Latest / Spokes & Strategy: Marketing the Bicycle / EP 12: Developing the Next Generation of Women’s Cyclists

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EP 12: Developing the Next Generation of Women’s Cyclists · Spokes & Strategy: Marketing the Bicycle

• Brandon Morphew AI: Welcome to Spokes and Strategy, Marketing the Bicycle with Brandon Morphew and Chris Melman of MISO Partners. Brandon Morphew: Welcome to Spokes and Strategy, where the business of bikes meets the joy of riding. Lauren helps lead one of the premier development programs for women's road cycling in the United States. Their education through athletics mission isn't just a slogan. They've said riders are required to pursue a college degree. So today we're talking about development on the bike as a person, what it takes to build that pipeline in the U.S. I'm Brandon Morphew, your host. ⁓ Flying solo today. Chris is still recovering, I think, from Atlas. And I'm super grateful to be able to welcome Lauren here. So thank you so much, Lauren, for joining. Lauren LeClaire: Super, thanks so much for having me. Brandon Morphew: We like to kick it off with a little bit of bikes and joy. ⁓ When you ride purely for you, so this is your ride, what kind of ride is it? Lauren LeClaire: ⁓ that's ⁓ one of those things that's evolved over time, I think. ⁓ Right now, my joy on the bike ⁓ has actually been mountain biking. I found a lot of joy in that ⁓ where when I was racing and competing on the road, was serious, it was focused. ⁓ Mountain biking has allowed me to find the joy in cycling in a non-race atmosphere. And ⁓ that's really been the the best part of it for me, although ⁓ a close second ⁓ is ⁓ not gonna lie. I got on the e-bike in January in Spain when we were in a team training camp and that was maybe the best bike joy I've had in a long time. It's been a long time since I've felt that fast and been able to keep up with our riders and e-bikes are an amazing, amazing tool. Brandon Morphew: I agree with you completely. That's wonderful. I was going to ask, you might've answered the question. What was one moment recently that reminded you of why, you know, bikes and cycling are worth all this work? Lauren LeClaire: ⁓ Yeah, I mean, that's definitely my answer. The trip to Spain that we did in January, the team goes for a couple of weeks, kind of right after the holidays ⁓ and sort of the lead up to cycle cross worlds kind of in that time window where we get a good solid couple of weeks of nice weather training. And I admittedly haven't been on my bike as much as I would nearly like to lately, probably especially within the last year, but ⁓ to really be able to put in some nice miles and see amazing places I had never been before and then ⁓ get to sit down at a good coffee shop or bike shop or something afterwards and ⁓ have a coffee and a snack with ⁓ good people. ⁓ It was just such a nice reminder of ⁓ experiences that I had 10, 15 years before that I really missed. Brandon Morphew: Wonderful. I love that. ⁓ So you've got ⁓ a couple of roles here. You're juggling ⁓ the team and then you're running a company, ⁓ juggling the leadership and logistics. Where do you personally find joy in all of this? Lauren LeClaire: For me, in terms of running the team, finding joy, it's a labor of love when you, right now, right now it's a hard answer on that question where we're frantically scrambling and prepping before team camp. We do a team camp here in Massachusetts in March and gosh, Tim, my co-director and I are usually tearing our hair out. We're waiting for equipment to show up and it's always stressful. ⁓ But once you get into the meat of the season and you start to see the amazing things that these riders are able to do after all of the hard work that they've put in all winter, all year and years, you know, multiple years leading up to it where, you know, they do something that they've never done before. It doesn't have to be a podium or a win or something, you know, hugely significant, but when they have a win and success, it's just the coolest thing to witness and be a part of and feel their energy and emotion with whatever the accomplishment is. ⁓ It's just, I feel very fortunate to be a part of it and be able to support what they're doing. Brandon Morphew: We have a bit of a policy, I guess, or maybe a ethos where we celebrate small wins. That's a big part of our every day is finding those moments where, so I really relate to that as far as like small, like grabbing those small wins, because wins beget wins. That's part of how you build that culture. So kudos. Lauren LeClaire: You have to find those, right? And that's, think, a huge part of the sport. People want the Instagram posts, the podium photo, and to have that big moment. But ⁓ we really try and focus on those smaller moments on our team. All of our post-race debriefs, do a ⁓ one-in-one is what we call it. And we go around in circle with all the riders. and we asked everybody to say one thing that they think they did really well in the race, something that worked, whether it's something just about them or about the team as a whole, and something that maybe didn't go so well, something that we wanna talk about a little bit further, or we'll work on for next time, and really try and celebrate those small