it through the winter.
Gabriel: Amazing.
Svein: You know, that’s the status of, like, this professional life, right? Now, I always think back, that represents my life as a cyclist so much. When I had this offer, I wasn’t super interested. And everyone thought I was insane, you know, to just be mulling this idea of, like, a World Tour contract for two years. It was a two-year deal. I eventually signed, because I was just like, well, worst case scenario, it’s two years in Spain. I get to go and, like, travel around Europe and see what that’s all about, right? So I went for it, and before you know it, that becomes your life. You really struggle like I did in the first year, just adapting to European racing and then just the life. But then once you get it, it’s just like, ah, it hooks you. And then 10 years go by and you’re like, you’ve been a pro for a long time. And you’re just like, where did all that time go? And this is, you’re just a different person and, like, I have zero regrets about any of that stuff. It was an amazing time. And I was really fortunate because I think I came in at a good time when the sport really was evolving a lot. And I was very fortunate to be on some great teams as well, like with some really good cultures. So they kind of allowed me to be who I am. And I don’t think that happens so much nowadays. People have this kind of notion that maybe the guys at the top, the Pogačars and the Vingegaards and Evenepoels, they’re just so talented that it just comes so easy. To be a Grand Tour winner, for me, it’s kind of slavery, actually. I think for most of those guys, to be in the top five, it’s just such a different life. I’ve seen it. You know, I’ve seen the dedication and discipline it takes. And that’s just next level. And for me, there’s no money that that’s worth. That’s just my own choice, my own kind of view. I love my position as a domestique. I knew what I had to do. I had some amazing days that allowed me to, like, really be free. I was always as good as I could be on that day, but I didn’t feel any real pressure. Whereas like a GC guy can be in the Tour de France. He’s been fighting for the last 13 days. Every day he has to be on top of it. Every day he has to fight in the final. Everything is, like, switched on focus for those 21 days. And if he feels bad one day, like that is the nightmare, right? One of the things about being a domestique is like you have bad days and, like, you just have to like switch off and go like, well, I’ll get through today and then I’ll be effective tomorrow. I’ll be able to help tomorrow.
Gabriel: You mentioned riders have good days and riders have bad days. What I think is really crazy and I don’t know… I don’t know if you want to comment on this, because I always suspect some kind of doping, but Tadej Pogačar, in the 2025 Tour de France, did not lose a single second the whole Tour to the second place rider, who was Vingegaard, or to the third place rider, the young German Lipowitz. You know, as someone who followed the Tour a lot, that was actually one of the great things back in the day for me is that even your favorite writer would sometimes have this bad day and it’s like, “Oh my gosh, he’s struggling, he’s losing time!”
Svein: Some drama, right? Yeah.
Gabriel: Yeah, there was drama because maybe they attacked too soon, maybe they just had a bad day, whatever. I became very skeptical about the sport. When the whole Festina thing happened, it was for me like, “Oh gosh!” I always knew there was some doping, but the level was crazy.
Gabriel: For those who don’t follow professional road cycling, the so-called Festina affair was a doping scandal that began three days before the start of the 1998 Tour de France, when an employee of the French Festina team was arrested on the French-Belgian border. In his van, customs officers discovered EPO, anabolic steroids, and other banned substances. The ensuing investigation uncovered systematic doping among many teams in the Tour de France. Festina was expelled from the race and several other teams withdrew as well. The Festina affair is still considered the sport’s biggest doping scandal.
Gabriel: I mean, what do you think of Tadej not losing a single second? It’s, for me, unheard of. I mean, historically, I don’t know if this has ever happened in the Tour. So I wanted to hear, as someone who has been in the peloton, what can you say about that?
Svein: You know, the unfortunate part about our sport is that it has such a bad history. And I personally don’t think human nature changes all that much, right? We all want clean sport. The beauty of sport is that we all can feel what it is to feel when you go up a climb. We all want to believe that there’s certain people that just stand out. But unfortunately, history hasn’t really shown us that that’s always the truth, right? I hate to speculate, but unfortunately, we have always been, you know, shown ten years later, the madness that was transpiring at that time. So I think back to, like, Tyler Hamilton’s story, you know, around the whole U.S. Postal, Phonak days. You know, you mentioned the Festina affair, prior to that, right? I mean, it’s just been these constant stories. And when I read those accounts, I’m just fucking blown away at the extra energy and the madness. Like, you couldn’t write a fictional novel with the kinds of things that these guys were doing, right? Like, you couldn’t come up with some of the scenarios and the things that they were doing to keep it away from the doping control.
