Editor’s note: This story discusses death by suicide.
As pro road, gravel, and mountain bike riders wrap up their final races, something feels different going into this off-season. After two years of COVID-induced scheduling chaos and safety concerns, it’s the first opportunity for many cyclists to put their bikes away, sign off TrainingPeaks, and reflect on the tumultuous journey they took to get here.
Like many top-tier athletes, pro cyclists are often put on pedestals, with expectations to achieve a level of excellence rarely expected for the rest of us.
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“I feel super lucky to have racing be my job, but it’s an odd experience,” Sarah Sturm, a pro rider for Specialized, told Bicycling. “You want to do well at every race and also be friendly, grateful, and a perfect person. It’s an unsustainable standard. This season I admitted that being an athlete sometimes sucks. Saying that out loud was the first step.”
At best, the constant pressure creates stress and anxiety, and at worst, mental health struggles that explode when the spotlight is off. Fortunately, athletes in other sports have started speaking out on the issue, from tennis stars to Olympic gymnasts to the best track and field runners in the world. Depression and anxiety aren’t new, but few cyclists have joined the public conversation about it.
“I’m a human being—I’m on the anxious rollercoaster like everyone else, maybe more so,” Sturm said. “Getting paid to race adds pressure to always be both winning and enjoying it.”
Despite her most successful season yet, Sturm says she frequently wanted to walk away—and she’s not alone.
Why are mental health struggles so common in cycling?
Thirty-four percent of elite athletes have depression or anxiety, according to a recent meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. As Sturm points out, athletes—especially pros—are taught to push through pain. This can make it hard to process grief, anxiety, or depression.
“I’ve had to do a lot of work to rewire my brain and think about it differently,” she said.
Serena Gordon, a Liv Cycling Collective pro, agrees—and, due to the negative stigma around talking about mental health, it’s all too easy to repress these types of feelings. But last fall, it all boiled over, and she found a therapist to talk to. She believes that if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have raced this season.
“I put a lot of energy into supporting other people, which is a great outlet for ignoring my own issues,” she told Bicycling. “We take care of our bodies, so why don’t we take care of our minds?”
The pressures of racing, the chaos of travel, and emphasis on winning are near ubiquitous, making it hard to prioritize mental health for many riders.
“During the season, it’s easy to get on the hamster wheel of getting on a plane, doing a race, flying home, packing and unpacking. It’s easy to ignore yourself,” Gordon said. “We need to stop looking at racing in a silo and understand that to be successful and happy, we need to prioritize mental health.”
The challenge, Kaitie Keough, a Cannondale cyclocross pro, believes, is that it’s nearly impossible to relate to someone with depression if you haven’t experienced it yourself.
“People will just think, ‘What do you have to be sad about? You’re living this beautiful life,’” she told Bicycling. “What they don’t realize is that if someone is off-balance, they don’t have full control of how they’re feeling. I can do my best to manage it, but I can’t control how I feel when I wake up.”
Keough works regularly with a psychiatrist and sports psychologist.
“Both have come to the conclusion that I’m clinically depressed. Not all the time, but in episodes,” Keough said. “I’m always dealing with it. I’ve come to accept that it’s always going to be in my life.”
Below, other pros share what it’s like to deal with stress, anxiety, and depression while competing at the highest level—and how they cope.
They identify—and address—their triggers
The environment at races is a huge trigger for Keough, who says catching and addressing her early triggers is crucial. She said her mental health manifests in many forms, from anxiety to panic attacks, loss of sleep and appetite, mood swings, and episodes of depression.
When Keough feels out of control and her anxiety takes over, she often starts biting holes in the sides of her mouth. If this anxiety is allowed to grow, things escalate quickly. Keough has had four episodes so bad that she struggled to get out of bed. Sturm echoed the same, saying that “every thought will turn into an emergency, and soon it’s a depressive state. At that point I don’t get to the start line, let alone get out of bed.”
Gordon’s experiences with depression have been similar.