things of, hey, I remembered to eat the gel that I had in my packet today. That was a huge win for me because I always forget, and then I bonked towards the end. Great, you've adjusted your process and now that's a step forward. You know, we really try and celebrate like all of those little things and find success on the day. Brandon Morphew: That's great. So let's rewind. I want to sort of get your path into this. So today I'm very fortunate. I'm joined with Lauren LeClair, ⁓ sports director with CCB Women's Cycling. Currently it's, ⁓ correct me if I'm wrong, CCB Kinetic Powered by Levine Law Group. And you're the president of a fourth generation, Steven Benjamin Insurance Agency in Sutton, Massachusetts. You're helping to... Lauren LeClaire: lot of long names in there. Brandon Morphew: It is a long, yeah, but you important to get, ⁓ you're helping build, you're helping build a development pipeline for women's racing. And it's more, it's more than just results. It's about building confidence, building confident and capable human beings. So I applaud you for that. Lauren LeClaire: I appreciate that. Brandon Morphew: How did you get pulled into the responsibility of the team? So sponsorship, leadership, building the program. It's not just about riding bikes, which you're very clearly very capable. How did this all go about? Lauren LeClaire: It was a little bit of a slippery slope. It started when I was still riding and racing. ⁓ I was racing more on the domestic criterion scene here in the US. And racing for what at the time was Levine Law Group. We were a men's and women's crit team. We did the USA Crits series. ⁓ And small little program, a couple of us kind of helping to run it. jumping in here and there ⁓ of, I need you to book this hotel or plan this travel. And I kind of got into it gradually of having more and more stuff to do. And over time, within the next year or two, I was probably racing less and less. It turns out when you start worrying about logistics and sponsorship that it cuts into your training time. ⁓ But at the time I was fortunate to work with Brandon Morphew: You Lauren LeClaire: Frank Cundiff, was running the men's program at the time, and then John Kroome, who actually owned the team. He was the founder of the Levine Law Group program. And John and our title sponsor, Mike Levine of Levine Law Group, were really interested in supporting the women's side of the program. We had a lot of success. The events we were going to, we were really trying to connect with the community and get involved. ⁓ And they liked what we were doing. So ⁓ Mike. in the subsequent years said, hey, want to put more into the women's team. I want to invest in this. I want to grow it. eventually, I was at a point where I was running the team. I wasn't really racing anymore. ⁓ I had a lot of other things going on in my life. It was just, I needed a break. ⁓ So the timing was good to still be able to stay involved, stay connected. ⁓ eventually what ended up happening was ⁓ John ⁓ was moving on to other things from cycling and kind of said Lauren, you're running the show anyways. ⁓ Please continue, take it, do your run with it. ⁓ And so at this point, you know, I'm kind of running the thing by myself, which in hindsight, I never ever, ever would recommend that to anybody. Don't run a cycling team by yourself. There's other people out there that do it. I have actually a couple of friends, ⁓ sports directors who have run programs by themselves and I don't know how they did it or still do. It's just, it's too much work for one person ⁓ and I had been talking with Tim Mitchell who ran the CCB men's program. They had an under 23 men's continental program and that had come out of the CCB club team, which has been around since the 1970s. And Tim had approached me a couple of times and said, hey, I want to start a women's program. What do I do? How do I do it? And I was like, well, I'd I'd love to help you, but I'm kind of running this other team. We talked and we had a ton in common. We had a lot of common ⁓ partners. We were both ⁓ laser teams. We were both riding Cannondales. We had even similar branding. We were both pink and blue ⁓ and had a love of bright colors ⁓ as you can see on my shirt. it just wasn't the right time, right place. It didn't make sense at that particular moment. We were kind of doing very different things. The goals of the team were similar but different. He really had the U23 focus. I really was working with a lot of riders who were outside of that pipeline that didn't race as juniors, didn't race as U23s, found the sport later in life ⁓ that needed a home and a place to race. So along comes COVID in 2020. feel like everybody's story changes or starts there ⁓ where we really had the time to hash out the nuts and bolts of like, okay, well, what could be here, if we collaborate, if we put our resources together, what could we do? And, you know, Tim really wanted to make the most difference with the resources that he had access to. ⁓ We both kind of had some different support to bring in. And so we said, all right, let's try it. You know, worst case scenario, it doesn't work, we go back to doing our own thing, but let's see how it goes. ⁓ And we put together a joint program and merge ⁓ everything and Our first season was 