Gabriel: Right.
Svein: You know, I think of like the U.S. Postal bus pulling over on the autopista, the kind of faking a mechanical breakdown so that the guys could do their blood bags in privacy out in the middle of nowhere, right? I mean, it’s just stuff like that. You’re just like, “Yeah, okay, I guess that’s what you did.” I still have friends that race in the world tour, guys that I know are clean. Like, I will say through all this is like, everyone has this perception that everyone’s dirty, or like the top 20 or whatever. And I don’t think that’s the case at all. It’s just one of those things that certain people are always going to take the risk of whatever that is, whatever the latest thing is. And there’s some great clean performances.
Gabriel: It seems like really slavery being a domestique or, you know, one of the lesser known riders. And it’s also so painful. The attraction to performance enhancing drugs, I can see how people can go from, hey, I’m clean to something else just one step at a time because the pain that they have, you start to get treated for the pain and then it evolves from there.
Svein: I’ll never forget one of the best guys I worked with over the years was a sports scientist called Allen Lim. This was in my early days in Garmin-Slipstream when I was getting my head kicked in over Europe. And I was pretty disillusioned by the whole thing. This guy worked with Floyd Landis. He’d seen all the guys. He’ll admit it to this day, like he worked with guys who were doping and that was just the reality of the time. And he said straight up, he’s like, “Yeah, you know, like when you look at those numbers,” and everything like that, he’s like, “On your day, you know, if the stars align, you have a bit of luck, you’ve done everything you can in training on that one day, you can still beat all those guys.” And that was like an epiphany for me, because like at that point I was getting pretty down and really struggling in that first year. Pretty downer, and to hear from him like a guy who was being completely honest with me like, “Yeah, this is happening. These guys do this and that. These are the performances that come of it.” He’s like, “But you, you can win some races.” I did win races. I did win some World Tour races in my career. And those are moments I’m really proud of because I chose the clean path and I’m not trying to pretend like I’m some great martyr or that I’m better than those guys because of that choice. I didn’t come over as a young man with that sport being everything in my life. You mentioned it earlier, like those decisions that slowly erode into that bad decision, right? What is it like when you come over and your dream from the age of 13 has been to be in the Tour de France and now you’re 21 years old and you can’t even hang in the bunch. And the older guys are like, “Hey man, get your shit together. Like, this is what you gotta do. This is what we’re doing.” Right? Who am I to judge that guy? Because that was not me. I came over as like, I couldn’t care less if I made it through that two year contract. I was lucky because that also freed me and allowed me to kind of get through that first year and focus and find my niche within that team. And so that’s part of like that choice of becoming a domestique is like going like, well, I can’t do what these guys are doing day in and day out just pinning myself. I also didn’t want to trade everything in my life for this sport. I love it, but also I didn’t want to finish being completely buckled and a broken human, right? And like I said, I would never really judge those guys. The only issue I have is when I hear them say like, “I didn’t have a choice,” after the fact. And it’s like, no, we all have choices. You can decide or not. Just come forward and say like, “That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the best cyclist.” If we’re going to talk about Pogačar, like, I cannot fathom what he’s capable of doing on a bike. He’s a GC guy that is not afraid to go and rip Paris- Roubaix. The guy could have won Paris-Roubaix this year if it wasn’t for like just piling it into one of those corners on those slick cobbles. That could happen to anyone. That is just a phenom of a cyclist. And I think every generation, every 20 years, we have these kind of amazing specimens that just come along and totally, yeah, just flip the script. And I hope that this isn’t a period where we hear later a bunch of bad stories. You know, it was chalked up to a lot of nutritional changes and technology changes. It doesn’t sound like you’re convinced, but yeah.
Gabriel: Yeah. You’re the pro, but I look at it as the number that makes the most sense to me is the watts per kilogram that you can output. They have people in a lab and under perfect conditions and what is humanly possible when you’re clean, let’s say. And that number, it’s hard to get past six watts per kilogram. And so then you see, on Mont Ventoux this year, it’s a really hard mountain. And when you see how fast these guys are going and then you look, everybody publishes their numbers and you’re like, Vingegaard and Pogačar averaged like 6.5 for the entire climb. I’m an engineer. I look at the numbers and I just go, it’s just really hard. How can you do this?
Svein: Totally fair.
Gabriel: Multiple people did it this year on Mont Ventoux.
Svein: You’re right. The numbers are the numbers. I think one of the things you can look at, I’m not sure if it was on the Hautacam, I think Bjarne Riis still has the record, right? There was a guy who was running 60% plus hematocrit.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Svein: It shows you like, okay, he also wasn’t a slouch probably in the training department, but that was a guy that was truly taking it to the next level in the doping and he still has the record over what I think is like the world’s best ever cyclist period.
