I catch up with Trek-Segafredo star Tayler Wiles. We talk about wages in women's cycling, inequality in sport and her plans for an unusual season ahead.
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Rowman, this week I would like to welcome to the podcast, Trek, Sega Freight-O Pro, Taylor Wiles. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this, how do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness, and our longevity? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch, and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Roman welcome back to another Roman cycling podcast. Roman, I'm super excited about this because today I'm speaking with Taylor Wiles Taylor rides for Trek, Sega, Fredo. And it's the first time that I've interviewed a world tour female professional on the Roman cycling podcast. We've had a bunch of lads on the podcast from the world tour, you know, there's weeks where we just had week after week after week of world tour boys. And we've had a couple of girls, internationals, but we've never had a world tour professional and a cantink of anyone better than Taylor Wiles. It was an amazing chat that you're about to hear. Taylor is someone who started out a professional cycling career with peanut butter. She went on riding for energy 2012, specialized Lulu Lemon, Velocia Shram, Orica AIS and then on to Trek and she is an outspoken advocate for equality, sexual equality in the Peloton. She is married to ex-Irish national champion Olivia Dillon. She is a laugh-a-minute, she's great crack, she's as knowledgeable about cycling as she is likable and affable and I'm delighted to bring you this interview. Before I do, roadmen, I just want to remind you about Patreon. It's over on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. That's the place you get to go and you can make a small donation to keeping this podcast on the road. The podcast is 100% funded from user contributions. So if you'd like to see the podcast moving forward, if you're getting a laugh out of this and I promise you you get a laugh out of Taylor's interview today, head on over there and keep the podcast on the road. We've built some serious momentum in 2020. We're only a year into this podcast. It's hard to believe given the guests we've had, but I want to keep building on it. And I want to get into better and better content. And, you know, at times I listen to podcasts and at times I've recorded podcasts and I walk away from what was the point of that. Like, I didn't serve any point with that. Today's podcast is not one of those. And this is what I want to do. I want to get into the big chats. I want to get into the real chats and I get into it today with Taylor and I'll leave you that now. So without further ado, welcome to the podcast, Taylor Wiles. Taylor, welcome to the Roadman Cycling podcast. Thank you. Nice to be here. Taylor, I'm excited about this, Chas. We haven't had, I think you could be the first female world to a rider we've had on the podcast. That's cool. Yeah, we've had it. So I remember I got a message about maybe like four months ago from someone I'm saying like how could we don't have any girls on the podcast? This is because it's called Roadman. I was like, no, I just don't know that many get a pro girls. I know what the pro go is. So then I was chatting to your wife Olivia. And she's like, oh, you should totally get Taylor. And I was like, oh, it's on. I have to get Taylor. Yeah, no, that's great. I'm glad I'm glad it worked out. And then hopefully now you can I can introduce you to more. I know plenty, obviously. You're my hookup now. I'm going to be melting your brain. Definitely. I got a touch on all sorts of weird and wonderful areas. And if you don't fancy a topic, just give it an all pass. All right. So you grew up in Utah. I did. Yeah. What's that like? I only I have one teammate. I used to ride for an American content team, Stellis, and I had one teammate from Utah. And he was a nice guy, but I remember him just like. indoctrinate me to how culturally different Utah is from everywhere else. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's crazy because there's a million good things they could say about Utah and there's also a lot of just really odd things. You know, you have the mountains and you have the outdoors and there's so many national parks kind of in Utah and close by. And so I got to grow up, you know, I skied with my dad and I always played soccer and was always outside. outside and that part was really nice but the cultural kind of division in that that especially kind of like the suburbs of Salt Lake City. I think the city itself has become more diverse and has become a bit more eclectic but the suburbs are still very much super conservative. Everybody is Mormon and I went to a high school where I think probably 95% of the school were of the faith and I really wasn't.
