Allan Peiper's Full Circle

A Long Walk to Cycling

Allan Peiper’s path to Performance Manager with the BMC Racing Team has been anything but conventional. In fact, his current job title is not really that commonplace amongst the myriad of professional cycling teams that make up the UCI Pro Tour. A role that focuses specifically on each rider’s health, wellness and vitality together with keeping up-to-date with ever evolving technology and advancements in sports science is certainly in its infancy as far as cycling goes. But then Peiper has always been a little different to many of his peers, both as a rider and now in the sphere of team management. 

Take his entry into the ranks of team directorship for instance. Whilst many sporting directors begin their new roles almost immediately after retiring as riders, Peiper spent the greater part of a decade immersed in activities far removed from the sport. With a professional cycling career spanning a decade and finishing in late 1992, it was over a dozen years before his debuting as a director with Team Lotto in the mid-2000s.

“Jim Ochowicz had already spoken to me about working for his team back in the early 1990s,” recounts the amiable Peiper from his Belgian home on a late-August afternoon. “It took me a while to recover from being a cyclist; not so much physically, but more from an emotional sense. Perhaps it was fate intervening that I ended up not working for Motorola back then.”

Similarly, the publishing of his autobiography only materialized many years after his hanging up his wheels. As with team directing, his desire to write a book came down to a matter of timing.

“I had always dreamed of writing a book,” he reveals when asked about his initial motivations for penning his memoirs. “Even though I hated school, I had always enjoyed writing essays and the like. I could write a book report off of the back cover of a set work novel.”

Peiper’s sheer writing ability had for many years been displayed in the pages of the now defunct British publication Winning: Bicycle Racing Illustrated. Each month, he would pen a column about his experiences within the peleton, offering readers an insight into the life and mind set of a pro bike rider. These columns set in motion his desire to write a book upon his retirement, although the type of book he wanted to write differed markedly to that set forth by the various London publishing houses he visited.

“All of the publishers that I spoke to wanted me to write about drugs. But my own vision for this project was completely different. One thing that I had observed throughout my cycling career was that each rider exhibited a sort of ‘chink in their armor’, something that drove them to be a pro bike rider. Let me say that you are certainly not a balanced person if you are a professional cyclist. Every rider seems to have something buried deep within that keeps the fire burning inside of them. It is as if they are running from something. For me it was my difficult childhood that drove me. That was but one aspect of the sport that I wanted to bring across through my writing.”

Published in 2005, A Peiper’s Tale is a book like no other, even as far cycling-related autobiographies go. With the emergence of the various “tell-all” books of recent years, Peiper’s work stands out for the sheer depth and passion it exhibits. Whilst the aforementioned literature is equally interesting and thought provoking, the central theme of those writings is doping. A Peiper’s Tale, on the other hand, covers a far broader spectrum of subjects, offering the reader a unique insider’s view of life in the peleton. In short, it displays much more of a raw and human touch. This could be because Peiper's deeper motivation for writing was wholly pure and for reasons far beyond that of actual profit or notoriety.

“I wanted to delve into the actual psyche of a pro cyclist and display the whole sport from a unique perspective. I wanted the fans to understand that cycling is far more complicated than just a black-and-white view. Of course doping does form part of the subject matter but I wanted to educate the reader from a more holistic sense, to illustrate all of the factors that lead to difficult decisions.

“More importantly though, I wrote the book in order to cleanse my soul” explains Peiper, whose own search for the meaning of life is a recurring theme throughout the text. “Cycling as an outlet or escape from my own childhood was something that I wanted to express through my writing.”

Not that this literary project was all plain-sailing; far from it in fact. Peiper reveals that the process of compiling his memoir was challenging, if not traumatic at times.

“Writing it brought back a lot of difficult memories from the past. I thought about a lot of things that I had written and would read and re-read various passages over and over again. Sometimes I would wake up in the early hours of the morning with a thought and set about re-writing an entire section of the manuscript on that feeling alone, only to change it yet again after more thinking. It was a true cleansing experience that is for sure.”

A Peiper's Tale was published by a minor publishing house with a lower distribution than one might expect for a sporting autobiography. But this does not seem to bother Peiper, who is unsure of the actual number of copies sold.

“I think that it is still available. There was a lot of positive feedback, particularly from many of my peers. That was reward enough. And the fact that it touched so many people. That said, I was a little surprised when newer generation riders like Richie Porte came up to me this year and asked where they could get a copy.”

