This article was produced in association with Ribble and Panaracer
“Three years ago, I started a job in the City. I was working full-time in finance, 60-hour minimum working weeks,” says Maddy Nutt. “I made the decision for my own mental health and life priorities to leave the role after just under six months and give cycling a go. I was ambitious, but I didn’t know how far I could take it.”
There are traditional anecdotes in cycling about how people become professional bike riders. They often include sport-obsessed parents, kids racing on balance bikes before they can even walk or teenage years spent being driven along motorways to compete in events all over the country. Maddy Nutt’s story is not one of those.
For the British rider, the bike didn’t enter her life until much later. It came to her when she was living in London, deep in a concrete jungle of deadlines, early mornings and late nights spent behind her desk. Cycling wasn’t just a hobby or a pastime for Nutt, but an opportunity for a different future, one that involved embracing the outdoors, being in nature and pushing her body in ways that an office job never could.
“I was really enthusiastic rather than actually talented,” says Nutt. “When I was working at that job, I didn’t have any time to enjoy cycling or train and I found myself just burning out, because I’d spend my whole weekend trying to ride, but not actually being able to recover. I would go back into the office on Monday morning, and I’d be knackered and unwell.”
After years spent at university working for a degree to make a big-city job a reality, many would have accepted a fate confined to a desk, day-in, day-out. As she has proven in her cycling career, however, it is not in Nutt’s nature to follow conventions. When people told her that her dream of becoming a professional gravel racer was fanciful, and questioned her choice to wave goodbye to the career she had worked hard for, Nutt did it anyway. That is who she is.
“I raced for a domestic team the first year and I got experience with them by doing the Tour Series [a criterium series in the UK], which I absolutely sucked at, but it was great fun. I also did a couple of the UCI Gravel World Series races which were my first experience of endurance gravel racing,” says Nutt. “I didn’t have any idea about fuelling in the first race I did. I had only one bar and two bottles and I ran out of water. I was super inexperienced and I plunged myself in the deep end, but I loved it. I decided that type of racing suited my physiological strength. I finished that year doing the elite Gravel World Championships in Italy.”
Nutt’s progression from amateur rider to representing her country at the World Championships in just one year of racing is a signifier of her impressively rapid advancement in the sport. Ambitious and driven, Nutt does things at one million miles per hour, whether that’s securing a job in the City, or her pursuit of success on a bike. She argues that although it may not seem like it, both parts of her life go hand in hand. The enterprising skills she learned in her time at university and in the workplace have helped her secure sponsors and move forward when negotiating contracts with brands as a gravel racing privateer.
“All of my work before finance had been in startups, so I was thrown in the deep end in business development roles. I didn’t have the experience of selling myself to companies, but I think I had enough work experience that I was confident enough to give it a go,” says Nutt. “I’ve learned quite quickly as I’ve been doing this how to build relationships with brands. I actually think it’s made the job of being a cyclist much more enjoyable, because there are more elements to it with content creation, as well as negotiating deals. I would say that the previous work definitely did help with that.”
The 26-year-old’s ambition and drive understandably attracted attention from some of the biggest brands in the sport, with the likes of Ribble and Panaracer supporting Nutt on her journey in gravel racing so far. However, her race results and physical ability on a bike have also played a big part in helping drive her development. She pinpoints a win in the pro category at Grinduro in 2022 as a pivotal moment in her career so far.
“I think that was the first time I’d stood on the top of the podium where the category was defined as a pro race and that definitely gave me a confidence boost,” she says.
It’s not just domestically that Nutt has managed to make a name for herself in the off-road scene. Completing a stacked calendar of gravel events has taken Nutt all over the world – she’s raced in Australia, Mexico and Africa this season alone. Nutt seems to thrive on tough terrain and come into her own when the limits of her endurance are tested. This became clear last year when she won the final day of Migration Gravel Race, a testing four-day stage race in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.
“Winning that stage was another moment where I surprised myself with what I could do,” she says. “I remember someone turning around to me after the race and being, like, ‘You are better than you think you are.’ That was a bit of an eye opener, because I realised maybe I’m strong, but in a different way.”
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, however. Nutt explains that her unique background and late arrival to endurance cycling has sometimes made her struggle to feel like she really belongs.
“I think imposter syndrome has been the biggest challenge,” she says. “I got my first road bike as an adult when I was 20. I’ve always had these thoughts: am I actually good enough to be racing at the level I’m racing? Or talking to brands, I worry if I’m good enough to be asking them for X amount of money or X equipment. It’s quite hard when you’ve not built your way up from a junior level like most riders.”