I kind of faked it sometimes so that I would have friends. But it was very different. And I didn't realize how different it was until I left, you know, when I got a little bit older and traveled around and realized that all the weird cultural nuances of Utah was not real life. And so then I could kind of be... Did you still identify as Mormon? Oh, no, not at all. I mean, I didn't really... I didn't grow up as Mormon. I mean, I have some family members who are, but but they're very open and, yeah, they've always, like it's mostly just my granny actually, and she's like the sweetest person on earth, but yeah, I never really, yeah, was of the faith properly. I just kind of faked it to have friends when I was a bit younger. And so, yeah, but it has an odd place to grow up in. I mean, I have say, I never got into early in trouble because they're very strict. You know, there's no drinking, no sex before marriage. they don't even drink coffee or tea. Like there's no caffeine. It's no fun. No fun. Yeah, zero fun had, yeah, and quite judgmental, but other than that, but yeah, I never got into any trouble. So how does that work? So I've obviously grown up in Ireland and we're changing a lot in the last 10 years culturally, we're becoming, you know, a lot more liberal, it's much more open society, but even, you know, I'm my Mitertees, even like if I go back to when I started college, It was a much more conservative Catholic dominated country. What's sort of your relationship with the Mormon face and being an openly gay girl? Did I was too like colloid or did you have to just struggle with that? Yeah, I think when I was younger, I actually didn't, I didn't realize my sexuality. When I was younger, like I had some idea, but you know, when you're young, you don't often fully know what those thoughts are. And then when I got older, it was more seeing the way that all my friends from high school kind of treated me once they found out about Olivia. It was some, you know, still loved me just the same and some I don't know will ever speak to me again. So there's a bit of a... It's not just so bizarre. I can't even conceptually get my head around it. Like, two consenting people do something that makes them happy. of no concern to them. But it's like it pulls from their happiness somehow. It's so bizarre. Yeah, it's very bizarre. And I mean, I realize they are grown up being taught one thing. And you know, the Mormon church has waffled back and forth with LGBTQ politics really. I mean, at one point, it was, yeah, no gays were allowed at church. And then it was like, okay, gays can come to church, you can't be baptized. And then they did a horrible thing a year or two ago where they said, if you're a child of gay parents, you can come to church and you can be baptized, but only if you disavow your parents, which was just awful. And then they reversed that because it got somewhere backlash. So they kind of changed with the culture, but not enough really. And they're still, they backpedal sometimes to stay conservative. And yeah, it's a bit of a struggle. I mean, I have plenty of Mormon friends who are wonderful and who never treated me different at all, but then there's also the opposite. So it's a bit of a bull. And when I look at the female pro peloton and I compare the amount of, you know, this is a very broad overview, it's not like I've analyzed the entire female pro peloton, but there does seem to be a lot of girls open about their sexual preference in the female peloton. You contrast that with the male peloton who I think had zero Yeah, you're right. It's just like a legit. No, I mean, statistically, it couldn't be. And it's something that I feel really glad about because, yeah, it was such an easy place for me to come out because I came out when I was a cyclist and I literally had no backlash from the female peloton. it wasn't, it was treated like it was nothing, you know, there was no big deal and that is really how it should be in all of society, like it should not be a big deal, like that's the thing, it should just be an, oh, okay, that's fine. But isn't this an amazing part about female sport at the moment, which no one speaks about? It's whether it's soccer, athletics, cycling, the girls are so open and it's so culturally acceptable to be an open gay female in sport, Whereas if you look across soccer, athletics, our own domestic sports in Ireland, Ireland, Gaelic, cycling, I don't know one athlete who's openly gay. Yeah, and I just think it's bad because it's the stereotype that is around gay men and that they're all put in one box.