One interesting aspect of Peiper's life post-cycling has been his travels abroad, often done alone and with a deeper purpose than actual sightseeing. His journeys to Asia and around his homeland of Australia are recounted in depth on the pages of A Peiper’s Tale. Reading these tales gives one the impression that for Peiper, the journey is what is important. That said, perhaps one of his more challenging trips not mentioned in the book is his undertaking of the Pilgrim's Trail in northern Spain. Also known as the Camino, the trail spans some 764km to Santiago de Compostela, along which travelers are accommodated in various dormitories and hostels.

“If I ever had to write another book it would definitely be about the Camino” says Peiper, whose walk across northern Spain would eventually give him the enlightenment that he was in search of. “It was a test of my physical capability; the full route took me 23 days, similar in length to the Tour de France. I would start early every morning, well before anybody else and spend the whole day thinking while I was walking. I had a lot of time to think - there is not much else to do on the Camino besides walking, eating, drinking and sleeping. It was almost a month of just me and my thoughts.

“People walk the Camino for many different reasons and it is important to know exactly why you are doing it. Whilst I was certainly looking for physical challenge similar to Le Tour, I also wanted to find out what my passion in life was, to enlighten myself in a sense. There certainly is a sort of 'magic' out there on the trail.”

Reaching Santiago de Compostela was a pivotal moment for Peiper, providing him with the answer he was looking for during those long days of solitude. He realized that he still loved cycling and wanted to re-enter the sport in some sort of capacity, helping younger people to achieve success on two wheels.

“Cycling is my true vocation, not necessarily in the terms of just being a rider but in other aspects too. The Camino was definitely a catalyst in realizing that and it was less than a year later that I secured my first directing job with Lotto. It was a sort of synchronicity if you like. All that walking and thinking resulted in my knowing where my true place was.”

While those other aspects of cycling that he mentions obviously refer to rider care and management, it is perhaps telling that he has continued to ride his bike regularly since retiring all those years ago. In fact, health and fitness continue to play a crucial role in his daily life, even as far as influencing his ability to perform his true metier.

“I never lost my love for actually going out on the bike. Not in the competitive sense – I tend to stay away from the intense group rides – but that feeling of joy and freedom. I’ll go out for a few hours and stop for coffee along the way. The intensity is what I make it.

“With my becoming a directeur sportif, there was much less time for me to ride so I began to run a lot more. The running is something that I had always done and was far easier to fit in each morning while I was away at races with the team. Over the last few years I’ve refined my perfect dose to around 20-30 minutes early each morning. Most regular runners might laugh at that amount but I found that any longer just caught up to me; I’d be brain dead by 3pm.”

Bearing in mind the workload that being a director entails – especially whilst at races – puts the last statement into proper context. But as Allan explains, his daily fitness regimen means much more than just going through the motions.

“The sensations I get when running straight after getting up are amazing. Running fast straight out of bed gets the alpha waves working like you won’t believe. If you’re only doing 20 minutes a day you can run as hard as you like. I think about the logistics for the day ahead, the tactics and rider communication during that time. The running keeps me grounded and is also very meditative.”

Now into his ninth year of team management, Peiper has observed the changes in cycling with keen interest. More specifically, the experience he has gained whilst working with teams like Lotto, Columbia-HTC and Garmin-Sharp has stood him in good stead to fulfill his current position with the BMC Racing Team. While he most certainly values the actual skills and expertise that he has gleaned since 2005, he is quick to point out that it he is indebted to the various individuals who guided him along the often difficult road that is team management.

“Hendrik Redant was very influential in that first year working at Lotto; I just had look and learn as quickly as I could. He was a great guide during those first couple of years. At Columbia-HTC we had Bob Stapleton, who taught us a lot about constructing a business model and how to apply that model to a cycling team. Jonathan Vaughters is extremely intelligent and I gained a lot from his visionary approach to the sport, his trying to change things for the better and to achieve transparency across the board.”

Having settled into his new role, Peiper is reveling in this multifaceted function. From the hiring of two new chefs to wind tunnel testing and the launch of an in-house sports science facility, he is certainly a busy man. But most important to him is being there for each and every rider, to make them feel at home.

“When I think back to when I was still cycling, we may have received one phone call from the team management over the course of three months. You were pretty much left to your own devices back then. Pro cycling today is much different and I want to be there for all the riders, be they world champion or neo-pro. I want them all to feel that they are being treated as equals.”

*Note: Many thanks to Sean Weide and Allan Peiper for making this interview happen. Header image courtesy of the BMC Racing Team (Continuum Sports, LLC).