2022. I always mix that up. COVID is a blur of time, but ⁓ yeah, we started that year together and have just grown incrementally year over year since. ⁓ And at this point now I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, how did I ever do this by myself? Brandon Morphew: ⁓ So one of the things, I think you mentioned this ⁓ in, you when you had sent some questions and one of the things that ⁓ I really found interesting about CCB was, you know, the idea that it can be bigger than just a team and it can actually be a development system. what was the moment? Like, when did you realize this is more than just like ⁓ you know, professional cycling team, there's an opportunity here to really feed the sport. Lauren LeClaire: Yeah, so there's not a lot of teams that want to stay in development. You might have teams that start off going, okay, we're small. We're going to work with developing up and coming riders. There's not a ton of folks involved that are building a true pathway ⁓ and supporting riders through their journey. And the goal for us was, how do we figure out how to graduate riders on the women's side to a professional level? CCB has a long history of men who were involved in the club and in the continental team who have gone on to professional contracts at Ryerson Europe. ⁓ CCB has ties to Tyler Hamilton and Kim Johnson and Curtis White and the endless list of successful athletes that come out of CCB. ⁓ We wanted to duplicate on the women's side what the club and the men's team had done. ⁓ with the goal of graduating riders on. ⁓ And we wanted to look at that holistically in that we're not just supporting them with, we're gonna get you a bike, we're gonna get you jersey, we're gonna bring you to the races. We've taken that a step above and beyond where we're building relationships with continental and world tour level teams. We're building relationships with agents who can represent athletes that we can trust that are gonna help them further their career. you know, we're making those introductions and facilitating, okay, here's where we're going to go next. And also having those conversations of what do you want to do? Do you want to stay in race in the U S? Do you want to race Crips? Do you want to race stage racists? Do you want to go to Europe? What's the goal? Where are we going? And then we try and lay the groundwork for each individual athlete of how we're going to help them get there. Brandon Morphew: What does that look like in the day-to-day sort of the minutiae, know, like drilled down to like the individual. you talk about education through athletics. What does that look like for the rider? Lauren LeClaire: For the rider, ⁓ we really try and structure what we're doing with TCB around the academic year. So in the springtime, we actually don't see a whole lot of them. ⁓ There's a ton of teams right now that are just coming off of Valley of the Sun and ⁓ TBC and everybody's ⁓ out west and doing some of those events. Our riders are in school. ⁓ They've got hard spring semesters. They've got collegiate racing that they're doing. We kind of leave them alone until we go to Redlands. That's usually the first event of the year on the calendar for us. And we do a big calendar in the summer. We do a big block in Europe. We usually do four to six weeks, ⁓ being July and August. ⁓ And we're maximizing the time that they have available and the flexibility that they have available based on the academic schedule. They're only in school once. We want them to focus on school first. That's important. And they've only got one collegiate racing experience. We want to make sure that they're getting the race starts that they need to qualify for nationals and to be able to compete on the collegiate level as well. Brandon Morphew: And thinking about support and development, what would you say matters most if you had to prioritize? it ⁓ coaching? Is it equipment? Is it mentorship? ⁓ Access to races? What really changes a rider's trajectory? Lauren LeClaire: The easy answer here is probably a little bit of all of the above. On the equipment side, we're going to get them what they need to succeed. Is it always going to be the best of the best from the top of the line? Maybe not. There's an old CCB is good enough for you that actually at one point I think was in the club jerseys in the back of the neck. Your stuff's to work. it's gonna get you to where you need to go. ⁓ But we really preach the hard work and tenacity and grit of the sport being the more important element than necessarily, you know, what wheels are you on today? ⁓ That stuff's all important. It helps it, it gets us to where we need to go. But, you know, at the end of the day, there's a lot more that's coming from the rider themselves and their attitude and mentality on the day. ⁓ So there's that. You know, for, for race calendar and race starts, really like to make sure we're getting our athletes a diverse calendar. And for us, that's kind of tiers of racing. put them sort of in different, ⁓ groups of, you know, there's, there's sort of the small local regional races where, know, the collegiate races that they're doing where, you know, the goal is go out and learn how to win. You know, it's, the same things that we all went through when we were, you know, baby cat five