I've even had conversations with male procyclists where I've asked why don't you think there's any gay men in the pro peloton and they say I don't think they would survive. And I was like, what do you mean by that? Like, how could you say that you don't think they would survive? And they literally think there's no gay men in the Peloton because they wouldn't be able to hack it. They couldn't be a professional athlete. And it's just so wrong that they would even think that and because they're there already, like, yeah, you know, I'm sure like offer like, you know, me and you, I'm sure for having a few beers, we could go true to male pellets on and go gay, gay, gay. Yeah, probably for sure. And you know, I think this is changing the culture. It's slowly changing and masculinity is being taught in different ways. And I think there's more men being taught at a younger age that like vulnerability of the K and like feelings are okay. But I do think it's just been smashed into men when they were young that like you cannot feel and you cannot cry and you have to be a man. And I think that is all the reason homophobia is so bad, more on the male side than the female side and all of that. And I just think it's taking a really long time to undo that damage. Yeah, and I think some countries are faster and better as building platforms to help encourage facilitate people to express their guidance that other countries. My little cousin, I don't know how the cousin relationship works, so it's my cousin's son, so it's first cousin wants to remove or something. But he's opening the gay, I think he's 19 or 20 years old. And he's in Canada, and it's totally cool to be gay in Canada. It's amazing. He's often university and he's having a whale of a time. But he went to visit my cousin in the Ukraine. And it was gay Friday. And he's saying like, I want to go out and celebrate on gay broad day and my cousin is trying to say to him, look bro, it's not as cool to be gay over here as it is in Canada. And they went anyway under much protest from my cousin and he said it was just horrific day like horrific police escorts, like really feared for their safety all day trains having to like whisk them away to secret locations with buses picking them up and he said it was horrendous. Yeah I mean it's incredible the amount of countries where you can still be arrested for being gay and being open about it. It's insane. I think sometimes we take for granted coming from the US where it's slightly more PC depends on what part of the country you're in, but yeah, there's still some places that are very backwards. And I think over here, I mean, just being around Europeans is still a lot of negative gay playing and just like derogatory rhetoric that has swung around and then tell people to say, hey, you can't say that anymore. Unless people start standing up and saying that that's not okay, it's just going to continue to happen and say you're a gay male cyclist and you're on a men's team and they're constantly like saying, you know, negative things like about, yeah, just like a derogatory thing about a gay men, how are they ever going to come out when nobody is stepping in and saying, hey, you can't say that for us anymore? Yeah, I think words really matter. I was talking to a friend today in a completely different context where he was talking about financial crimes. He labeled them as white-collar crimes. And I was like, dude, words matter. When you put the word white-collar on the crime, it somehow takes away from the second half of the sentence that it's now a diminished crime because it's white color. It's like, it's a crime. It's the same thing. But it's the same in this, when you, when it's, you know, little digs, when it's constant slurs, that's compound on somebody's insecurity. And that's, I think what makes it very, very difficult for somebody unless they're very, very self assured or in a culture that makes it easy to come out. Yeah, completely. And I mean, I mean, it's the straight men that are going to have to help, you know, normalize this and make it okay. And that just might take a while. So how did you journey from being a soccer player and an aspiring academic to saying, I love on your blog is reading your blog. And I'm not sure if you wrote it or was it like a get a ghostwriter, but it's like hung up or soccer cleats. I'm like, that's the most American term I've ever heard because I used to be a soccer player as well. We don't say soccer cleats. What do you say football? Football boots. Football boots. Yeah, yeah, soccer cleats. Yeah, I know I played soccer competitively from the time I can remember until I started university and when I started university I kind of had a choice of whether I could go academics because I got a scholarship for academics or I could go play soccer at like a smaller school and my other dream besides being a professional soccer player, which I kind of could see I wasn't quite the level I needed to be able to make that happen.
