207: Tour de France Champion Tyler Hamilton – the Rocky Road

On today’s episode of ‘Finding your Summit’ podcast, host Mark Pattison, former NFL Player, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist and Mountaineer who has completed the Seven Summits talks with Tyler Hamilton, a former American Professional Road Bicycle Racer and Tour de France Champion. Tyler discusses his experience on doping and how he is helping people ride the right way. These episodes are all about people overcoming adversity & finding their way.

Listen to “EP 207: Tour de France champion Tyler Hamilton, the Rocky Road” on Spreaker.

Episode Highlights

• 02.51: – Mark finds out from Tyler that from where and how did he get into riding?
• 04.04: – As per Tyler, riding bikes gives him a sense of freedom and made him feel so liberated as he got to explore new places,
• 07.26: – Tyler says, he learnt a lot in his early years as he was in a state of steep learning curve.
• 08.40: – “He had that ability to dig deep and not give up”, states Tyler.
• 11.26: – Mark asks, how they pick-up the number one guy and how many other support riders are in those peloton packs?
• 13.12: – In Tyler’s opinion, drafting is so critical in the sport like bike racing.
• 15.19: – According to him, there’s always a fight for big corporate sponsorship.
• 17.07: – Mark asks, what that moment was for Tyler in terms of stepping across the threshold.
• 19.23: – Tyler states, he didn’t do anything spectacular in that next race but he did feel like his legs, body were covered; it was better than he expected.
• 21.30: – Tyler points out, there was pressure to get good results for sure but every team and every rider had pressure.
• 23.57: – Mark questions Tyler about how difficult was that for him when people that were supposed to be in charge, were coming & trying to do blood samples & sneaking around.
• 25.49: – Tyler highlights that he had just kept pushing in the back of his head, tried not to think about it too much and not to let it affect him.
• 27.31: – Tyler shares that he got caught with doping but, was 100% sure, that he isn’t going to tell the truth, because he didn’t want to take down anybody.
• 29.50: – He wrote a book about the whole good, bad and mostly the ugly things.
• 31.50: – As per Tyler, when you tell big secret like that, there are consequences.
• 34.17: – “It’s been a complete career change” says Tyler.
• 35.52: – Tyler reveals that he helps people in managing their money, coaching athletes, cyclists, mountain biker’s triathletes & help people in fighting against Multiple Sclerosis.
• 37.40: – He mentions that MS Global (annual charitable bicycle tour) this year will be held in Bend Oregon in September.

Three Key Points

1. The better we can deal with it, the easier it is for us.
2. We all need to have a kind of targeted on paper like, where we’re going to try to make our move. So, it should be always in the draft.
3. If we keep our sponsors happy with good results, they are going to keep coming back.

Tweetable Quotes

“I might be stronger than you are, but you just have those traits that make you know more swift on a bike & maybe it’s the characteristics of a body frame or something.” – Mark Pattison

“You know, riding a bike, just really, really free really kind of liberated you, you know I wasn’t old enough to drive a car but I could ride my bike.” – Tyler Hamilton

“Yeah, I always found that fascinating Yeah, we’d have to sneak out at night to ride and ride without lights and in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, and then in the middle of winter.” – Tyler Hamilton

“I think at a big engine & I think, you know cycling is all about suffering.” – Tyler Hamilton

“I did have success but I did have plenty of plenty of failure along the way.” – Tyler Hamilton

“We’re gonna put all our eggs in one basket and focus on focusing on him work on keeping him as fresh as possible to the most critical part of the race.” – Tyler Hamilton

“I wasn’t ready to kind of give up on kind of my dream.” – Tyler Hamilton

“If you don’t have a good season, you know, maybe they give you another chance, but if you two back-to-back bad seasons right, then maybe you’re begging for a job, right.” – Tyler Hamilton

Resources/ Links

• Tyler Hamilton Training Website  LinkedIn
• Cando- ms.org. Website
• Black Swift Group