bike racers. You know, when you go to the local race where like the big dogs don't show up. Okay, great. I'm going to figure out how to win today. You have sort of that middle ground of competition where you should be comfortable in a pack. You should be able to influence the race, but it's maybe not ⁓ a guarantee that you're going to get the win on the day. You're going to have to really put in some work and figure it out and work with your team. ⁓ And then there's those stretch races. We'll send a crew to ⁓ Philly. Classic, which is back this year for the first time and super exciting. That's a stretch race. There's going to be, it's a UCI start. There's some amazingly talented athletes that are going to be going to that. You know, that's going to show some of our development writers, okay, where do I need to be fitness wise to get to the next level? Maybe I'm going to get my doors blown off today, but I'm going to know how it feels of where I need to get to. So we make sure that we are prioritizing a mix of starts. You know, sometimes you're to get your doors blown off. Sometimes you're gonna go stomp around and blow other people's doors off ⁓ and a little bit in between. So ⁓ having a balanced calendar for us is a really top priority. Brandon Morphew: So ⁓ you kind of alluded to it, aside from the podiums, what does success look like for these athletes? Lauren LeClaire: ⁓ Success for the athletes, mean the podiums are great, we always kind of joke, we'll bump into a few on the way, but success for us is graduating riders onto the next thing. ⁓ The goal is never that they're going to stay with us forever. We love when we have riders for multiple years, ⁓ but we don't sign multi-year contracts with our athletes. If I get a rider who's a rising talent, and she's gonna get picked up by a big team the next year or even get Cigir opportunities later in the season. ⁓ Great, that's the goal. I would rather see somebody come ride with us for six months and two thirds of the season and go on to something that's gonna advance their career than stay with us. Cause they're like, I love CCB, I wanna stay here. No, go grow, graduate, go to the next thing. ⁓ That's the coolest thing for us and definitely our metric of success. Brandon Morphew: I really do. think it's fantastic. And I love the idea of, you know, seeing growth. want to pivot a little bit into kind of the business side. You know, our audience is built with, you know, there's definitely athletes there, but a lot of it is the business of bicycle retail, really the business of marketing your bicycles and thinking about like communities because you, you know, you're part of one you've mentioned in our conversations, authentic communities and authentic storytelling and ⁓ You know how that works and I'm a firm believer, but I'd love to hear from you about, know, versus polished sort of like commercial sales marketing, you know, as a way to tell stories and a way to communicate. So what's an example of a story that you've, you know, created or been a part of that's really, you know, helped, ⁓ you know, real sponsor or supported the team. Lauren LeClaire: Yeah, our education through athletics is a core of the stories that we're telling with our sponsors and our partners. ⁓ The goal is that our riders are well-rounded and are going to have something to come back to after their career in the sport is over. ⁓ School comes first. Your degree comes first. And what you're doing always comes first. And we make that work. always teams that will make the space for that. You know, we'll have riders and I, you know, I'll tell sponsors this like, yeah, you know, we went out on a ride at team camp today. And then all the kids came back to the camp house and broke out their laptops and their notebooks and are sitting around the kitchen table studying together and talking about what they're doing in their courses of study, which are all different. Although we had a lot of engineers and, and folks in science related fields, which was super cool for a while. They had a lot of things in common and then things to talk about, but ⁓ I don't know of any other teams that are doing that, where there is a level of community and camaraderie within the team from their shared experience. And that's a huge part of the narrative for us, is that that stuff comes first. I'm already working with riders right now ⁓ where it's like, I want to be successful at this race. I also have a Monday morning lab that I can't miss. how do we make it work? Well, we're gonna get a creative flight and I'm gonna come get you at the airport and we're gonna figure it out. You might need to take a nap, we're gonna show up and give you a snack and do the rest of your homework on the plane. ⁓ These kids, they work so hard and they make it work and the drive that they all have is just so impressive. ⁓ that's the story we can tell to our partners that we're... We're not just chasing podiums, it's not just about the Brandon Morphew: What is a good partner for you? Thinking about the storytelling and maybe it's about social media, maybe it's about other campaigns, other sorts of promotional engagement. What makes a good partner for you? Lauren LeClaire: Definitely a partner that's gonna value that storytelling. think that's important. There