So I chose academics and went full gas in the university and was pre-med and that was kind of the goal. And then I slowly just started really to miss competition. I was like going in the field house at the university and just like running laps and like trying to beat people around the inside track. because I needed some competition. And I did, yeah. And I missed that sporting world. And we had a friend at the time who rode bikes. And so I raced bikes, which I didn't even know was the thing. So I got my first bike, I think, when I was 19, almost 20. I think I turned 20 by the time I really started riding the bike. And I mowed lawns for a summer to buy this super pink cannon dale. Nice you have a pink goth of legal blood stereotype. I definitely went with the shrink it and pink it model of bike at the time. And I loved it immediately. Like I, yeah, I fell in love with it from the first time I rode the bike. And I didn't just get a bike to ride it. I wanted to race it like immediately of course because I'm so competitive. So then I just jumped in full gas and yeah, I never really looked back. But isn't that such an exciting time? I remember I forged application form in the bank. I told them I needed a car for our university. And I bought my bike when I think I spent like 2000 euro on my first bike. And it was like, your ace nine speed. And like, I was just transitioned from being a soccer player where I was taught I was going to be a pro. And then that dream was like, OK, this is disappearing. And I started uni. And I got the bike, but I had no peer comparison because I had no friends who were good cyclists. So, my upper trajectory, you know, when you're getting started so fast, you're literally like, I don't know where this could end. Like, I could be unstoppable. Yeah, that's the best part. I remember first long ride, I did it like 14 miles and I thought it was like the hardest thing I'd ever done. But the race I wanted to do was 50 miles and it was like two weeks after I got my first bike. But yeah, the progression from your first bike to like how good you can get quickly is pretty incredible. But so are the bunks that you have when you first get a bike and you don't realize that you need to eat when you're riding a bike. Do you have any particularly bar bunks? I just remember like having to stop at a gas station and feeling like I couldn't even like function well enough to like get a candy bar and take it to the register because it's just so spectacularly bonked. And you don't even know that it's hunger at first. like it's just such a new feeling that you don't even know until you're a cyclist, I think. I had one in Toronto. So I actually, I was quite experienced at this stage. I'd done the amateur thing in France and now I was racing full time in the US and I was doing a train and block in Toronto. And I was so poor that I'd run out of money for food on a six-hour train and ride. And I remember hands and knees going like, I'm not gonna make it home, the lights are going out. And I had a Ziploc bag that I had my phone and my keys and stuff in. So I went into Starbucks and I get the honey and I squirt the honey into the Ziploc bag. And I'm literally licking it outside in the car park like a homeless man. I was desperate. Oh, it was grim and people are like, text you go, Oh, live in the dream, bro. Live in the dream. That's pretty incredible. That's a good bong story for sure. Oh, man, it was bad. But I suppose that's a good segue to you gave up, you know, aspiring career as an academic and, you know, my background, I went through university and, you know, I never got to a world or a level like you, but I qualified as a lawyer and then I tried to do the cycling thing and then never really went back because I started just setting up businesses and little things like that. But you gave up a pretty solid career. Like when you're in academia, you know, the next step is, you know, an entry level wedge. Next step is a mid-level wedge. Next step is a partner. The next step is a good salary. It's a pretty nice career path and there's not much risk involved. You gave that up and you traded it for sport, which is a niche sport, and then you have women's cycling, which is a niche sport, within a niche sport. How difficult was that to make that plunge? Yeah, I mean, it's funny when it was first happening. I didn't realize it.
I think I just, because I'd grown up being obsessed with sport and being obsessed with the idea of being a professional and to go to the Olympics and to compete. I loved watching all sports, but especially soccer. I grew up in the era of the 99ers. The first women's World Cup team that was really, really good. Me, huh? Yes. Me and Brandy Chestain, all those girls that were my heroes and posters. And if I could have been a professional soccer player, the route I would have gone for sure because I just loved that. But I had a similar kind of passion for human biology and physiology, and I knew that that was something that I also really loved. So I was okay when I made that switch. I was really focused on my university and really focused on school. But then when I started cycling again, I kind of, I did both for a while and I still continue to love both. And sometimes I wonder because, you know, I still am very fascinated by medicine and I sometimes think maybe I'll go back and it's a long career though to get to like, I mean, it's nearly 12 years from start to finish just to like get through medical school and to be a resident. It's a long time, but at the same time, I would never change what I've done and what I've got to see because of cycling. I think my life is incredibly different than it would have been had I gone the other path. But yeah, I don't regret it at all because it's been pretty spectacular this decision too. And I wouldn't know Olivia, so. And can you make without prying too much and also tell me to fuck off if you don't want to answer is like can you make a living as a female pro cyclist and how many of the female paloton are making a living because we've seen like you know as this was a public record of a lot of the girls are struggling. Yeah, definitely. Right now it really depends on the team you're on. If you ride for our team you definitely can make a living. I would say most of the girls on our team make a, I think all of the girls on our team actually make a wage that you could live on. Just for a minimum wage on the world, sir? Treck set a minimum wage, the same as the men. So that's my UCI rule, but Treck, SEGA Fredo made, did it before. I think the UCI is gonna make it a rule in the next year or two that they're, the minimum salary is equal to the men's minimum salary, but Treck went ahead and did that