Gabriel: Yeah, that’s true. That’s one record that is good. A lot have fallen recently.
Svein: It’s one guy we know really was doing a lot.
Gabriel: Yes.
Svein: I just want to add one positive spin. I will say like from just my time, the world of nutrition has changed a ton. And I’m not going to chalk it up and just be one of those naive guys like, “Oh yeah, it’s all about the carbs.” But I will say like most guys arrived pretty fatigued and close to bonking on a lot of those big climbs that we’re seeing those insane performances on. In my day, you’d be pretty stoked if you got 40 grams of carbs per hour in you. And they’re now like able to get in like 100, 120 grams of carbs. My point is, is like that one-off laboratory experience you’re seeing is now repeatable on like the fourth climb of the day, because of the way they train for this, the durability aspect of training. And on top of that, like I just know from training, I kind of follow what these guys are doing. Like I said, friends that are still racing, and the training is kind of next level. They’ve truly lifted it and you can chalk that up to a million things. But I will say, like, that sport has always been at the epitome of like pushing the boundaries of human physiology, doping or not.
Gabriel: Just to round out your time as a pro, I think it’s crazy that you won the Canadian National Time Trial Championship in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, ’11, ’12, ’14, ’17 and ’18. That is insane. I know you’ve been very, very humble about your performance and obviously, a big tour, it’s a huge thing, but that is an amazing accomplishment. So I want to make sure that gets set as well.
Svein: Well, I always love time trialing and something I saw is very important. It’s a discipline I love and you don’t get a lot of opportunities for good time trials. And your national championships was always a good one. 40k, I love that distance, right? That 40, 50k kind of range and I’d put my all into it. And yeah, I had a good lucky run over a bunch of years.
Gabriel: Lucky run, come on now!
Svein: Yeah.
Gabriel: You rode three Tours and were part of a team time trial that won a stage. So you got that experience as well in the Tour. Amazing.
Svein: Yeah, and I did seven Giros. That was actually seemed like the bigger chunk of my life was spent in Italy. I love that stage race and I was really fortunate to do all those and I still had very fond memories. Obviously, the Tour is like the big spectacle, but I would say like the Giro is the big one for me, like just as far as experience and yeah, an amazing race.
Gabriel: Yeah, and the variety of mountain passes in Italy is actually unrivaled, I think.
Svein: It’s insane.
Gabriel: It’s just incredible.
Svein: Yeah, it’s such a beautiful part of the world, eh?
Gabriel: Yeah. Before your pro time, you had this dream of just touring forever. And did you do more touring after you decided to stop the professional circuit?
Svein: I got pretty tired of the standard training practices. You know, I lived in Andorra, and guys would just go and do like the same climb 10 times. Hit “lap,” you know, and try and smash it up some climb. And that’s great. That works. But I felt like that was too much like a gym. So I’d load up the bikepacking bags on my road bike and I’d ride across the Pyrenees, over to the Basque Country, and ride back, spend four or five days on the road just smashing out big days. And it just brought this love of what I originally started doing this all for. These great moments out on the Pyrenean roads and oh, it was just such a great way to do the volume training. It was part of what I had to do so much. It just changed everything for me to get back into that mode. So it was funny, you know, towards my latter years as a pro, I would do these big blocks where I’d just kind of tour over to wherever. I’d just pick like a new place. I would have gone across the Pyrenees probably like five or six times in those years.
Gabriel: This wasn’t gravel. This was road, like the classic climbs. Tourmalet and Aubisque?
Svein: It was a mix. Yeah. So I would do a road one and then I would do like a gravel route. I’d like try and build new routes and loops and all that kind of stuff. And I spent, yeah, I would say in the last like three to four years in Andorra, I spent so much time just, like, doing a lot of my training on the gravel bike. And it was funny because I was just like, I couldn’t believe some days I was like, I’m getting paid to do this? Gee, I wish I didn’t have to do the racing, you know? Because at that point, you know, you’re just getting kind of tired of the grind on the road, like the traveling and all that stuff. And I’d come home and get recharged a bit and then go on some wicked gravel tour, like living like a bum up in the mountains. And then you’d be back on the bus again and friggin living that life of a pro, you know, and it was just such a contrast it was becoming. That was part of that whole thing of retiring. You have kids and I wanted to be around. And at that point of racing, it was becoming these training camps to grand tours to training camp. You’re just with the way so much, right? So I was kind of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and yeah, kind of made my way. Long story, how we ended up back in Canada, kind of living in the mountains and doing lots of the stuff that I love, which are just like big, epic rides. You know, I say like gravel or road, it doesn’t really matter to me. As long as there’s an exploring component, then I’m pretty happy.
