‘The age you enter cycling is the age you remain until you retire’: Michael Woods on still winning at 37 and being the peloton’s father figure

Stage 13 of the Vuelta a España was evidence that in what is increasingly becoming a younger man’s sport, few riders tame steep gradients as well as Michael Woods. A little over a year on from becoming the first man in 35 years to win a Tour de France stage up the 11% slopes of Puy de Dôme, the Canadian national champion smashed the competition up Puerto de Ancares on similarly hellish terrain. “I had Puy de Dôme in the back of my head, and I knew that I had a shot of winning on the final climb because it’s a good climb for me,” the soon-to-be 38-year-old said. After a season of injuries and illnesses, his third Vuelta stage win was a “big moment of catharsis, a big moment of relief.”

Now, with retirement on the horizon at the end of the 2025 season, only a stage win in the Giro d’Italia remains if he is to become a member of the exclusive Grand Tour trilogy club. As he basks in his latest triumph, the 16th of his career, Woods is also becoming more reflective and more pensive about the sport that has been his profession since he was 29. The former international runner, who once ran a four-minute mile, feels blessed to be among a range of athletes exposed to so many different traditions and customs. “Matthew Riccitello is only 22 but you can have really deep and intelligent conversations with him, while George Bennett is really well read and can speak so many languages,” he says of his Israel-Premier Tech teammates when speaking to Rouleur in the summer. “It's the beauty of the sport that it’s so culturally diverse and full of so many nationalities.”

But he’s also thankful that he took such a convoluted way to the top of the sport, going to university, working in burger joints, refereeing hockey games, and coaching fellow track and field athletes. “I’d say I’m unique in the peloton because I’ve worked full-time jobs and lived life on the other side,” he said. “When injuries stopped me from competing [in running], I experienced that moment where the sun doesn’t rise when you wake up and you learn that the world doesn’t revolve around you. I subsequently worked in a bank, ran a running shop, and that always remains in my consciousness, forever giving me perspective and telling me not to take things for granted.” His experience in the banking industry was invaluable. “When you’re a teller, you see wealthy and financially troubled people, and you learn lessons from both,” he said. “I learned how important it is to be aware of your finances.”

Upon switching to two wheels, achieving his first WorldTour contract with Cannondale in 2016, he “felt like an imposter in the sport for so long.” Every day there was something new to learn, but he says he was better equipped to deal with it because he was approaching his 30s. “There are so many complicated, living and administrative hoops to jump through before a rider can even start concentrating on their performance,” he said. “I didn’t have the skillset at 22 to cope with all of that but I did at 29 – it makes me glad that I turned pro much older. Financially I’d have been better off if I started when I was younger, but when I was 19 cycling was at the tail end of its doping era. I feel very fortunate that I didn’t have to cope with that set of circumstances because if someone offered me to dope at 29, I’d have told them to fuck off – but at 19 I likely wouldn’t have the confidence to do so.”

When he looks around the peloton, he becomes even more grateful for his past. “I see a bunch who, in the main, lack a lot of real-world experience: everyone’s very focused and super-driven, skill sets important in the real world, but all most riders know is cycling,” he said. “I was recently reading Alex Dowsett’s book and he said that the age you enter cycling is the age you remain until you retire, and I agree with him because there’s such an arrested development in the peloton. 

“For most people, the world is orientated around them until their early 20s: they go to uni for the betterment of themselves, their parents support them, and they have a roof over their head; then, they finish their studies or trade program and all of a sudden the dynamic flips and the world’s no longer just about them – they find out that they’re just another cog in some machine and they have to navigate a new world.” A cyclist, though, is different. “When they hang their wheels up at 35, they are doing what a 22-year-old typically has to do,” he said. “But cycling’s not alone in this – it’s the same in other pro sports.”

He continued: “I’ve made every mistake I could have made – I lost a lot of money, made errors moving around the world and had crashes. It’s one of the main reasons why mentoring is one of my strongest skills, and one thing I try to communicate to riders is that this is a business. Unlike amateur sport, the reason you ride a bike is to generate revenue and exposure for your sponsors.” 

In offering guidance to his peers, he also tries to reassure them that age shouldn’t define their worth and self-satisfaction – his latest Vuelta success is testament to that. “One of the big challenges facing younger athletes today is the pressure they put on themselves to be performing at 23 or 24, and to be emulating [Tadej] Pogačar, [Remco] Evenepoel and [Tom] Pidcock,” he went on. “I have a good comeback to riders when they say that: I didn’t start racing until I was 25, didn’t become a pro until 29, and have still won really big races. I like to remind them that they have more time than they fear.”