The October and November 2024 Strava KOMs on the Stelvio, Alpe d'Huez, and the Mortirolo were the cycling story of the late autumn. Jack Burke — a Canadian cyclist based in Innsbruck, riding a borrowed Scott bike, with no professional contract and no race team behind him — broke the records on three of the most iconic climbs in the sport across a six-week window. The five-second Instagram video of the Stelvio attempt generated 460,000 views. The follow-up coverage spread across the entire cycling media. The pro team interest followed immediately.
The conversation Anthony Walsh has with Burke on the podcast walks through the unplanned arc of the records, the training that made them possible, and the broader question of what the contemporary path from amateur to professional cyclist actually looks like. The episode sits alongside the Jay Vine, Alex Dowsett, and Mohoric conversations as a key Roadman archive piece on the modern professional cycling pathway.
Listen to the full Jack Burke episode →
This piece walks through the preparation behind the records, the trigger moment that started the run, and what amateurs can take from the story.
The Unplanned Run
The most striking thing about the KOM records is that none of them were planned. Burke had spent the spring and summer of 2024 racing the Austrian and German amateur calendar — winning most of the races he entered — but the late autumn was meant to be a transition into ski mountaineering. Burke is also a competitive ski mountaineer for Team Canada, and the original plan was to use the November period to prepare for the World Cup ski mountaineering season.
The Zwift Academy was the bridge. Friends had been pushing Burke to enter for years and he had resisted because he could not motivate himself to ride the indoor trainer. The 2024 edition had a hard November deadline and a structured training plan that fit alongside his ski mountaineering build. He entered. The Zwift Academy training was the formal structure for late October and November.
The trigger came on a beautiful weather day with a turbo trainer that would not connect. After an hour of failed Wi-Fi attempts, Burke texted his coach to say he was driving to the bottom of the Stelvio the next day to test himself outdoors. The KOM was not the goal. The point was to ride the actual climb in good weather rather than fight the trainer for another hour.
The Stelvio attempt was completed in near-snow conditions at 2,800 metres of altitude. Burke crossed the line, knew he had probably broken the record, and uploaded a five-second video to Instagram. The video went viral. The momentum carried into the Alpe d'Huez attempt two weeks later, completed in the same kind of marginal late-season weather window. The Mortirolo followed a fortnight after that.
Three records. Three of the most iconic climbs in cycling. None of them planned. All of them executed on a borrowed Scott bike in conditions most amateurs would have used as a reason to stay indoors.
The Training Behind The Numbers
The training that produced the KOMs was not a secret protocol. It was high-quality climbing-specific fitness built on top of a full season of amateur racing. The Zwift Academy block added structure and intensity. The previous summer's racing calendar provided the competitive sharpness. The Innsbruck altitude and terrain provided the climbing-specific stimulus.
The structural lesson for amateurs is that climbing fitness on the major Alpine climbs is built the way climbing fitness on any major climb is built — sustained aerobic work to develop the engine, repeated threshold and VO2 max sessions to lift the ceiling, and specific climbing efforts on real climbs to develop the pacing, the cadence, and the mental tolerance for sustained sub-threshold work.
There is no secret session. The work is the work. What separates the riders who break KOMs from the riders who chase them is the consistency of the work across years and the willingness to execute hard sessions in conditions other riders use as a reason not to.
For deeper context on the climbing-specific training that builds this kind of capacity, see the polarised training guide and the altitude training piece.
The Zwift Academy Cut
The most telling moment in the conversation is what happened after the Stelvio record. Burke broke the Stelvio KOM on a Monday. He travelled back to Austria. By Wednesday or Thursday, he found out he had not made the first-round cuts for Zwift Academy.
The juxtaposition is the whole story of the contemporary amateur-to-pro pathway. Burke had just produced a result on one of the iconic climbs in cycling that no other amateur had matched. The development pathway he was using to try to access a pro team had cut him from the first round.
The reasons are structural. Zwift Academy and similar programmes assess riders against a specific set of criteria — power numbers across defined intervals, race performance in the virtual format, presentation skills, age. The criteria do not directly map to the ability to break the Stelvio KOM in cold weather on a borrowed bike. They map to a different version of professional readiness — primarily the version that can produce results in stage races as a young rider with a structured team development pathway.