Gabriel: It’s so cool that you did bike tours while you were a pro. That’s very unusual, I would say.
Svein: Well, I will say I was lucky the team I was on GreenEDGE, which is now like Jayco-Alula, They were just this Aussie crew and they were so good with me. They knew that I was very disciplined, but I just had a different way to approach things. They just allowed me to be who I was. And so I worked with this great sports scientist, Marc Quod. And I remember when I was pitching this idea, no one really liked outside-of-the- box thinkers at that time, you know. But I just said, “Look, I’m going to just start doing volume and I’m going to tour and that’s just how it is.” I also have to state, like I didn’t care much about the typical, you know, like they always said, like in contracts, like, oh, you know, no skiing and all these outside-of-the-sport activities, right? I didn’t really care about that. I would ski all winter and just kind of do my own thing because I was always like, well, if I make the mistake, then that’s my fault. And I didn’t really care what anyone else thought. Like if the management didn’t like it, well, so be it. If they want to get rid of me, then that was a place I didn’t want to be anyway. I was ready to stop like every year of my career. I was ready to shut her down every year, so that allowed freedom and doing what I was doing.
Gabriel: Yeah, your lack of caring really set you free. What an amazing experience. After your pro time, you must have kept competing at some level. Most professional riders have that instinct to do something like that. So what about yourself?
Svein: Funny question because like when I stopped, I was like, no, I’m not going to be one of those guys. I had zero interest in like becoming a gravel privateer or whatever the hell they call themselves. You got to race a lot and it was also not really interesting to me anymore. But it’s funny, a few years go by and you also can’t deny who you are, right? Like you are this person and started riding more again. Not that I ever stopped riding, but I just started getting more kind of interested in these like bigger, kind of more epic loops around my area here in BC where we live. And then, you know, you see there’s kind of, I remember there was this race every spring, it’s called The Buckshot. And it’s always, like, it’s a new course every year, and it’s 400, 500K kind of thing with a ton of climbing. And I was like, oh, that’d be kind of interesting. You know, just go for a day out, right? Get the bikepacking rig sorted out and I did that and I was pretty hooked. I was like, oh, yeah, I had a really great time with that. And then we had this 1,040K race here in BC, kind of goes through my backyard, called the BC Epic. And I’d always said, “I’m never doing that shit where you don’t sleep and ride way too long.” Like, I’m like, that sounds like the worst. I spent a lifetime doing that stuff. Like, and I got to sleep. But then sure enough, it just becomes this kind of obsession a bit. And I did that. And I just, as much as I despise the no-sleeping bit, there’s just something about it that is just so, yeah. So kind of it just grabs you. So, you know, I did a few other events, but nothing crazy like in the sense of like a calendar or any kind of big plan. It was just, if it worked out, it worked out. But then the Tour Divide snuck into my radar this fall. And yeah, I put a lot into that Tour Divide. Unfortunately, I started sick. I started up in Banff there. We traveled up with the kids and they were both hacking and coughing and whatever they had I started with. And that is something I was really going for. I was pretty keen on setting the fastest known time there. And you go flat out those first few days and whatever sickness I had, I just drove it deeper in. And I would have gone like 10 days, made it down to Salida, Colorado, and I was just a mess. So I had to pack it in on my first Tour Divide. Pretty shattered by that. But I also knew from just years of experience, I was not doing myself any good. It was very hard decision to make, but zero regrets about making it. It was by far the right decision.
Gabriel: So you did not see Antelope Wells, New Mexico?
Svein: No, the beautiful gate there that I was dreaming of seeing. No. And the big halogen floodlights and the barbed- wire fence. No, didn’t get to see that. We’ll see. One day.
Gabriel: You never know.
Svein: You never know. Yeah.
Gabriel: I have a feeling, maybe another attempt ahead.
Svein: You never know. It’s one of those things. Like, it’s a very special moment you get to actually do something like that. It takes a lot of time and takes a lot of dedication, because once you start something like that – and what I mean “start” is like it’s months out – you realize you do yourself a disservice if you don’t respect what it is, right? You don’t want to go up there and disrespect, like, how big that thing is. Yourself as well. You have to look after yourself. And so you need a certain amount of fitness and preparedness. I will say, having done like a big chunk of it is just such a huge help. Having ridden and knowing kind of the nature of that route in that course, it’s a huge benefit. I hate to be like, oh yeah, I’m going to do this or that again. I don’t know. But if I did, it’s a huge, huge benefit to know what you’re getting yourself into.