are some companies out there where I feel like they don't necessarily know how to leverage teams and brand ambassadors and folks that they're working with. think many have gotten much better over the last few years as we kind of get more into the world of influencers and we're getting more comfortable with things online. ⁓ But for us, It's the folks that really know what they want out of the partners that they're working with. We can come up with things to say, here's how we're going to talk about kinetic. Here's how we're going to talk about Shimano. ⁓ But if we don't have a firm understanding and there's no ⁓ back and forth communication and education process of, here's what Shimano values. Here's what kinetic values. Here's how we want you to talk about us. If we're going to be a mouthpiece and a voice and part of your marketing strategy, we got to know your brand guidelines. We have to know how to talk about you in an educated way. Otherwise, what are we doing? ⁓ We want to be useful. So ⁓ a true partnership where we can really work together to make sure that we're an effective piece of brand marketing is valuable for us. I much prefer that. ⁓ It just makes more sense for everybody. ⁓ And we want to be able to show value back that we're worth the investment, that it made sense at the end of the day. There's a lot of sponsors of the sport in general that are doing it out of labor of love of, ⁓ I love cycling and I love racing and I want to give back, which is great. But if you're a company that's trying to justify their marketing dollars, that only lasts for so long, which is why we start to see so much churn of sponsors and teams and teams folding and it's a tough landscape out there. ⁓ So, coming at it as an mutual partnership to make sure that we're doing our jobs correctly, I think that's super important. Brandon Morphew: I'm thinking of just, you know, like the sponsor relationship and just cycling. I worked in professional cycling for a time and I had, I was one of the most cherished experiences I have, you know, in my career. And there were just amazing stories all the time. There are really interesting things happening all the time. And I think there's a lot of room in there for sponsors. Is there an example of maybe a story or something, you know, like that you, happened, you on the road, something that you shared that maybe someone who's thinking about getting involved in cycling might see as, that is a really interesting story. Like that would be great for us to be a part of something. Lauren LeClaire: Boy, I just picked one. That's hard. Brandon Morphew: Yeah, just what comes to mind first. Lauren LeClaire: I think the first thing that's top of mind, mostly because she's ⁓ really upped her game on her marketing front, is ⁓ looking at what Lizzie Gonzalez has done. ⁓ while we are a road team, we have dabbled in CycleCross. And that has been because we've been fortunate to have Lizzie as a, she's actually one of the original members of the women's program. She was one of Tim's ⁓ first riders before we were even merged. But, You know, she has worked really hard to tell stories about her experience and what she's doing. You know, she has taken the time and energy to really invest in that. And, you know, she's doing that as part of, you know, what will be eventually someday, you know, her own program. You she's been doing it under the CCB banner for a number of years. ⁓ But, you know, she's partnering with the right people to be able to tell her stories and get that out there, which of course has helped our media as well. But, ⁓ you know, she's, she's had such a long history in the sport and she can talk about things over time in the sport. You know, she's been in this since she was a little kid. She's her brother around in a BMX bike. I, you know, I remember going to cycle cross races with Lizzie when she was a little kid and still just as fearless now as she was then. ⁓ But she's, She's really figured out like, here's how I'm to tell the narrative of my season and what I'm doing. ⁓ And, you know, there's only so many writers I feel like that really lead into that and nail it. ⁓ And she has so it's super cool. ⁓ You know, I'd love to see more athletes doing ⁓ more like what she's doing. She's got a pretty good YouTube following and some really neat stuff going on. Brandon Morphew: Excellent. we'll do, I'll get her social profile and we'll make sure we tag her in the notes so that people can find her. ⁓ So let's talk bike shops. you're working with some local shops. you're based in Massachusetts. We have a back in action, fast splits, Brumble Bikes, know, great shops locally, ⁓ but your riders are all over the place. So they're not all. Lauren LeClaire: Super. Brandon Morphew: you know, they might not even be the majority of Massachusetts based. They're all over the country. what can, you know, think about the shops that are out there that are not Massachusetts based, not these folks, but what can shops do either to support you all or get involved with their local, you know, teams, local clubs and really make, you know, cause this is an opportunity. think community building for shops is probably one of the most valuable activities that they can do. What are some suggestions you have for helping? Lauren LeClaire: Yeah, you