The common theme in Nutt’s life so far, however, has been exceeding people’s expectations of her. It started when she left a steady career to pursue being a bike racer and has continued ever since as she’s repeatedly punched above her weight in the biggest gravel events on the calendar, against riders with much more experience.
In June this year, Nutt got what she believes to be the greatest reward for the plucky determination she’s shown after taking a leap of faith into cycling three years ago. It came in the form of a race win at Safari Gravel, a UCI Gravel World Series event in Kenya. Nutt secured a victory in the 120 kilometre off-road event, which skirts through Hell’s Gate National Park, two minutes ahead of her closest rival.
This result was a product of months of hard work, including a long training camp at altitude in Rwanda leading up to the event. It was those days spent climbing mountains in thin air which gave Nutt the feeling that her 2024 campaign in Africa was going to be a successful one.
“In Rwanda, I thought maybe my power meter wasn’t working because of the numbers. The friend I was training with was saying, ‘How are you riding like this at altitude?’ I had the most productive week of training I’ve had this year,” says Nutt. “I was there with someone and we were able to ride together every day. The people who hosted us in Rwanda were also really supportive. We had someone pick us up from rides so we were able to ride point to point. The terrain was also relatively similar to the terrain I was racing in Kenya, a lot of climbing, which I think really benefited me when the race came round. I definitely was feeling good but I didn’t know how it would turn out within that race, especially because the course was so technical.”
Against the backdrop of dramatic volcanic rocky outcrops, obsidian caves, rock towers and sandstone cliffs, Nutt powered around the challenging route northwest of Nairobi, battling through dehydration and cramp in the closing kilometres.
“The race started pretty fast and I did crash quite hard, but I immediately got back up and was determined. I knew my legs were good and I couldn’t lose this opportunity,” says Nutt. “I was away with one of the Rwandan riders and on a key climb I knew I could push hard to get a gap, then try to keep everyone out of sight. I paid for it later because my legs were so wrecked and I ended up getting cramps. But because I was winning, I was too stubborn to get off the bike. All I had to do was somehow keep the momentum going and not crash on slippy sand. It was hard and I was panicking that someone was going to catch me. I had a few hundred metres to go and I started crying because I was overwhelmed by winning the race, but also in so much pain.”
As Nutt crossed the finish line and raised her arms in the air, the victory represented the final, definitive confirmation that she had made the right choice by following her passion and heart, leaving behind what she knew in London.
“I was absolutely knackered afterwards and I think I just lay on the ground and had a little cry,” says Nutt. “I also had these kinds of flashbacks in my mind, conversations with people where someone had said to me I would never make the professional side of this, that I was too old, or not fast enough. I was feeling a bit smug, like I’d shown a few of those people that it was worth it and I could get success on the bike. I’ve won a UCI race now and that makes me feel more secure in myself.”
With the prestigious UCI Gravel World Series winners jersey and trophy now in her possession, it is certain that Nutt has asserted herself as a key player in the burgeoning gravel racing scene. She may be a rider who is newer to the sport than others, but gravel is also a young discipline, and Nutt has grown with it over the past three years.
Not only has she secured a victory at the highest level, but the British rider has also become a spokesperson for the women’s side of the sport and has amassed a huge following on her social media accounts and YouTube channel. It didn’t quite satisfy Nutt when she was being asked to apply her strength of will, confidence and entrepreneurial spirit to a desk job, but what the finance world has lost with her departure, the world of gravel racing has gained and become a richer place. Any doubts about her right to be part of it all have been well and truly silenced. The only question that remains is: what can she do next?
Maddy Nutt's Ribble Gravel SL
Maddy Nutt won the Safari Gravel Race riding a limited-edition Ribble Gravel SL which was hand painted by her sister, Tabitha.
“My sister designed the bike, which makes it unbelievably sentimental,” says Nutt. “It’s got a lot of drawings and words that are related to family and friends. There are doodles that remind me of certain things and experiences. It says on the top tube: ‘You do it because you love it.’ If I’m ever in a lot of pain and need some motivation, I can just look down at that. Safari Gravel was the first time I ever raced on that bike, so it was a great way to christen it.”
The bike was equipped with a SRAM Force AXS Groupset with a 38T front chainring and 10-44 XPLR cassette. FKT Parcours Gravel wheels and Panaracer GravelKing 40mm X1 tyres completed the set-up.