Gabriel: Yeah, of course. Yeah, your illness shows just how unpredictable or beyond anyone’s control something like that is. It’s important to respect that.
Svein: Totally. And you know, it’s funny that whole year prior, I hadn’t been sick. Kids always get stuff at school and my immune system was just always firing on all cylinders. I thought I was pretty invincible and sure enough, that’s the time. But you know, if there’s going to be a time you get something like that, it is that time, right? There’s a lot of stress coming into it, just like with the preparation and the travel, and there’s so much you have to get ready. At home, you’re leaving for over two weeks, right? In a sense, even if you nail the time on either side, there’s two, three days of getting there, getting home. So yeah, there’s a lot to think about when you take on that expedition.
Gabriel: I noticed that you are a 7Mesh ambassador. It’s a Canadian company, so that’s probably how you got involved with them?
Svein: They’re Canadian guys. They have a background in that world. Like, some of the guys like at the very top of the company came from Arcteryx. So they have a real good understanding of that kind of outdoor clothing. But the big one is, they’re all from Vancouver and Squamish, which are like two areas where there are rainforests, right? So there’s a reason they’re so beautiful. It rains so much. So they have a really good understanding of the kinds of conditions we have here in BC. And they’ve always been like such good supporters of myself. And when I retired, they reached out to me to have a relationship. And for me, that always means a lot, you know, when you’re not having to go search and ask people for this and that. They came and kind of sussed me out and wanted to work with me, you know, just because of my history. And so much of their stuff resonates with the kind of gear and the clothing that I really like because it’s well thought out for gnarly conditions. And, you know, when you’re taking on something like the Divide, the last thing you want to be worried about is if your jacket is going to save you in a nasty lightning storm, you know? You know, they make these jackets where you just feel like you’re in your own little bubble, your own little climate. You don’t even notice it when it’s just, just nuking it up there here. Just fine.
Gabriel: I have to say that brings the story full circle because imagine that comfort you were feeling in the downpour in your 7Mesh jacket compared to those first tours that you took.
Svein: Oh, geez.
Gabriel: When it was raining just as hard and I don’t know what you had, but I don’t think it had the waterproof rating that these jackets have.
Svein: Well, I’ll tell you what, on my first time up to Alaska, I thought I was going to do everything old school. I didn’t bring any modern synthetics or anything. I was wearing like wool. Like, I don’t know what I was thinking. Basically, I had for sleeping, I had like a wool blanket and a tarp and I would build fires so that I could like keep things dry at night. I made it so hard on myself. I’d have to cook by fire. It was incredible. I think back now, and I’m just like, what was I thinking? My second trip, I had it fully dialed. Like I had all like a good tent, cook stove, proper sleeping bag, all that stuff. But you know, that’s all stuff you do in your youth when you’re stubborn and trying to prove things to yourself or whoever. Glad I did it, but I definitely wouldn’t want to do it now.
Gabriel: No, and all that hardship would come in handy for you down the road.
Svein: Yeah, definitely. I do have a book called We Will Never Be Here Again. If people are interested in this story at all, I think they would probably enjoy that book.
Gabriel: Is that just the story of what we have discussed here, how you got into cycling and your pro time?
Svein: Yeah.
Gabriel: It’s your life.
Svein: Yeah, it’s my life. It’s my entire life.
Gabriel: Oh, excellent. That’s something to check out.
Svein: It’s on Amazon, but also there are a few companies that sell it as well. You can get the physical copies there. 7Mesh carries the book.
Gabriel: Of course they do.
Svein: Yeah, I’m a big fan of those guys and they’ve been really good to me.
Gabriel: The transcript for this episode is available on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist website I welcome feedback and suggestions for this and other episodes. You’ll find a link to all contact information in the show notes. If you would like to rate or review the show, you can do that on your favorite podcast platform. You can also follow the podcast on Instagram. Thank you to Anna Lindenmeier for the cover artwork and to Timothy Shortell for the original music. This podcast would not be possible without continuous support from my wife Sandra. And thank you so much for listening. I hope the episode will inspire you to get out and see where the road leads you.
Svein: So, I was always lucky that I was on a team that wanted me there, or at least I think so, anyways.
Show Notes
Svein’s new book, We Will Never Be Here Again: Adventures in cycling from the wilderness to the Tour de France, is available on Amazon and other selected retailers.