know, I think it's, there's a lot of different things out there that people have done over time that have been great. You know, I think if I had the creative idea to fix it all, boy, wouldn't that be great. the, you know, the local team and local club connection, I think is super important. And I would love to see more of that revived. You know, there's a whole, Brandon Morphew: This is it. This is the time. Lauren LeClaire: laundry list of reasons why clubs in the US have declined. ⁓ But you know, that support network of a club that rides out of a shop, you know, every Sunday morning or every Wednesday night or whatever it is, ⁓ is really the foundation, I think, ⁓ of the cycling community on the local end. support network of a club that rides out of a shop, you know, every Sunday morning or every Wednesday night or whatever it is, ⁓ is really the foundation, I think, ⁓ of the cycling community on the local end. know, we're again, we're our riders are all over the country. You know, we certainly encourage them to go ⁓ engage with their local bike shops. ⁓ It's different where we can't really do that on a team basis regularly. you know the the local shop ride it used to be where you cut your teeth, you know, you figure it out and you learn how to ride in a group and you learn etiquette you learn, you know how to function on the road and like the basics of going out in a group and learning how to pace line properly and you know, just all these sort of skills that don't happen quite so much anymore. The rides are smaller, the teams and clubs are smaller. Some of that's greater participation issue where it's, I used to work in bike advocacy for a nonprofit. I could go down the traffic rabbit hole of everybody's going to mountain and gravel and things, but that's another topic. Brandon Morphew: ⁓ know, thinking about ⁓ the shop, all putting that hat back on. Outside of the ride, ⁓ very clear, like a huge opportunity for support. I would say, you know, just that's a for a shop. They should have a ride. There should be at least one. And hopefully there's multiple going out and ⁓ different abilities, you know. And so outside of the ride, what are some ways that shops could ⁓ Yes, CCB, but also just in general support local shop clubs and teams. Lauren LeClaire: Yeah, you we've been fortunate to have partner shops who align with brands that we are also partnering with. And that's been a really big help for us in terms of working together in collaborative ways to a common good. know, a lot of the shops that we're working with, you for example, this year we were on a new bike sponsor where we're working with Winspace. who they are trying to really expand their foothold in the US market. So being able to partner with shops who also are partnering with Winspace, kind of in that rising tide flow, it's all both sort of way ⁓ that we can help make some noise for them and vice versa. And it also provides avenues where it's like, okay, well, can we collaborate on events, on clinics and things that are going to draw attention to brands that we have in common? ⁓ That has been kind of our strategy and how we've done a lot of our partnerships, which seems to be successful for us. Brandon Morphew: Excellent. I appreciate that. ⁓ So I think you're very clear about juniors being such an important part of the broader pipeline for cycling. ⁓ Why do you, if you could call out sort of one or two examples of sort of where you've seen these juniors impacting cycling, as far as like this racing scene in general. ⁓ Lauren LeClaire: Yeah, there's been a really strong pipeline of juniors coming up through the ranks. The last few years, feel like Tim and I would sit on the sidelines at nationals ⁓ and watch some of the junior races and go, ooh, what about that one? This one's coming up. And we saw some really fierce battles and top tier talent in some of the junior events. ⁓ And, you know, we never call ourselves exclusively U-23. We don't like to that stamp on it because not everybody finds that junior pathway and comes up the same way through the sport. But the ones that do, you we have ended up predominantly U-23. This year we probably have one of the youngest squads that we've had in a long time because the rising class of juniors that just came through that are now all in their early U-23 years. ⁓ There was just so much talent. actually made it. We had some hard decisions when it came to roster building because we're seeing the national team and USA Cycling invest in junior trips. We're seeing really strong junior racing. ⁓ And on our side, we're doing our part to keep ⁓ junior clubs afloat. We had an opportunity to get involved with the AP Junior team, ⁓ which was nearly in danger of folding. they had such an integral part of cycling history in New England and, know, Tim and I just couldn't let it happen. So, you know, it wasn't really in our game plan to ⁓ kind of adopt a junior team, but that is exactly what we did. ⁓ So, you know, we've been helping run that program. We're fortunate that there's a lot of really great parents involved as well. So we're not shouldering the whole thing. ⁓ think that was not... not something we could take on. There's still a lot of really great folks involved in keeping the day-to-day running for the AP team, but it's so