Outspoken - Taylor Phinney

Season 3 of Outspoken kickoffs with Taylor Phinney, longtime Thereabouts friend and first time Thereabouts Audio Wizard in Chief. Taylor has publicly discussed his retirement from professional cycling, but we remained a bit miffed how the American superstar, the media darling who ushered US cycling into the digital era, could walk away at age 29 and the prime of his career. Chatting with Outspoken from Girona Spain, the typically enigmatic Taylor gives raw insight into the confining nature of professional cycling. He unearths his initial motivation for pursuing sport at the highest level – and confronts how reality clashed with that fantasy. “You realize that actually, you’re not like Harry Potter. You’re not the hero of the story because you have to shut up.” –Taylor Phinney For Taylor, sport is like an hourglass: the grains of energy invested simply slip down into energy dissipated. You invest all of your strength, all of your time, all of your soul, and yet you get nothing in return. Taylor explains how athletic’s fleetingness gave way to craving permanence through art. The reasons for Taylor’s meteoric rise and abrupt exit from professional cycling raise questions about what it means to be a great athlete, what it takes to remain one, and what weight we should bestow those qualities. The same properties that instill Taylor with introspection and artistry, that innate ability to transcend his own perspective and consider his life in relation to the universe around him, may be exactly why he walked away from sport with theoretically much more to give. To what degree is consciousness incompatible with competition? Reflecting on his quest to live a meaningful life, Taylor feels compelled to give back to the sport that raised him. And in doing so, he shares how he rediscovered a pure love for exploring on two wheels. If you want to listen to this episode, as well as all past and future episodes of Outspoken, tune in wherever you listen to podcasts. And stay tuned for Scapes, a sonic tour inside Taylor’s mind. The first episode will be dropping here in a couple weeks. Texts from the episode: How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart, by David Foster Wallace. “What’s the Deal, Hummingbird?” by Arthur Krsytall. The New Yorker, January 24, 2022 Issue Website: www.thereabouts.co Guest: @taylorphinney Written, produced edited: @thatisgus @aplevene Executive Producer: @isaackarsen Sound design/Mastering: @bencrannell Music: @builders_tea_ Production company: @hereorthereabouts