“When I was really struggling, walking across the street to the mailbox was hard,” Gordon said. “I would get on the bike, but begrudgingly. The things I loved were really hard. I realized that something wasn’t right. This wasn’t a ‘go walk around the block and feel better’ type of thing. My feet were in quicksand.”
Taylor Lideen, a Pivot endurance pro, says being on a bike used to be medicine, but racing became a trigger.
“I’ve had full mental collapses at the end of races and panic attacks while riding— that was the tipping point,” Lideen told Bicycling. “Biking was my healthy outlet and suddenly wasn’t.”
For Lideen, the anxiety buildup creates a brain fog.
“I convince myself I’m stuck in that fog forever, then depression sets in.”
During his depressive episodes, he loses a lot of weight, can’t drive a vehicle, can’t look at his phone, and doesn’t leave the house. He started to feel suicidal last March out of desperation to not go through another episode.
“At that point, my wife calmly said, ‘Let’s get a handle on this.’”
They focus on the process—and stay patient
For Keough, it’s important for them both to make smaller, more manageable goals, rather than pay attention to larger, overall outcomes.
“One thing I’ve really learned is that it’s important to let go of outcomes and just focus on the process,” Keough said.
Gordon echoes this sentiment.
“A big piece was stepping away from what I think other people expect from me. I’ve always thought I wasn’t enough, not doing or achieving enough. But that’s a false narrative,” Gordon, who tries to focus on process goals instead of outcome goals, said. “Evaluate your success on things that are controllable.”
Christopher Blevins, a U.S. Olympian and Specialized mountain bike pro, also recognized that he needed to reorient himself in the process, rather than the outcome.
“During the 2019 season I was staying in a lot of lonely European hotel rooms, feeling cut off from the root of why I got into the sport. I was going through the motions and realized I had to prioritize my well-being as a bike racer,” he told Bicycling.
Changing patterns often takes years, if not a lifetime.
“It’s like ruts on a cross course—it takes a long time for them to form and a longer time to change them,” Keough said. “I have to consciously make new choices every day to establish these new routines and habits. I have 18 years of living with anxiety to re-chart, so it won’t change overnight. I have to be both persistent and patient with it.”
They talk about what they’re going through
Learning good communication skills takes longer than many expect, but it’s crucial to managing mental health.
“My biggest fear has always been feeling sympathy and scaring people with what’s going on in my head, so I hid the severity of it for decades,” Lideen said. “I was afraid to show my parents—especially my dad—but since I told them in March, they’ve been really understanding and compassionate.”
Sturms says that other athletes, particularly women, have charted a course to follow.
“Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, and Alexi Pappas have shown that mental health is an important part of being the best,” she said. “Athletes are taught this stoic archetype of excellence, but that isn’t true. This career is filled with pressure and anxiety, and being put on a pedestal and not talking only makes it worse.”
And, the more this topic is talked about, the more accepted it will be.
“For too long, we’ve kept it in the shadows and put on a happy face,” Gordon said. “When people you respect are saying that they aren’t always okay, it makes it easier for you to feel comfortable opening up as well. It’s okay to not be okay.”
They have a wide network of support
Blevins says building a support system is really important to him.
“I talk a lot with my sister, parents, coach, and therapist,” he said. “My family and friends are great, but having a dedicated professional to work with is crucial. We often celebrate having a killer mentality, but that leads to repressing your emotions. It’s about being a human first.”
Everybody’s journey is different, but Keough recommends starting by asking for help. If you’re struggling, you shouldn’t be shy to talk to your support network.
“You aren’t alone in the journey, and [you] should continue to rely on others through the process. It’s not a silo. When you show your vulnerabilities, people want to help,” she said.
Sturm suggests that a lot of her success on the bike is connected with the work she’s doing off it.
“You can’t correlate mental health directly to power and VO2 max, but every pro has incredible fitness,” she said. “Unfortunately, not every pro is working on their mental health and prioritizing their own happiness. I truly hope that changes someday.”
If you are struggling with your mental health, it is okay to ask for help.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255
The Trevor Lifeline: 1-866-488-7386
The Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