important. And we've seen so many great talents come through. that's half of our roster right now, our folks that we went to. ⁓ to Europe last year and there's all these kids that came up ⁓ through a lot of the junior programs and they've gone on trips to Europe and all over the world with the national team already and they're like, yeah, now we're going to Europe, no big deal. ⁓ They're just doing it at such an earlier age and getting that valuable experience, it's just such a cool thing and it's so important to continue to invest in. think if the US is gonna continue to succeed at the top level of the sport, it's critical. Brandon Morphew: If you could give ⁓ one piece of advice, like one sentence to a talented young rider that's not really feeling like they belong in this racing yet, if there's someone who's coming up and interested, what would you say to them? Lauren LeClaire: I would say keep showing up. I think that is the hardest part of this sport. so many of us have been in that moment where you're going, whether it's the group ride or the cat five race or whatever it is where you're starting, where you're going, ⁓ my God, I got dropped again. ⁓ my God, I got dropped again. Or like I had to chase my way back on again. The amount of time, if I could have a dollar for every time I've been dropped in my life. ⁓ We've all been there, right? But the... The thing that matters is you show up the next day, you go to the race the next weekend, you go to the group ride again the next week, and you don't let that deter you. ⁓ Unfortunately, with faster people makes you faster. ⁓ You will eventually get there if you continue to put in the hard work and the time ⁓ it pays off. ⁓ So yeah, that is always my advice when people are starting out or ⁓ aren't quite sure, do I really fit in the sport? keep showing up. Brandon Morphew: similar question for sponsors, potential sponsors that are sitting on the sidelines. They're interested, they care, they're not really sure how to help. What would you tell a person, a sponsor that's potentially interested but sitting there watching from the sidelines? Lauren LeClaire: reach out and have a conversation. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to jump right into a team title sponsorship. ⁓ At CCB, we're very fortunate that we've had a lot of smaller tier sponsors over the years. part of our ⁓ sustainability plan is that we have a lot of small partners. So that if we lose any one of them at any given time, okay, this one's been here for three years, they're not gonna be here anymore, we're not trying to fill this enormous budget gap and go, ⁓ well, we didn't fill the budget gap, we're not gonna be here next year. We rely on the partnership of more sponsors and partners than a lot of programs, I think, because we kind of try and diversify that a little bit, so that way, we're really only trying to fill those short budget shortfalls. So, ⁓ it's... It doesn't take that much to especially, you know, with smaller teams to make a difference. You know, we're not talking crazy amounts of money or crazy amounts of products. You know, we, you know, maybe this is exclusive to us and how we run things, but we run lean, you know, we ⁓ have a lot of volunteers, we have a lot of help, thankfully. ⁓ But, you know, we're smart with our money. We don't, you know, go and book the, you know, the top tier fancy hotel downtown to go to the bike race. We rent the Airbnb that's maybe a couple miles outside of town so the girls can go for a recovery ride and also have a kitchen to work out of. They don't need to be in downtown two seconds from the start. We can get them there. It doesn't take as much as you might think to get involved. we hope that it's a gratifying and positive experience too. And a conversation never hurts. ⁓ I'm by that on my day-to-day, wearing my day job hat. When somebody sends you a message on LinkedIn that you haven't heard from in 10 years and says, do you want to come on my podcast? You go, yeah, absolutely, let's talk. So you never know what opportunity is going to knock on your door. ⁓ And a conversation never hurts. Brandon Morphew: Fantastic. That's awesome. thank you so much for making time to chat. really appreciate it. ⁓ Thinking about ⁓ places to kind of tune in ⁓ at ⁓ CCB Women's Cycling. that right? ⁓ Pinkwatts.com. Is that a ⁓ to go? Okay. ⁓ And then we'll add ⁓ links in show notes so people find you. Lauren LeClaire: Yes, on Instagram. Yep. That's the one. Brandon Morphew: And if you're a shop or a brand ⁓ and you're thinking about investing in ⁓ cycling in general, whether that's with CCB women's cycling or locally, ⁓ think this is what keeps the sport going. I'm again grateful for the work you're doing and I just ask anyone who's listening who does have even a little bit of interest to reach out either to you or Lauren or to one of the groups that are just down the street, you and that goes for shops and brands. So thanks so much for your time and really appreciate the chance to talk to you. Lauren LeClaire: Super, thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure to get to spend the afternoon talking about ⁓ bikes and all sorts of fun things. So I really appreciate it. Brandon Morphew: Fantastic. Have a great day. Take care. Lauren LeClaire: You too, thanks.