Burke's age — he was at the older end of the typical Zwift Academy applicant pool — was the most likely cut criterion. The framing he gives on the podcast is matter-of-fact. He knew it was unlikely going in. The Stelvio result changed the public conversation but did not change the Zwift Academy criteria.
The lesson for amateurs interested in the pathway is that the contemporary route to a professional contract requires multiple parallel proof points. Power numbers. Race results. Visibility. Equipment partnerships. Coaching infrastructure. The riders who break through tend to assemble all of them rather than rely on any single element.
The Jay Vine Comparison
Anthony brings up the Jay Vine comparison and Burke's response is the most useful part of the wider conversation about the modern amateur-to-pro pathway. Vine is the most cited Zwift Academy success story. He came through the programme, joined Alpecin-Deceuninck, and developed into a Grand Tour stage winner and serious GC threat.
Vine's pathway, on closer inspection, is not the simple Zwift-to-pro story it gets reduced to. He had Continental-level results before entering Zwift Academy. He approached his career like a start-up — Burke and Anthony agree on this framing — building the high-performance infrastructure around himself before he had the results to merit it. His wife was part of the planning. The financial runway was structured. The training, the coaching, the equipment, the location decisions all sat inside a deliberate plan.
The Covid-era contract extension Vine received from Alpecin in his first professional year was part of what allowed him to settle in Europe and develop. Without that extension, the standard one-year contract would have required immediate results in the same season Vine was learning to live in Europe and race the World Tour calendar.
The lesson is that the modern pathway is not Zwift Academy as a single golden ticket. It is Zwift Academy plus a Continental-level results portfolio plus a start-up-style infrastructure plus enough institutional patience for the rider to develop in their first professional year. The complete package matters more than any single element.
The Financial Reality
The most underappreciated part of the contemporary amateur-to-pro pathway is the financial reality. Burke describes years of going without a phone plan to redirect every available dollar toward training camps, altitude exposure, and equipment. The framing on the podcast is direct — every spending decision was evaluated against whether it bought him more time on the bike or better preparation.
The pattern is widespread among the riders who eventually turn pro. The years of personal financial sacrifice during the development phase are not optional. They are the structural cost of the pathway. The amateur who is unwilling to spend three to five years living well below their earning potential to invest in their own development is unlikely to make it through to a contract.
Equipment partnerships fill some of the gap. Burke's relationship with Scott Austria provided the bike and gear that made the records possible. The partnership did not pay him cash. It removed the equipment cost from his budget, which is meaningful but not transformative. The amateur-to-pro economics require either family financial support, a partner income that covers living costs, or extreme personal frugality across the development years.
For amateurs considering whether to attempt the pathway, the honest framing is that the financial cost is significant, the probability of a contract is low, and the riders who make it through are the ones who have committed completely. Half-committed amateurs almost never break through.
What Amateurs Can Take Away
Three things from the conversation translate directly to the serious amateur.
One. Climbing fitness is built from the boring work, not the secret protocols. Burke's records were produced by sustained aerobic work, high-quality intensity, and a full season of competitive racing. The training is replicable in structure if not in absolute power numbers. The amateurs who climb fastest do the same kind of work as Burke, scaled to their capacity.
Two. The conditions are part of the work. Burke executed the Stelvio attempt in near-snow at 2,800 metres altitude. The weather and the cold were part of the test. Amateurs who skip sessions because the weather is marginal are skipping the part of the training that actually develops competitive sharpness.
Three. The amateur-to-pro pathway is now a complete-package game. Power, results, infrastructure, visibility, equipment partnerships, and financial discipline all matter. No single element produces a contract. The riders who break through assemble all of them across years.
For amateurs working through structured climbing-specific training, the Roadman coaching system is built around the same evidence-based framework Burke's training was structured against. For a faster answer on a specific climbing or training question, ask the AI coach.
Listen To The Full Conversation
The full episode — including the deeper detail on Burke's preparation, the Innsbruck training environment, and the broader conversation about contemporary professional cycling — is on the Roadman Cycling Podcast.
Three KOMs. Three of the most iconic climbs in cycling. A borrowed bike. Cold weather. No team. The story is unusual in its details. The principles behind it are the same principles every serious amateur is applying — high-quality consistent training, willingness to execute in marginal conditions, and the patience to keep building the package across years before the breakthrough moment arrives.