before they could make that rule. That's good. a minimum salary but it's really low it's like 21,000 dollars. I think that's what the world for women's minimum is. Are you seeing this thing like I know our friends who've raised for our Italian teams and still ride at like pro-contee level and they'll get like a wage of 30 thousand for the year and then they'll say oh well there's a 30 thousand like compulsory contribution towards coaching for the year as well so they have to give their full 30 thousand back. Yeah, that's pretty awful. I'm sure that's happening. I think I've been pretty lucky with the teams that I've raised on. I mean, when I started, yeah, my salaries were super low and you definitely had to like climb your way up the ladder. And I still think there's a lot of women that are on top teams that don't make enough money at all. I think that's fine. Like climbing your way up the ladder is an expectation. Like I raced in France for a division nationality and I got paid 50 or a week and it's like it's shit but you expect it. You're doing the apprenticeship but there is an expectation that if you make it, like you've made it, you're at the top tier in world cycling. There's an expectation that if you make it all the way, you should at least be able to live a middle class life. Yeah and I think that is the way it is now in the women's cellotone. I do think the girls of the very top are they make enough to live better than a middle-class life like they live at least on our team. I don't know, I can't really speak to... You're talking about Lizzie, aren't you just balling around and lumber, 80s? It's so frustrating that the salary is so taboo and that it is like people can't talk about it because I honestly think that if it wasn't so secret, girls would know what to ask for, but honestly, Nobody knows what other people are making for the most part in the Peloton because it has been so taboo and so secret. Thankfully the Cyclos Alliance did an anonymous survey so that at least you could see the ranges. Because I think not every female like in the Peloton has an agent that can negotiate their salary.
And I think those that have agents probably negotiate good salaries, but the girls that are just doing it on their own. I don't think they know what to ask for so often think they're underselling themselves a lot. I guess you want to benchmark it against like someone on a nerd team, you go, well, I'm similar age, similar experience, similar palmaras, similar budget team, you know, I deserve $45, $50k, whatever it is. Exactly. And it's funny because I'm reading Megan Rapinoe's book right now and she's talking about how salaries and soccer obviously were horrendous and so much lower than the men's for so long. And there was also this thing where nobody talked about it. So she's like, if nobody knows what other girls are making, they don't know what to ask for and they don't know what to fight for and it's a similar thing in cycling is I think yeah even within our team it's not like we don't ask each other what each other makes but like I kind of have an idea but you still don't really know. You see what car are driving? Yeah, that's kind of the joke with the men's team. They're always like bringing their fancy cars around and one of them asked one of the girls on our team like oh oh it was I think they asked Lizzie what car do you drive and she's like on a black one they're all like I drive a Jaguar I have a this BMW with this mini horsepower and we none of us really care about cars so even if we made million only good car would be what we spent money on what's right mola driving you came up here in a beamer so I'm kind of BMW flash prick Yeah, he's quite flashy. He is flashy. I've had writing on the podcast a few times. He's always going for them. Yeah, I bet. So, I think there's a problem in not just women's cycling, but there's a problem in male sport and male cycling as well with the way we're generating revenue because really we're reliant on rich businessman to nearly make charitable contributions to run these teams because not getting a return on investment. And I can't believe that we haven't gravitated to a place where compulsory in contracts is people social follow and it's going, well, look, Taylor has X amount of followers. She can help you shift this many bikes we estimate this year, and now they can peg that back to investments. And if it does go that way, which seems to me like a natural way for it to move to a better business model. I think the girls are just so well placed to make a lot a lot of money, because it's just so much easier to have a big following as a female athlete than a male athlete. Yeah, it's true. We always kind of joke that like and the marketing people on the team always always kind of joke that it's easier to market the women's team and we're better at social media for whatever reason. I don't really know why. There's no sort of loca. And yeah, maybe it is that maybe I don't know but and I think yeah, I think that would be a much better model for sure Yeah, the cycling model is broken when it really doesn't a lot of times It's just like a rich man invest in the team and so many teams men done women thankfully trek is I Mean I think we're really lucky because our main sponsor is super solid Yeah, Trek and Segefredo, did you get a Genaba free Segefredo coffee machine for your house? Yeah, I have not but I'm sure I could if I asked. Oh, I won't want their bad ass. So have you been over to Ireland's World Olivier writing? Olivier is Taylor's partner who's former Irish national champion, Olivia Dillon, if anyone just is unsure of what the Olivier references is. Yes, I love Ireland. It's my favorite place to travel and I'm not just saying that because you live in Ireland and you're Irish. I absolutely love it there. And I've been so sad because this is the first year and since I've known Olivia that we haven't gone to Ireland because it's COVID and I miss it so much. I think it's my favorite place to train even though the weather is absolutely nice. But it's so beautiful. On a sunny day, there is not a more beautiful place than Ireland, for sure. I mean, she's from Mayo, so we ride around there a lot. And like, yeah, it's incredible. And her future was a very. Mayo's like a fairy tale. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Kind of Mara and just, yeah, all those play Acole Island. And yeah, it's like a wonderful. Have you raced over her? I did rush them on once. That was really fun. Yeah. How did you get on? That was great. one. It was the first year, I think, in like five years that Olivia didn't win and she was racing for the Irish national team and I was just racing for like a composite team.
And they had the joke that like three stages in and I was winning and they were like, why did you bring her? Like, why couldn't you just put her on the hop on hop off bus and double and let her be a terrorist? I loved the idea of just world tour riders just rocking up to local races. And it's just, it's what's beautiful about our sport as well. Like, and we get it with the Irish guys to come home, like Nick O'Rocha, Dan Marner, Ryan Mullen, stuff when they come home. Maybe they're home for the nationals. And they just decide to jump into like some shitty criteria on a Wednesday night. You just rock up and it's like, all the co-get, the co-boykin, you're like, oh, this is brilliant. Because we don't get to play against lean on Messi. Yeah, no, it is one of the really cool parts about our sport. It is so like approachable. And it's so, I mean, you can connect in so many different ways. And yeah, I love jumping in just like local races or I love doing Ross and on. And there was some really good girls. It was, it was, it was one of my favorite races actually and just beautiful roads. And I got lucky we had a whole week of fun and there were happens. Never happens. You know what, I think like a good, good amateur, like a good cat one amateur can hold the world tour guys on a flash for quite a while. But when they plot the national courses, we went super steep, 16%, one kilometer kickers in it. It's just impossible for the amateur guys to hold the world to our eyes. Yeah, that's brutal. That would be brutal. What's your preparation coming along like for the season to come? Or what's on the cards race-wise for you? Yeah, it's good so far. We were supposed to actually be racing right now. Our first-stage race was supposed to be Valencia, but then it got postponed because of COVID and Valencia was in lockdown for a little while. It's back open again. So we had one team camp in January here in Dania, and now we have another one because we didn't have the race. So yeah, two team camps and then a little bit of rest and my first race is Strata in a couple of weeks. But the team start with opening weekend. So, head news blatch should be, should be fun to watch. Nicely in good shape. I think so getting there, you know, it takes a little bit to come out with a winter and get your snap back. But yesterday we did some speed work. And I was like, whoo, this is what it feels like to race again. So yeah, I'm excited. So will you base yourself in Europe for most of the season? Yeah. So we have a place in Drona. And I'll probably be there most of the year. Unless there's nationals, which I can't really see that happening in the US right now, I'll probably stay in Europe for the whole season. I absolutely loved Drona. Try and get over. It's like you come into Ireland. It's the longest period I'd say in the last 10 years that I haven't been to Gerona because of COVID. So I normally try and get out like a good few times a year. So I'm very jealous of your place over there. Yeah, well, if, you know, we're not there, go yours. Taylor, thanks for taking the time to chat. Yeah, no, it was great. Thank you. And I'll pop all your Instagram handles and website blog down below so you don't have to rattle them off now. So we will catch up soon. Awesome. Cool. Thank you. Cheers, Tyler. Hey, everybody. It's Anthony again. Really quick. I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14 day kickstart challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's Masters Beginner Advanced. There's Meal Plans Shopping List and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoidglings.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoidglings.com slash 14 day.
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